During this past election, I saw a lot of political ads. One issue that caught my attention was the complaining about various environmental regulations, including the “tax on the rain.” Naturally, these ads led to my explaining to my kids where the holes were in this argument. If you’re wondering why we need to control stormwater runoff, have I got a stream for you!
Over the past two years, I’ve been chronicling our family’s adventures in
stream monitoring. We now monitor Difficult Run stream in Great Falls VA, right next to the national park and the Potomac river. You’d think this was a healthy stream. Au contraire! Once again, during our Fall invertebrate monitoring, our monitoring showed very little life (fewer than 30 individuals) – this stream is heavily impacted by soil erosion and runoff pollution.
Our everyday actions, including how we wash our cars, how we care for our lawns and gardens, and yes, even how we try to get grandfathered into old stormwater regs when we’re considering new construction, affect our streams. The streams in my area of northern VA are in big trouble – how are yours doing? If you missed the earlier post on what’s happening in our streams and how you can help, check out this informative video from NBC news:
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