Each of us influences what happens in the watershed, good or bad, by how we treat our natural resources. There are many things you can do to keep our watershed healthy and productive.
- Everyone lives in a watershed. Join group efforts to protect them.
- Keep impervious services on your property to a minimum. This includes roofs, paved driveways, outbuildings, and stone paths. Prevent compaction of the soil. Use permeable services as much as possible.
- Leave native vegetation, including trees, to reduce runoff and help clean the water. Replace invasive plants with NATIVE trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers. Keep lawns at a minimum.
- Make sure water is pollutant free before it leaves your property. Clean up pet waste, pick up trash, keep nuisance oils and other chemicals off pavement, use alternatives to salt as de-icers, check septic systems yearly, and sweep walks and driveways instead of hosing them down. Reduce or eliminate chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.
- Direct down spouts away from foundations to rain barrels, planting beds, lawns, or anywhere water can be stored or safely soaked into the ground.
- Seed or mulch bare soil on your land, and repair or stabilize places where you see soil eroding. Exposed soil that becomes sediment in runoffs is the number one water pollutant in Ohio.
- Reduce flash flooding in streamlets, streams, and river by not using culverts.
- Ask that watershed protection information be put on storm sewer drains and curb cuts in your area.
- Ensure long-term maintenance on detention and retention ponds if you live close to one.
- Talk to your elected officials about the importance of protecting the watershed.
When each of us does our part, we make our home healthy and happy for all life.