Caring for Your Land, Helping Your Community and Protecting Clean Water
Caring for our lands and waters can start right at home! Try these tips for a more river-friendly home and yard. Want to go further? Connect with your neighbors and take action in your community. Here are some ideas of where to start.
Water-Friendly Actions for Homeowners
- Decrease or stop using fertilizers and pesticides
- Vegetate bare areas
- Direct downspouts onto porous surfaces
- Use biodegradable, phosphorous free soaps, detergents and cleaning products
- Compost pet waste
- Recycle motor oil
- Repair vehicle leaks
- Maintain septic systems
- Take unused medications to special collection events
Working Together for Clean Water
- Know our farmers. Manure and soil mismanagement on farms results in water pollution. Consumers can choose to buy from farms that employ best management practices.
- Keep run-off from entering storm drains. Roads, lawns and adjacent surfaces collect pollution which can enter waterways through storm drains during rain events. Properly designed buffer strips and settling ponds can reduce storm runoff.
- Protect shorelines. Natural buffers of native plants reduce pollution. Trees and shrubs intercept raindrops, stabilizing soil. Low growing plants, roots and dead leaves on the forest floor help to filter pollutants, keeping them from entering waterways.
- Develop Thoughtfully. Roofs, roads, and parking areas are generally impervious surfaces which results in decreasing ground water infiltration and increasing water-borne pollution. Thoughtful development that maintains porous surfaces can protect natural resources.
Additional Ideas for Community Actions for Healthy Waterways
- Retain the natural landscape
- Encourage natural vegetated and/or wooded buffers downhill of developed areas
- Reduce impervious surfaces
- Emphasize on-site drainage of stormwater
- Require stormwater management plans
- Require proper septic system placement, design, and maintenance
- Ensure maintenance of roads, lots, catch basins, and BMPs (Best Management Practices)
- Sponsor special household hazardous waste collection events