Take Action

The choices we make everyday affect the streams you see on a Bridging the Watershed field study. Scroll down to see how you can take action everyday to conserve water and protect the Potomac River watershed.

• Turn the water off when brushing teeth, cleaning, or washing dishes
• Pack your lunch in reusable containers like Tupperware® or Gladware®
• Get (and use) a reusable water bottle
• Throw trash in the trash
• Recycle

You can start right where you left off, by solving the issues you learned about on your field study. Click here to access a guide to developing an action project at your school or in your community.

Water Canaries: Assessing Benthic Macroinvertebrates
The number one thing you can do to help critters is to save water. Why? Besides clean water, wildlife in the Potomac also needs enough water in which to live. The less water you use, the less water is pumped out of the Potomac, leaving more for other organisms. Also, since macroinvertebrates are sensitive to pollution, take a look at what you can do to reduce water pollution.

• Take shorter showers.
• Only run the washing machine and dishwasher when they are completely full.
• Turn the water off when brushing teeth, cleaning, or washing dishes
• Water your lawn and other outdoor plants at night. Less water is lost to evaporation by the sun, and plants use water more efficiently if they’re not also dealing with heat.

Find more ways to conserve water.

Watershed Watchdogs: Assessing Water Quality
Concerned about pollutants in the Potomac? Make sure you’re not contributing toxic nastiness yourself.

• Wash your car in a car wash, or if you must wash it at home, pull it onto the lawn. Soap and trace pollutants from the car will be trapped in soil instead of washing into storm drains.
• To keep your car running and prevent pollution, fix any oil, antifreeze, or other leaks.
• Dispose of things like cleaning supplies by flushing them down the drain or toilet.
• Don’t pour chemicals onto the street, lawn, or into a storm drain. It’ll go straight to the streams and cause all kinds of problems.
• Dispose of chemical and hazardous household wastes properly. This means DO NOT dump medicines, cleaning products, or things like paint down drains. Water treatment plants cannot process these properly, and bad stuff can end up in the Potomac.

Don’t Get Sedimental: Runoff and Sediment in the River
Lots of water running into a stream from storm drains is what produces those unstable banks and high sediment loads in streams at our study sites. One way you can help out streams is to reduce the amount of rain water that gets from your yard, house, apartment complex, or townhome into a stream.

• Build a rain barrel and use rain water for watering plants and washing your car. This will slow the addition of rain water to local streams, slowing down erosion and maintaining a healthy stream.
• Plant a tree. Even if you don’t have a stream near you, trees help hold onto soil and water, and this slows down how much storm water gets into streams. For $10 you can get 10 free, native trees from the Arbor Day Foundation or for more cheap or free trees see:
• Stay on the trail (or sidewalk). Whenever you make your own path, you damage vegetation and compact the soil, making it harder for plants to hold the soil and easier for rain water to carry it off as sediment.

Talkin’ Trash: Make a Litter Difference
Reduce, reuse, recycle. Why? The less trash you produce, the less trash ends up in the Potomac and its tributaries. Also, landfills are not really helpful for watersheds. They can add pollutants to ground and stream water, and they also increase impervious surface, which upsets the way water should drain over a landscape.

• Pack your lunch in reusable containers like Tupperware® or Gladware.
• Get (and use) a reusable water bottle
• Buy less; do you really need it?
• Try shopping vintage—hip and green, plus no one else has anything like it.
• Use options like freecycle.org or craigslist.org to find what you need (and save lots of money!), or Salvation Army or Goodwill.
• Before throwing anything out, check to see if it can be recycled.

• Electronics: www.ecyclingcentral.com
• General: This link will allow you to search the recycling programs in your area with a list of what can be recycled and where to take hard to recycle items.
• Start a compost pile. Follow the instructions for what can and cannot be composted.

Alien Invaders: Assessing Exotic Invasive Species
Keep wildlife wild. Both plants and animals can be invasive and huge pests if allowed to escape into the wild.

• Don’t set Nemo free. Do not EVER release a pet into the wild by emptying an aquarium into a body of water, letting your pet snake go, or thinking your hamster would be happier in the woods. This also goes for live fishing bait. Don’t release it.
• Going for a hike? Check your shoes, gear, and clothing for seeds before you leave your hiking area. You can transport seeds just like birds or deer.
• Figure out what invasive plants are in your area, and don’t plant them in your garden. In fact, go ahead and wipe those suckers out.

Do you have questions about getting involved with the Bridging the Watershed Student Action Program? Contact the Student Action Coordinator.