It’s that time of year again! Your lawn is soon to be blanketed with a bed of fallen leaves. Before you rake them up, have you ever considered leaving the leaves? There are actually many reasons to leave them be. Here’s just a few!

You may want to leave the leaves on your lawn because many animals rely on leaf cover to provide habitat during the fall and winter months. Think of the leaves as a nice warm home for lots of important insects and invertebrates. Even butterflies and moths winter in ground cover. Maybe you don’t love bugs, but many beautiful birds rely on those very creepy-crawly critters for food. When we remove the leaf cover, birds lose that food source – we’ve basically gotten rid of their grocery store.

Also, leaves are pretty much free mulch! They provide nutrients for your lawn, and some ground cover that can suppress weeds. If you don’t want to leave the leaves all over your lawn, you can rake them to a specific spot to use like mulch, or behind your house where they’re less visible, but still providing important ecosystem support.

Finally, did you know that yard waste, including fallen leaves, can also be a stormwater pollutant? If your local government policy is to rake loose leaves along the curb and it rains before someone comes to pick up them up, they can get washed into the nearby storm drains. This can clog storm drain systems and lead to flooding events which can also cause erosion. If the leaves make it out to local streams, the influx of decaying organic material can contribute to a spike in nutrients in the waterway. Though this may seem beneficial, it can throw the delicate ecosystem balance out of whack, contributing to algae blooms that can harm small aquatic organisms.

This year, try leaving the leaves*! For ourselves, birds, bugs, and the chance to see the beauty of nature’s ability to renew and recycle.

*If you live in an area with policies that require you to rake your leaves, look up your local government’s yard waste preference of how to bag/bin/collect these leaves for pickup, and try to keep them out of the storm drain!

For more reasons to leave the leaves, check out the New Hope Audubon Society or the National Wildlife Federation!

Streets to Creeks Stormwater Art Competition

August 4, 2020August 4, 2020Leave a comment

When? August 5-September 5th, 2020

Who? Open to all ages!

To celebrate National Water Quality Month, the Clean Water Education Partnership invites you to create an art piece that shows how you interact with your watershed. A watershed is an area of land that all drains to the same creek, stream, or river. Everyone lives in a watershed!

Your art piece must somehow incorporate the name of the watershed you live in. Type your address into this interactive map to find your watershed .

Or, you can discover your river basin (a larger-scale watershed) by looking at this interactive map.

Get inspired by a few of these ideas:

Use non-toxic sidewalk chalk to draw a watershed message to others in your neighborhood
Create a poster with cool facts and photos from your watershed that you can share with others
Draw or take a picture of one of your favorite plants or animals in your watershed
Make a sculpture out of litter you find in your watershed

A stormwater art installation that doubles as a rainwater harvester (Binford Green Schools Initiative, Chesepeake Bay)

“Protect our Watersheds” art competition submission (Pennsylvania American Water)

Your art piece can be in any medium you choose as long as you can take a photo of it.

Winners will have a photo of their art piece featured as the homepage header on the CWEP website and receive a CWEP Swag Bag with fun giveaways in the mail. Art will also be used by CWEP to create a set of greeting cards for our fall BioThon competition. 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place winners will be chosen weekly.

This competition is open to all ages. Children under 13 must have an adult submit their art piece.

Art can be submitted through this google form. If you have any questions please contact Hannah Barg, the CWEP Education and Outreach Coordinator at hbarg@tjcog.org.

CWEP BioThon and Tips for new iNaturalist users

May 18, 2020June 15, 2020Leave a comment

CWEP is hosting an iNaturalist Spring BioThon for all partner communities from May 19-June 19, 2020. Join us in exploring our local watersheds! If you live in a CWEP community, your iNaturalist observations will automatically populate in the BioThon project, but you can also join the project by following the link above and clicking the “join” option in the top right corner, shown below:

Follow CWEP on social media (twitter and instagram: CWEP_nc; facebook: NC Clean Water Education Partnership) for leader board updates and a chance to win a handmade prize.

Have you ever heard of the iNaturalist app? iNaturalist is a crowdsourced species identification system and social media platform designed to showcase local flora and fauna observations. Users collect photo and audio observations that upload onto an online database where other users can help with identification. iNaturalist is a helpful tool to get to know the plants and animals that live in your watershed, and view observations by others.

Just created an iNaturalist account and downloaded the app? Click here to learn how to create a post using an iPhone, Android, or computer.

