The Bioreserve, Westport River and Rattlesnake Brook

By Everett Castro of Green Futures

The original post can be found in the Westport River Watershed Alliance February 2014 River News issue.

Not all those that wander are lost ...so bear with me.

I often meander about, like our coastal rivers do, when I'm asked to write "a few words" about the remarkable Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. Be warned, I might meander even further afield since I'm going to write a few words not only about our Bioreserve but also about the far reaches of the Westport River watershed, an impaired Rattlesnake Brook and the support and advocacy from your Westport River Watershed Alliance. Ready? Have your trusty compass or GPS with you? Okay, let's go.

If you're not familiar with the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve ...you should be! Our Bioreserve consists of a large, contiguous forest with diverse habitats and natural communities with the largest portion, owned by all of us, managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and Massachusetts Department of Fish and Wildlife. Also included are the Watuppa Watershed lands of the Fall River Water Department as well as land owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations.

The purpose of our Bioreserve is to protect, restore and enhance the biological diversity and ecological integrity of a large scale ecosystem representative of southeastern Massachusetts. Neat, that's right where we live!

The Bioreserve also permanently protects water supplies, such as North Watuppa Pond, Copicut Reservoir and wetlands that drain to coastal rivers. In addition, the Bioreserve protects early cultural resources and allows for interpretive educational programs on natural and human history. In this densely populated southeastern corner of the state, the Bioreserve also provides opportunities for passive outdoor recreation and enjoyment of our natural environment.

Within the Bioreserve is the second highest natural hill in Bristol County. Let's meander over there.  Copicut Hill is 354 feet high with a DCR forest fire lookout tower at its summit. For those who may now be wondering about the highest hill in Bristol County, it is Sunrise Hill, 389 feet, in North Attleborough ...but we won't acknowledge that slight height advantage over Copicut since Sunrise Hill is about as far away as a hill can get and still be in Bristol County.

Copicut Hill's topography and the descending height and subtle shape of its ridges creates a dividing line between what flows west and north to the Taunton River and south and east to the Westport River via the Copicut and Shingle Island Rivers and Bread and Cheese Brook. The East Branch is born in sphagnum bogs, cedar swamps and hillside springs deep in the woods.

Wandering back 22 years there wasn't a Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve ...just some city watershed land, some state land, and a large block of privately owned wooded property. Back then rapacious developers and scurrilous schemers coveted those open space parcels for dubious development projects large and small. Some of the proposed projects were truly scary, others laughable. Here's a partial list of some of the more memorable: giant coal gasification refinery with 24/7 coal deliveries via a new rail line across public land into the forest; industrial warehouse park; race horse breeding farm, low-level nuclear waste repository; "Chinese" theme park; mega landfill; adult entertainment zone.

Egregious erosion and brook filled with rocks and gravel

In desperation at the frequency of these proposals and the folly of destroying water supplies, wetlands and forest a few concerned folks from Fall River and Freetown joined together and formed Green Futures, www.greenfutures.org. One of our members dubbed the area the Copicut Greenbelt and we set forth searching for allies. Aware of an early WRWA poster that showed the Westport River watershed extending all the way to the "Copicut Greenbelt" we sought our first ally and immediately found one in WRWA's young and energetic executive director, Gay Gillespie.

Since the beginning of the struggle to drive away those temple destroyers and devotees of ravaging commercialism...notice that nod to John Muir? ...WRWA was there at the start. Over time other environmental groups, individuals, state environmental agencies and local legislators came on board and ...with many starts and stops ...helped turn the Copicut Greenbelt into the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. Okay, are you still wandering with me... or have you been distracted by something vastly less important? If still with me, it is now 2014 and we have a problem that diminishes, hampers, the full potential of the Bioreserve.

We have wandered north, over the Bioreserve watershed divide to Rattlesnake Brook. Rattlesnake Brook begins at swamps, bogs and springs on the northwest side of Copicut Hill and flows north dumping into the Assonet River at Payne's Cove, just west of Route 24 in Freetown. Two miles downstream, from the confluence of the now tidal Rattlesnake Brook and Assonet River, the Assonet meets the federally designated Wild and Scenic Taunton River.

