What's Your Watershed?

Happy New Moon! With this New Moon, I'm introducing a couple of new things. One, I'm utilizing a combination of technologies to produce and e-mail this MoonLetter to you. So you'll notice the different look in your e-mail. But I'm hoping it'll be okay for you to instead go directly to the place on the Internet where the MoonLetter is being held. Which brings me to the second new thing, the blog. Rather than host MoonLetters on the My Moonster website, I'm giving them their own 'blog' so that people can leave comments and also read past issues. I have the previous three issues there now and will gradually be working my way back through time... There are half a year's worth now!

I must admit that this new method also makes writing MoonLetters much less cumbersome for me, so I hope you'll forgive me if this causes you any inconvenience. But hopefully you'll find the positives outweigh the negatives. Please let me know if it's a big problem for you...

For those of you that like printer-friendly versions, scrolling to the bottom of this MoonLetter will lead you to the PDF attachment.

Okay: so that's housekeeping done...

Now onto the watershed...

Recently on the ecopsyhology-psychology listserv, people have been signing their names with their 'watersheds'. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, "[w]e all live in a watershed -- the area that drains to a common waterway, such as a stream, lake, estuary, wetland, or even the ocean -- and our individual actions can directly affect it."

Which watershed do you live in? (This section is combined with the normal Re-connecting Tip.)
If you live in the U.S., you can go to http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm and scroll down to type in your zip code. This will bring up a list of codes. When you click on each code, I recommend following the links to "Environmental Websites Involving this Watershed" and "Citizen-based Groups at work in this watershed". You can even Adopt Your Watershed!

And for all you teachers and parents out there: check out the "Watershed Patch Program" and this water site and "Discover Your Place in Your Habitat" and "The GLOBE Programme"...

Now, for Canadians and Brits... I'm afraid I haven't been able to find anything as comprehensive or informative as the EPA one... But the United Kingdom does have a Waterway Guide that may point you in the right direction.

If anyone finds good watershed website information for other countries, I'd love to know those links! For me, I've had to do some partial guessing...

I live in Thornbury (UK), which has four unnamed streams. The closest one to me is kind of called Millstream but I can find no information about where exactly that leads. But I do live near the River Severn, which leads to the Bristol Channel, which empties out into the Atlantic Ocean...

It would be great if you would leave a comment telling us YOUR watershed (as best you can).

Just so you know, when you click on the Comments button at the bottom of this page, you'll be sent to a form. You need to fill it out with your name (which can be made up) and an e-mail address, which will only be shown to me.

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Don't forget to check out the dreams – and post your own – at the dream blog.

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And, as always, if something in this MoonLetter gave you an idea for a moonster, for you or someone else, let me know!

peace&love
heather of millstream-river severn-bristol channel-atlantic ocean

My Moonster
...uncover your connection to Nature's rhythms...
www.mymoonster.com

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Comments

[Lower Hudson]

There you go, dear.

-Lower Hudson

[Linda Buzzell-Saltzman]

We live in the Santa Barbara Coastal watershed -- thanks, Healther for the EPA site info! -- near Mission Creek which feeds into the Pacific ocean about a mile from us. This creek, which is seasonal -- sometimes very full in winter and almost totally dry in summer -- arises in the Los Padres Forest mountains behind Santa Barbara and comes down through the SB Botanic Garden and the SB Mission (where the padres dammed it somewhat and used the water for the mission, continues through residential areas, a park where it is allowed its natural form, and through ugly concrete channels created by the Army Corps of Engineers til it hits the ocean. There are some good efforts underway to get rid of the concrete and let the creek run more freely. I wish the city would buy up the apartment buildings and houses that are too close to the channel and get flooded out periodically, causing great expensive repairs. that way they could return the creek more to its natural state, revegetate the banks with native plants and provide everyone with more natural space to enjoy.