Tips for New iNaturalist Users

iNaturalist most easily integrates with a smartphone, but photographs taken on a camera instead can also be uploaded to the iNaturalist website. When using a camera, try to keep track of where certain species were seen as best you can, as you will be asked to add the location of the photo when you upload your observations.
Consider taking photos with your phone or camera and uploading to iNaturalist later. This gives you time to properly ID species when you have access to WiFi, ID guides, or more time to look through options using the app. If you go this route, remember to make sure that your phone location services are on so that the location will upload with the photo into the iNaturalist app.
Familiarize yourself with species nearby by looking at posts that others have made. You can do this using the “explore” tab in the app or on the webpage
If you are unsure about an exact species ID, opt for a more general identification such as genus or family. Others in the iNaturalist community can then help narrow it down to species.
Try to crop photos close to the subject for easier identification by the iNaturalist app and community.

Free Apps to Help with Species ID

Animals/General:

Seek: Created by the same developers as iNaturalist, this app will compare your photo with other observations from the same area to find a more accurate ID.

Birds:

Audubon: This virtual field guide is similar to Merlin but also helps you ID a bird from its call, habitat, tail shape, and wing shape.
Merlin Bird ID: Using features such as bird behavior, coloring, and size, this app can help narrow down the possible options for IDing a sighting. This app also has a photo ID feature if you can get close enough to snap a picture.

Plants:

Leafsnap: A collaboration between Columbia University, the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution, this app will let you ID plants and trees using photos of their flowers and leaves.

Fungi:

Mushroom Identificator: This app helps ID mushrooms by having the user take several photos of the same species and comparing them to species within the guide.

Happy collecting! If you have any additional questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to the CWEP team via our contact page.

Biking the Watershed

May 7, 2020June 15, 2020Leave a comment

During this time of social distancing and working from home, we have had some beautiful weather! A few weekends ago, I ventured out to explore the Neuse River Basin via 25 mile bikeride. As a new resident of North Carolina, I was impressed with Raleigh’s greenway system which follows several tributaries of the Neuse.

I began my journey along the Crabtree Creek Trail. Crabtree Creek starts in Cary and flows through Lake Crabtree County Park, Umstead State Park and sections of North Raleigh before eventually joining the Neuse near Knightdale. The Crabtree flows through a rapidly developing area in a historic flood plain, which means that even light rains can cause the creek to flood. Evidence of this along the Crabtree Creek Trail include several washouts where sediment has been deposited.

The Crabtree Creek Trail joins with the Neuse River Trail at Anderson Point Park. This was a busy section of trail due to proximity to parking and residential areas. I took a quick rest stop at Anderson Point Park to enjoy the view.

The Neuse River Trail joins up with the Walnut Creek Trail where the Walnut Creek flows into the Neuse River. This section of trail was the most adventurous and scenic, featuring several roller-coaster like bridges and boardwalks that run through the Walnut Creek Wetland Center, Lake Johnson Park, and Worthdale Park. A few lookouts along the way are great places to stop and search for waterfowl, turtles, and other wildlife.

The last section of my bikeride was on the Rocky Branch Trail, which weaves amoung neighborhoods, wooded areas, and more urban stretches. This trail takes you through Dix Park and ends with a gorgeous view of the Raleigh skyline.

This short weekend adventure helped me see my watershed with new eyes. I gained a new appreciation for the role that greenways play in protecting our state’s water resources, connecting folks to outdoor spaces, and managing stormwater. If you’re interested in learning more about the positive benefits of greenways, you can explore The Impact of Greenways in the Triangle document written by the East Coast Greenway Alliance.

How have you been exploring your watershed during social distancing? Drop a comment in the box to the left to share your story with us.

The Soak-Spread-Slow Stormwater Song

March 25, 2020June 15, 2020Leave a comment

If you’re at home in some rainy weather, take a listen to CWEP’s new song to learn about how we can help improve the stormwater!

The bolded words are terms that you can learn more about in future blog posts and social media posts- stay tuned!

What motions can you make up to go along with the lyrics? Feel free to post in the comments on the left.

Stormwater Song Lyrics

Where does the water go

When it falls from the clouds to down below

All that rain eventually

Flows from here into the sea

and we can play a part

to help the rain depart

Acting like a sponge, to soak it up, to soak it up

Stretching out our arms to spread it out, to
spread it out

Moving like a snail to slow it down, to slow it down

These are things we do to help improve

The stormwater

Where does the water flow

When it has nowhere else to go?