Person standing where bluff has been worn away from illegal OHV activity

  

Rattlesnake Brook is a lovely brook, similar to West Branch, Westport River's Angeline Brook both in size and character. Historically Rattlesnake Brook hosted anadromous alewife, blueback herring, rainbow smelt and salter brook trout. Unlike Angeline Brook, Rattlesnake Brook has an old, remnant dam at tidewater that prevented fish, except for American eels, from freely moving up and down and in and out the brook. The dam is slated to be removed in the near future and this will hopefully help restore extirpated anadromous species and add to the biodiversity of the Bioreserve.

Unfortunately, the Rattlesnake Brook valley, just upstream of the old dam, has been the site of illegal off-highway vehicle (OHV) activity. This section of the Bioreserve is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). They have failed to monitor OHV activity and there has been scant enforcement of OHV rules, regulations and laws. The damage is egregious.

Not a high profile DCR managed property ...think Horseneck Beach State Reservation, with thousands of patrons and the political interest that brings ...DCR is loath to secure that area of the Bioreserve and restore the brook and land. They need a little nudge.

Big erosion rut and trees that have fallen

Looking for support from those that early on understood the importance of the Bioreserve and its mission we brought this issue to WRWA. Just as in the beginning, support was received. We are also reaching out for support to other regional and statewide groups and organizations. We appreciate the continued support WRWA has provided the Bioreserve. After all, only a slight geological adjustment, back 10,000 or more years ago, might have put the Rattlesnake Brook watershed on the Westport River side of the watershed divide. Yes, we are all in this together.

Hopefully, someday, a protected greenway that we can wander through or meander about on will extend down from the Bioreserve following the Westport River from source to sea. Wouldn't that be wonderful!

Want to wander the Bioreserve?

There's a very comprehensive map of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve that is available and best of all, free! If you don't have one you can get one at:

·  The Town Farm, 830 Drift Road, Westport

·  Watuppa Reservation Headquarters, 2929 Blossom Road, Fall River

·  Fall River Water Department, 3^rd Floor, Government Center, Fall River

·  Freetown State Forest Headquarters, Slab Bridge Road, Freetown

To read more about Rattlesnake Brook, please visit the Green Futures newsletter archive on their website, and select the October 2013 and February 2014 newsletters.

"Going with the Flow": Improving Watershed Resiliency

From the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast, originally posted on the USFWS Northeast blog on February 6, 2014.

The humble road culvert is the centerpiece of a region-wide effort to help fish and wildlife and protect communities in the Northeast.

The critical role of culverts — essentially big pipes or concrete boxes carrying streams beneath roads—was demonstrated dramatically in a series of powerful storms hitting the Northeast in recent years. In 2011, intense and sustained rain from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee washed out roads throughout mountains of New York and New England as culverts running under those roads were not designed to handle such enormous volumes of water.  Flooding from Hurricane Sandy, which lashed the Northeast coast and adjacent inland areas in October 2012, caused additional damage.

Fish-friendly culverts also can help reduce the likelihood
of damage to road stream crossings from future floods.

The widespread effects of these storms – which scientists say will become a more frequent calling card of climate change – underscore the need for science that can help local, state, and federal partners throughout the region prioritize and increase the resiliency of roads to floods.

To meet this need, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working through the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative to coordinate and support a collaborative, region-wide effort to restore fish passage while reducing the likelihood of damage to  road stream crossings from future floods. The project is supported by $1.27 million in Hurricane Sandy mitigation funds from the Department of the Interior.

Improving the resiliency of roads has multiple benefits beyond protecting human health, safety, and property. Upgrading, repairing or replacing culverts can also increase connectivity and movement of fish and wildlife. This addresses a critical problem because aquatic systems in the Northeast are extremely fragmented by undersized or damaged road culverts that restrict passage for fish, other aquatic organisms and wildlife. Beyond their in-stream benefits, fish-friendly culverts also help sustain nearby wetlands and floodplains while they nourish coastal beaches with sediment. It’s a bang-for-the-buck conservation investment that can pay big dividends for wildlife and people.

The culvert project underscores a key role of the North Atlantic LCC in bringing the Northeast conservation community together to address priority science needs and inform conservation decisions in the face of change and uncertainty. The project will compile information on locations and condition assessments of road stream crossings based on existing data and models; support additional surveys of road stream crossings; predict future storm discharge levels; and assess risk and prioritize crossing improvements.  The resulting regionally-consistent data on stream crossing locations and future flood conditions will help towns, states and communities manage future intense storms and improve conditions for aquatic organisms.  The USFWS Fisheries Program will help facilitate the effort with the LCC guided by partners and users from the conservation, transportation, and state and municipal planning sectors.

