-return to Clean Lakes -

What If……?
Steve Tonn, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Educator in Douglas/Sarpy Counties

One important potential cooperating-group within an urban lake watershed is the residential homeowner base that resides in the watershed. Do you know what watershed(s) you are part of and the number of acres involved? If water is leaving your property, where is it going and what is it taking with it? These are important questions that need to be answered as we continue our pursuit of cleaner surface waters. It has been said that we cannot manage land without managing water. Luna Leopold, son of noted conservationist Aldo Leopold, once stated that…..“The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land”.

Our land use has a direct effect upon the water that flows through our watersheds. Some homeowners have taken steps to reduce runoff pollution from leaving their property, which in turn, helps to improve water quality in the metro area lakes and creeks. Many others have not yet recognized the importance of working with their neighbors in helping to make certain that cleaner water leaves their property and the watershed.

Best management practices can be established by every homeowner within a watershed resulting in a profound improvement to water quality. Simple practices such as sweeping fertilizers off sidewalks and driveways and back onto lawns, picking up pet waste, directing downspouts to vegetative areas, mulching plants, using an absorbent material to clean up oil and gas spills on the driveway, blowing grass clippings onto the lawn and not into the street, and no dumping in stormwater drains help to control pollutants from entering metro lakes and creeks and reduce the effects of other environmental problems as well.

We have dramatically changed the landscape over the past one hundred fifty years. The filtering prairie grasses that once provided a natural buffer have been plowed under, forest areas have been cleared and replaced by homes, parking lots, businesses, schools, churches, streets and sidewalks. It should be no surprise that the water quality in the metro area lakes and streams has decreased.

The healing process will not take place over night but it can happen within just a few years. WHAT IF…one homeowner began practicing best management practices within their neighborhood and lake watershed? Then, WHAT IF…that homeowner talked to one or two other neighbors about using best management practices? And, WHAT IF…all homeowners within their homeowners association took it upon themselves to join their lake watershed council and use best management practices to protect and improve their lake? WHAT IF…homeowners within your lake watershed were accountable to one another for water quality? WHAT IF this whole process was started by you?

Source: Adapted from original article by Rod Wilke, NE Watersheds Newsletter Fall 2006 Issue 10