Each day, our home waters face challenges from many sources. We’ve identified these primary causes of threats to the health of our watershed:

People removing and developing natural lands.

  • Draining wetlands
  • Removing forests and natural areas
  • Damming and straightening rivers
  • Building and operating Industrial facilities
  • Practicing agriculture
  • Creating impervious surfaces

People causing climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Increasing overall precipitation
  • Higher variability of precipitation (more droughts, more floods)
  • Increasing temperatures
  • Changing seasonality and altered precipitation forms (ice, sleet, rain)

Social inequities and environmental health disparities.

  • Climate change and degraded water quality disproportionately impacts overburdened and underserved communities

More about some of these Causes

Threats

Altered water quantity and variability

Destroyed and degraded habitat

Increased Sediment and Nutrient Load

Synthetic Chemical Contamination

E coli and Pathogen Contamination

Climate Change and degraded water quality

These threats disproportionately burden overburdened and underserved communities. See our climate change page for more.