The project will take place over three years in coastal watersheds in New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia. Partners include USFWS, the Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited and the U.S. Forest Service. In addition to the DOI funding, North Atlantic LCC partners are contributing $150,000 in matching funds to expand the project to include additional Northeast states.

Click here to view additional details on the project and participating partners.

To read the original post, click here.

Mattapan Square trail house expected to be completed by spring

 by Patrick Rosso, Boston.com Staff . Originally posted at Boston.com on January 9, 2014 

The conversion of a former mattress store in Mattapan Square into a Department of Conservation and Recreation trail house is progressing and should be completed by the spring.

The property, adjacent to the Mattapan Square MBTA station on the Mattapan/Milton line of RT. 28, will be the neighborhood’s gateway to the planned and partially completed Neponset River Greenway, which stretches along the Neponset River from Dorchester to Hyde Park.

The project will create an “interim plaza” at the site, which will eventually be converted into a space that could potentially house an information kiosk, public meeting space, or commercial element.

On Wednesday, Cathy Garnett, a project manager for DCR, explained to the Neponset River Greenway Council that the project is moving forward, but still needs some finishing touches.

The mural that will wrap around the building still needs to be installed, along with a cap for the building’s chimney, new benches, and new trees.

“Right now the exterior of the building is stabilized and the plaza is done,” said Garnett. “The next step will be to have those conversations about what it can be used for.”

Although the project will revamp the building’s exterior, little has been done to the interior of the building.

“The interior has the potential to be used for anything, but it’s gutted right now,” added Garnett.

Garnett said she expects a public meeting will be held sometime after the project has been completed to gather input from residents about what they would like to see at the space.

DCR bought the property for an estimated $400,000 in November of 2010.

(Image courtesy DCR)

—

Email Patrick D. Rosso, patrick.d.rosso@gmail.com. Follow him @PDRosso, or friend him on Facebook.

Thank you to the Neponset River Watershed Association for sharing it on their NepRWA blog.

You can find the original post here.

Did You Know? Rainbow Smelt Restoration is Underway

by Dorie Stolley, Coordinator and Outreach Manager for Watershed Action Alliance of Southeastern Massachusetts

Rainbow smelt are similar in lifestyle to the mighty alewife and blueback herring. These diminutive forage fish are anadromous - they hatch in freshwater, travel to the ocean to grow to adulthood, then, return annually to their natal waters to reproduce. Once they were widely celebrated throughout coastal Massachusetts in late winter for their savory flavor as hordes were caught, coated in flour, fried and eaten with gusto. Now, only a few tenacious fishermen and their families experience this delight. Overfishing, pollution and dams are a few of the factors to blame for the decline of this once regionally important fish.

Two centuries ago rainbow smelt spawned in rivers as far south as the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia; now their southernmost spawning area is in Buzzard’s Bay in southeastern Massachusetts. Rainbow smelt numbers have been dropping since the 1800’s when people caught them in nets by the thousands during the late winter spawning runs. Harvesting large numbers of fish before they were allowed to reproduce in this manner was blamed for a noticeable decrease in smelt numbers, and in 1868 the Massachusetts State legislature banned the taking of smelt by net during the spawning run. By 1874, all methods of fishing except hook and line were forbidden year-round in all but a few rivers. While some local smelt fisheries reported a rebound, statewide the decline continued right up until 2004 when the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared them a federal Species of Concern. Now, work is underway to better understand the reasons for the decline and to restore their numbers across Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

To restore smelt, their basic spawning needs must be met; these can be summed up in a few words: clean, flowing water. To a rainbow smelt, clean water means very low levels of dissolved contaminants, nutrients and sediment, all of which can kill vulnerable eggs. Flowing water means enough water to swim in, as well as the absence of obstacles, like dams or improperly positioned culverts, which can impede movement upstream to prime spawning areas of fairly fast-flowing, highly oxygenated water.  

