Watersheds - The Locals Need Help!

As an area of science policy, water policy within the environment realm is incredibly complicated. Part of the complication in water policy is due to scarcity, the other big factor has to do with how Mother Nature ignores artificial boundaries imposed by us silly humans. Nowhere is it more important to think carefully about these boundary issues than at the watershed level.

Basins and watersheds are inherently more local than the national level. Sadly, paying attention to the needs of our water systems requires looking at geographically specific places. Politically, that will leave these areas open to attacks claiming they are getting preferential treatment. However, that's not what I'm concerned with at this time.

One of the best ways to be a good steward of our water resources is to make sound decisions at the local level. Two things I've been thinking about related to this are the following.

1. Local ordinances and zoning that disallows new construction near water sources.
The name of the game here is protection of the resource. Protection against pollutants, sediment, depletion, and ecosystem disruption or destruction.

2. Buffering watersheds with recreation areas.
If you put a nice green-way around a lake, very simply, means that more people get to enjoy the resource. It also will make it more difficult for the resource to get degraded in other ways.


In both cases, this is difficult to get done. The stakeholders at the local level often lose to the strong local business and development groups. It's very uneven and while in the short-run the economic arguments that developers make can win out, in the long-run the locals lose the resource.

For example, a small lake could either have a green-way built around it for people to go and walk/bike/run, or a developer can be approved for the purchase and development of condos that completely surround the lake and are sold for 400-500k each. The developer goes to a town council and makes his case. He argues that it's good to bring people to the area, that it is good for his business, and he is well connected and contributes to the campaigns of the council members.

On the other hand, only the underfunded local conservation groups would oppose this type of development. The arguments that they must make are hard to hold up at the local level. They'll argue against local businesses and the hope of local development. What the could get more profit from doing is making the argument for option number two above. Demanding the developer back up the development far enough and requiring them to install a green-way could not only add to the value of the work they are doing (and potentially increase their profit margin); but it could go a long way towards protecting the resource in the long-run.


The bottom line is that at the local level we have a great deal of work to do in order to protect our water resources from the shortsightedness of over-development and short-run gains.