Conservation
Water Cycle • Watershed • Protecting the Source

Watersheds and What Can Be Done To Protect Them
What is a watershed? 
A watershed is an area of land from which all the water drains or runs downhill to the same location such as a stream, pond, lake, river, wetland or estuary. Watersheds can be large such as the Mississippi River drainage basin or a small lake such as Lake Galena that serves as North Penn Water Authority’s 1 billion gallon reservoir and the surface source of our drinking water.

Everyone lives in a watershed so it is important to realize everything that is done on the land can impact the water within a watershed. The land use in a watershed affects the type of materials, such as sediment, nutrients and other pollutants that will wash from those areas and potentially have a negative impact on the watershed. Water pollution can occur and affect a watershed.

There are two sources of water pollution: point source and nonpoint source. Point source is pollution that flows from pipes or specific points, such as discharge from an industrial plant, sewage treatment plant, or storm water drain. Nonpoint source pollution is not the result of direct discharge from a specific point or source. Some examples of nonpoint source pollution include runoff from excessive usage of pesticides and fertilizers on residential lawns and gardens, agricultural fields, and golf courses. Soil erosion from construction or logging sites, along with oil, grease and other fluids from vehicles, nutrients from on-site septic systems and litter can be washed into surface waters during large storms.

To learn more about things you can do to protect your Watershed, click here.