When we work to benefit rainbow smelt, we increase the health of a river delivering a myriad of benefits to other wildlife, to humans and to the watershed as a whole. For instance, removing derelict dams allows smelt, river herring and other migratory fish to move along the river, and also can decrease the risk of catastrophic flooding, liability to the dam owner, and mosquito breeding habitat and increase human recreational opportunities. In another example, filtering polluted rainwater runoff from roads before it gets to our streams will increase water quality for all living creatures that live in it or drink it, including people.

The State of Massachusetts is working with New Hampshire and Maine to develop a regional plan to conserve and restore smelt. We can also do our part for smelt, herring and other wildlife that depend on our region’s rivers. Most measures are relatively easy such as leaving streamside vegetation in place or planting streamside trees and shrubs. Other measures provide both cost savings and habitat benefits, such as using minimal fertilizer on lawns and gardens. Asking your town to reduce its use of road salt and sand near streams and supporting the purchase of conservation lands that include spawning streams provide additional benefits.

To make an even bigger difference and add your voice to that of your neighbors, join your local watershed association. These groups are working together to improve water quality, human and ecosystem health, and recreational opportunities.  Find your watershed organization by visiting watershedaction.org.

School of rainbow smelt

Images and information from:

Informative website - http://restorerainbowsmelt.com

Brochure on rainbow smelt http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/species/rainbow_smelt_brochure_08102010.pdf 

Rainbow Smelt Conservation Plan for the Gulf of Maine http://restorerainbowsmelt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Smelt-Conservation-Plan-final.pdf       

How the Greenhouse Effect Contributes to Winter Woes

By Jonathan Byrne

Reblogged from Cape Cod Bay Watch’s blog. Posted there by Karen Vale on January 13, 2014

Jonathan Byrne writes about the greenhouse effect, a complex natural process that plays a major part in shaping the earth’s climate and ultimately our daily lives. Jonathan is an earth and space sciences teacher at Weymouth High School, and a professional member of the American Meteorological Society. Climate change is one of his passionate interests (see his most recent publication here). 

I recently spent the better part of a December weeknight dislodging my vehicle from a hostile snow bank on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. My plastic shovel was no match for the glacier beneath my wheels.  Aside from personifying a Don Quixote style quest, I muttered about media outlets and their naive spin about northeast snow storms “Looks like the coast is going to escape the brunt of the storm as the snow is expected to change to rain and cut down on the accumulation”!  Oh sure! Let’s break out the ol’ party favors and celebrate! Then we can all go out and shovel this virtual “ reduced accumulation” of cement before it solidifies and entombs our set of wheels until the spring thaw!  Then afterward we get to whip up a mean cup of hot chocolate and make an emergency appointment with our chiropractor!

As I tirelessly shoveled away my ice weary murmur shifted to the Industrial Revolution and greenhouse gases.  (Say what?)  That’s right! And I don’t mean the “greenhouse” where you might buy Auntie Mabel a cactus for her eightieth birthday. I’m talking about the enhanced greenhouse effect resulting from an atmosphere thickened by the burning of fossil fuels; the liquefied remains of our distant ancestors from Carboniferous period three hundred million of years ago.

So what does all this mumbo jumbo have to do with chipping away at a snow bank on snowy December night in Boston’s Back Bay? I though you’d never ask!

Pull up a chair and follow this chain of cause and effect if you will:  Greenhouse gases have warmed the mean terrestrial surface temperature by approximately 0.8 deg Celsius since the turn of the twentieth century, which has also warmed sea surface temperatures by approximately one degree Fahrenheit (natural cycles such as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation aside). Now when an old fashioned winter nor’easter comes roaring up the coast, and the winds shifts into the northeast across the relatively warm seas surface waters, the “boundary layer” (lowest several hundred meters of the atmosphere is warmed increasing the probability of a mixed precipitation event i.e. frozen mixed with liquid precipitation especially along the coastal plain.  (One can only ponder, perhaps even shudder over how the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant contributes to the warming of Cape Cod Bay through the channeling of billions of gallons of heated water i.e. over 32 degrees above the ambient temperatures filling 3,000 acres of Cape Cod Bay!).

However winter weather woes do not end there. The increased sea surface temperatures also contribute to the intensity of the precipitation through greater instability and evaporation; and also the magnitude of the storm system itself through steepening the temperature difference (or temperature gradient) between the cold sector to the west of the storm track and the warmer marine air to the east.