All that rain from the roof and street

Goes down the storm drain and to the creek

And we can play a part

To help the rain depart

Because when it rains it pours

but the trees and grass can soak it up

rain barrels for sure

can help collect and spread it out

And if there’s even more

rain gardens can slow it down

These are things we do to help improve

the stormwater

Traveling Back in time on the Neuse River

December 2, 2019June 15, 2020Leave a comment

CWEP AmeriCorps member Hannah has been hard at work developing stormwater/ watershed curriculum geared towards high school students for direct education visits in member communities. Based on an Environmental Justice timeline activity she did at the National Environmental Justice Conference in Washington D.C., Hannah developed a “History of the Neuse River” timeline. During this interactive lesson, students work in small groups to match photos with their corresponding event and attempt to put the events in order. This activity is meant to familiarize students with their local watershed and give context for the specific water quality issues in their river basin. The lesson is designed to be general enough that students throughout the Neuse River Basin can use it. Hannah is in the process of creating a similar timeline for the Cape Fear River Basin in addition to creating lesson continuations that teachers can use in the classroom.

Accompanied by members, Hannah will be piloting this lesson at South Granville, East Wake, and Holly Springs High School the first week of December.

To see an interactive electronic version of the timeline, please visit the following link:

History of the Neuse: Full Timeline

Below is the summarized version of the timeline, for quick reference.

Do you know your Watershed Address?

March 30, 2017June 15, 2020Leave a comment

Everyone has an address. It starts with your name, then your house by number, then the road you live on, then the town, and finally the state you live in. Each part of your address is a larger area. Watersheds work the same way. Each small stream is part of a larger river system. Everybody lives in a watershed!

Smaller streams in the upper reaches of a watershed flow downhill to form a larger watershed or river basin. Trace your hand to see how small streams (fingers) flow together to form a larger water body like a lake (hand) which flows into a river (wrist and arm).

Watersheds Are Handy

A watershed is simply the area of land that drains to a body of water, so even a small creek in your backyard has a watershed. Small watersheds make up larger watersheds, which in turn form larger river basins, which may drain to the largest water body of all…the ocean!

Here’s a “hands-on” activity to help you visualize this concept!

Trace your hand and wrist.
Imagine your fingertips are high mountain tops. Picture rain falling on them, forming a small stream of water that flows down each finger. Also picture “groundwater” seeping up to the earth’s surface at each of your fingertips and adding water to the small stream or watershed.
These five small watersheds flow into each other as they run down to your hand. Cup your palm—together the five small watersheds form one larger watershed.
Imagine this large watershed joined by other large watersheds. Soon they flow together as one “river” down your wrist.
The river continues its journey to your lower arm, your larger upper arm, and eventually flows into the largest part of you: your body or the largest water body on earth…the “ocean.”

Cool Fact: Your body is approximately 75% water, and so is the Earth!

Watersheds Are In Your Hands

Watersheds reflect how people treat their land and water. Healthy watersheds reflect human communities that value and respect the natural resources that sustain them. Clean water is the result of their individual and collective efforts to prevent water pollution.

Take Action

Today, the greatest threat to watersheds in our communities and our country is stormwater pollution! Give clean water a hand by practicing clean water stewardship every day. Here’s more information about stormwater in our daily lives.

Additional Resources

EPA’s Nonpoint Source Pollution pages for kids.

Give Water A Hand is a national watershed education program that can help you find out how to get involved in local environmental projects.

What is a Watershed?

March 13, 2017June 15, 2020Leave a comment

A watershed is an area of land where all water drains to a particular waterbody, usually a stream, river, or the ocean. Watersheds cover the entire land surface of the earth. Watersheds contain homes, neighborhoods, cities, forests, farmland, and more. Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes and can even cross state lines.

The graphic above shows how water travels over a landscape and eventually forms streams and rivers. In a natural environment, this water would be pretty clean; however, when rain hits an impervious surface it creates stormwater runoff, which picks up pollutants and enters the nearest creek or stream. This creek or stream will join others to form larger streams, which join others to flow into larger rivers. Just like streams, smaller watersheds join together to form larger watersheds. That means any pollution that enters our stormwater can transported throughout an entire watershed.

All of us live in a watershed – let’s keep them clean! Use this EPA tool to Surf Your Watershed and find out more about how stormwater, runoff, and streams connect to form watersheds in your area.