Elin Miller is the Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
By ELIN MILLER
As part of your Earth Day celebration this year, please consider marking our planet's special day by becoming an active partner in protecting and restoring your local watershed.
What's a watershed? A watershed is an area of land that drains to a common body of water such as a stream, river, lake or ocean. Watersheds can be small, draining just a few acres, or they can be vast, covering thousands of square miles. Wherever we live, we live in a watershed, and we have an impact on its health.
Whether you live in Bellevue, Hailey or Ketchum, or elsewhere in or near Blaine County, you and your neighbors rely on the Big Wood or Little Wood River watersheds. Together with their tributaries, these important watersheds provide fresh water for people and fish, a home for birds and other wildlife, and areas for people to play, relax or just enjoy nature. The watersheds' contribution to agriculture and the local economy is beyond measurement.
Today, local volunteer groups form the national backbone of watershed protection. By last count, more than 4,000 such organizations across America serve in a powerful coalition for our watersheds. Watersheds need people—people like you—to learn about how they work, what keeps them healthy and how communities can band together to help them when they are threatened or damaged.
We're all familiar with how even small steps can make a big difference in areas like water conservation and energy efficiency, but sometimes it's hard to know where to start when it comes to watershed protection. Here are three ways you can get active in your watershed and celebrate Earth Day every day:
· Join a local watershed group: Find a local conservation group organization like the Wood River Land Trust (www.woodriverlandtrust.org) and ask how you can help. Join forces to conduct a cleanup, restore stream banks, stencil storm drains or encourage low-impact development in your community. To learn about more groups in your area, visit: http://yosemite.epa.gov/water/volmon.nsf/Home?OpenForm.
· Adopt Your Watershed: Accept EPA's challenge to join us and others working to protect and restore our valuable streams, rivers, wetlands, lakes, groundwater and estuaries. To learn how to adopt your watershed, visit: http://www.epa.gov/adopt/
· Reduce Toxic Runoff at Home: Expand your garden and minimize paving; clean up pet waste; reduce or eliminate your outdoor use of fertilizers, pesticides and lawn chemicals; walk and bike more instead of driving or use a commercial car wash and stop all vehicle drips and leaks from staining our driveways and entering our storm drains. To learn about more things you can do, visit: http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/whatudo.html.
Join us in celebrating this Earth Day by making watershed protection a part of your daily life. It's fun and easy, and by getting active in your community you'll not only get to know your neighbors better, you'll get connected to your watershed in a way you never dreamed possible.
This Earth Day, get your gloves dirty for a good cause—one in your own backyard.