This in turn, strengthens yet another precipitation producing mechanism called the coastal front, or the convergence boundary between the warmer marine air and the colder air over the interior. This phenomenon typically gives folks living along and west of the route 495 belt bragging rights (or the cursing rights, depending on one’s perspective!) for the heaviest snow accumulations.

Nonetheless another daunting thought crosses my shivering mind as I do my best Ucorn Cornelius impression with my makeshift ice pick:  The downy flakes descending over my shoulders are also the product of a re- expanding polar ice cap.

You heard that right! A touch of the ironic enhances the mystery of the world I say.  We have approximately 53,400 square miles more ice covering Santa’s real estate (i.e. the Arctic) as compared to 2012. In fact according to the IPCC the rate of warming since 1998 has slowed to half the value as compared to the period beginning on 1951 up until 1998. Once again the ocean system is at least partially the culprit. As the Atlantic continues to linger in warm phase, the Pacific is cooling!  The bottom line is climate change is indeed just a little more complicated than spewing a few greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and making the terrestrial environment warm and toasty.

Stay tuned for future blogs from Jonathan.

The original post can be found at http://www.capecodbaywatch.org/2014/01/how-the-greenhouse-effect-contributes-to-winter-woes/.

Visit Cape Cod Bay Watch’s Facebook and Twitter pages for more. 

The United (Watershed) States of America!

Today’s Guest Blogger is John Lavey, from Community Builders.

Reblogged from Community Builders’ The Plat Room blog.

THE UNITED (WATERSHED) STATES OF AMERICA

Posted on September 26, 2013 | Author(s): John Lavey →

In a departure from perhaps a more typical blog post here on Community Builders, today I throw on the lenses of historical revisionism to ask a big “what if”. Here goes.

The story begins with John Wesley Powell, the great one-armed adventurer and geologist. He was made famous for his successful runs through the Colorado River in 1869 and 1872. But perhaps his most important legacy rests in a lesser-known deed: Proposing in 1879 that as the Western states were brought into the union they be formed around watersheds, rather than arbitrary political boundaries. This idea rested on the observation that because of an arid climate, a statewide organization decided by any other factor would lead to water conflict down the road. Powerful forces, most prominently the rail companies, were proposing that state’s boundaries be aligned in ways best believed to facilitate agriculture, and thus best be enabled to capitalize off the lands given to them by the Federal Government. But the West, Powell observed, was too dry and its soils too poor to support agriculture at a scale common in the East.

Powell set out to produce a map, shown below, depicting what these “watershed states” might look like. (Take a look at any map of the union today, and you’ll know how successful Powell was). The rail lobby, buoyed by Charles Dan Wilbur and his theory that “rain follows the plough”, successfully swayed congressional opinion to accept state’s boundaries in their contemporary form.

John Wesley Powell’s proposed map of the Western United States, with boundaries according to watersheds.

It’s easy to look at Powell’s 134-year-old idea and see amazing prescience. The potential for water conflict in an arid climate was too important an issue to ignore. As Western irrigators opened up more land for agriculture and development, and as cities and towns grew in population, conflicts over water have indeed become more pronounced. In arid places like the Colorado River basin, where multinational agreements and accords with desert towns require minimum flows be served on a yearly basis, the potential for conflict keeps rising.

Which gets me to my “what if”: What if the Western states were formed around watershed as Powell envisioned? What would that look like and could we speculate on what that might mean for the functioning of modern communities? And since we’re going down that road, let’s ask another what if: What if all of the American states were based around principal watershed, from coast to coast – something even Powell didn’t consider.

Armed with an elementary understanding of GIS and various shapefiles, I set out to create such a map. Some notes on the map itself: It doesn’t look like Powell’s, exactly. Since I decided to take a look at the whole of a country rather than just the arid parts, which includes U.S. possessions on the east coast, boundaries will differ. On top of that, I had access to data that Powell did not; namely Hydrologic Unit Code – HUC –  shapefiles, which depict watersheds from their largest catchment down to very small, creek-level, areas. My priorities for creating this map were to: end up with 50 states; keep larger watersheds intact; try to locate watershed states in roughly the same geography as present-day states; maintain national borders; and try to keep state capitals in each state. Here’s what I came up with:

Watershed states map of the United States of America (updated version). (If you want finer grain detail, which this map includes, click on the image to visit our flickr page) OR go to the new version I posted in Google Earth.

