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At least that’s how the writer, John Griffith, is describing himself today.
Look around. No matter where you are right now you’re in a watershed.
“Are you sure?” you ask skeptically, imagining sand storms and salt flats. “What if I’m reading this article in, say, Death Valley?”
The answer is yes, you’re in a watershed there too, the Amargosa Watershed to be exact. But most of you who are reading—and wondering where I’m going with this—live in the Eel River Watershed.
So what is a watershed? There’s a plethora of definitions for the word. Several of those definitions contain fifty-cent words and can only be understood by those who have thousands of dollars in student loan debt and work for agencies that generate mountain ranges of redundant paperwork. Since my redneck relatives read every article I write, I’ll use the definition that makes the most sense and doesn’t make your ear bone vibrate when you read it. A watershed is the area of land that catches rain and snow and drains or seeps into a marsh, stream, river, lake, ocean, or groundwater. If that definition still feels a little too tight on the scalp then try this one on: A watershed is the region draining into its lowest point: a river, river system, or other body of water.
Everything we do is in, and has an impact on, our watershed: logging, fishing, diverting water to irrigate our plants (uh-huh, your plants), off-roading, and even speeding down a winding gravel road to make it to the pub in time for happy hour (you know who you are). And you get the point I’m making, right? We use—and abuse—our watershed because it provides us with almost everything we must have for life—air, soil, and water. The sun and our significant others provide the rest.
Over the last couple of decades forward thinkers—wearing the latest in L.L. Bean fashions—have introduced us to the concept of living sustainably within our watersheds. Living sustainably means configuring our philosophies and activities so that we as a society are able to meet our needs and express our greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals in a very long term. With my relatives in mind I’ll interpret that: Living sustainably means living in a way that doesn’t mess up nature so our descendants can still live here too.
Okay, so maybe “living sustainably” isn’t a new concept at all. Perhaps those dudes decked out in the L.L. Bean gear were just repeating what the resident Native Americans have always known. Thousands of people from the Wiyot, Yuki, Huchnom, Cahto, Sinkyone, Pomo and other tribes lived sustainably in the Eel River Watershed for thousands of years without dams, diversions, plastic gill nets, clear-cutting, happy hour, and fast-food chains. But then the Euro-Americans came here and “developed” a watershed they perceived as being scary and unused. A century later, a redwood summer later, a few federal listings, landslides, and a major bankruptcy later we have the Almost-Eelless River. Should we once again sharpen our pointing fingers, gather up our pitchforks, and mob the evil-doers? No ... the blame mode is so nineteen-nineties. It’s time for the education, cooperation, and solution mode. We can always unsheathe the knives of litigation if we’re forced to fight. But right now, we need to become and act informed.
So let’s start by understanding the geographical boundaries of a watershed. The easiest way to do this is to take a deep breath, close your eyes, and imagine me enveloped in a cloud of incense smoke and wearing a saffron robe. Now, for the hard part: become a drop of water. Not just any drop of water, but one that’s high in the sky and falling from a cloud toward the top of a forested ridgeline. You splash down almost at the center of this ridge. When you land you don’t absorb into the ground, because it’s already saturated from weeks of rain. To the south you see the Russian River, but you have oozed into a small stream that’s cascading away from it, down the north slope of the mountain. You flow from the small stream into a larger one and then into an even bigger one until you’re finally swept into a raging river—the Eel River. You form the choppy waves of the river’s winter flow that whisks you past a few small towns, a group of meditating hippies wearing mismatched ringear, and under some cool-looking bridges until you find yourself in a vast estuary and then finally in an even more magnificent ocean.
Now I’m dinging a small bell and you have opened your eyes to find yourself a human again. I’m no longer in a saffron robe. I’m back in Wranglers and a Carhart jacket. There’s still smoke around me, but you’re pretty sure it’s not from incense. Oops, sorry, let me put this out. I really am trying to quit.
Remember a few seconds ago when you became a drop of water and saw the Russian River from the top of the ridgeline? You were at the dividing line of two watersheds. Had you landed just a few inches to the south you would have seeped down the other side of the mountain and become part of the Russian River watershed. Then you would have flowed through the Coyote Dam toward Sonoma County. It’s very likely you would have been diverted into a vineyard, and eventually found yourself trapped in a wine bottle. Then some old woman wearing too much perfume and jewelry would have poured you into a glass, said some lies about how wonderful you smelled, and sipped you while murmuring more praises even though she really thought you tasted like medicine. My pre-tangent point was: a watershed drains to its lowest point and is defined by its highest points—in our case, ridgelines.
Let’s review: No matter where you are, you’re in a watershed. Homes, farms, illegal crops, forests, small towns, pubs full of saffron robe-wearing rednecks, and big cities are all in watersheds. Some watersheds cross county, state, and even international borders and come in all shapes and sizes. Some are millions of square miles, others are just a few acres. Just as creeks drain into rivers, watersheds are nearly always part of a larger watershed. For example, the Van Duzen River, Bull Creek, and Outlet Creek watersheds are all in the Eel River watershed. Other terms used interchangeably with “watershed” include drainage basin or catchment basin.
Our watershed was once renowned for its big trees, big fish, and big fortunes. Now a couple of our own elected officials avoid talking about us (you know who you are) because we have big problems while the rest of their district has big money and big voters.
The good news is that even if our representatives continue to ignore us, and we don’t change our over-consumptive ways and end up driving ourselves to extinction, the Eel River watershed will persist long, long after we are gone. It will re-carve itself through the landscape, grow up some more old-growth forest, and contain newly evolved species that adapted to its changed form. The better news is: if we commit to eco-restoration and living sustainably we have the opportunity to be one of those evolved species that thrives in this watershed for thousands of years to come. We can start evolving today by living sustainably and restoring our watershed’s functions to an ecologically viable condition—to create places that improve rather than degrade over time. We can do it!
Look around. No matter where you live right now, your home is a watershed.