Sure looks different. Besides the obvious changes in land mass and state populations, what else might be transformed if the states were composed this way? Donald Worster, author of the must read “Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s” and Powell biographer, noted in a 2003 interview on NPR that “We would not have, if Powell’s ideas had carried through, any of our huge federal water projects. And we certainly would not have had anything like the massive urban growth that’s taken place in the West.” This is because Powell wanted to organize new Western communities based on the system used by Mormon settlers in Utah, who effectively used irrigation to divert mountain streams, lakes and rivers to their fields. If new Western communities were organized around water and watersheds and used this form of irrigation agriculture, Powell believed, it would force people to use water efficiently, lest overuse or pollution compromise the source. Powell also believed that such an organization would enable communities to be better prepared to stave off attempts by others to seize their water.

“Any city — Los Angeles, for example — would have had to deal with these local watershed groups and meet their terms,” Worster said. “For Powell, the water would not be taken out of the watershed or out of the basin and transferred across mountains … hundreds of miles away to allow urban growth to take place. So L.A., if it existed at all, would have been a much, much smaller entity. Salt Lake City would be smaller. Phoenix would probably not even exist.”

Maybe. Outside the community organizing aspects of Powell’s vision, I think there are some effects we’d see as a nation if only the state delineation idea had survived:

·         Transportation networks could be made more efficient in some places. Low spots in watersheds tend to form the backbone of our transportation systems – roads tend to follow rivers, not ridges. In their present day configuration, state transportation departments sometimes have to maintain roads that they access through adjoining states, or form maintenance agreements with other states to maintain their roads for them. Alta, Wyoming is a good example of this: Its in the Western Teton foothills in Wyoming, but its primary access is via “Ski Hill Road” heading east out of Driggs, Idaho. Locals refer to this situation as “Alta, Wydaho” because it is landlocked from the rest of Wyoming. In the watershed states, that situation no longer exists.

·         The Electoral College would be completely changed. States losing and gaining house members would shift the balance of political power substantially.

·         Land and wildlife management could be streamlined. Because many of these watersheds encompass unique ecosystems, climates and geographies, a watershed states approach could result in more efficient state land management departments better equipped to deal with their particular regional needs.

·         If states were organized around watershed and the idea that water should be used efficiently, then that conservation ethic could also have taken root in the way places were built. Recognizing that it is both fiscally unwise and squandering of agricultural/open space, towns may have grown up with a more compact, mixed use form because of their performance relative to those two benchmarks.

These are a few ideas I have. What do you think?

Had Powell’s vision for the Western states been realized, its tough to say whether the water conflicts this growing nation stands to face would be ameliorated. Human nature is to grow, expand and thrive. We are an inventive and exploratory species, able to create new technologies, new systems and solutions, and become ever more efficient along the way. So much so that it just seems unlikely that population growth and water conflict could be avoided the way Powell envisioned. So while modern day Phoenix would “probably not even exist”, as Worster says, I’d wager that a different version of it would have grown elsewhere.

Moreover, at this stage in our national historic narrative, we are in no position to adjust state boundaries this radically – and while it’s intriguing to write about, it’s not an idea I’m boosting. But perhaps there is the chance that if John Wesley Powell had had his way, communities would have grown up with a different water ethic, one that considered longer term into the future than the next cycle of the plow.

[*11/07/13 UPDATE: I'm working on a series of products that explore this concept further. My first step was to embed the states in Google Earth. You can check that out HERE]

[*11/21/13 UPDATE: I've received a number of requests from a number of different organizations and individuals asking that I perform a similar analysis at multiple scales: What would Europe look like under a 'watershed states" approach? Asia? What about American Counties?  What do we know about the value - we're talking dollars here - of American watersheds?

These ideas are great, and one's I'm very interested in pursuing (contingent the funding to do so).

But there is one idea that I can respond to right now, which is "What would these 'states' look like without adhering to national borders?" In other words, what if I removed one of my "filters" - maintain national borders? This is something I've already done, as a relic of the creation of the original map. So how would THAT look? (hi-res version on our Flickr account, HERE)

The original post can be found at http://communitybuilders.net/the-united-watershed-states-of-america/.