What you think about these posts individually. Post 1 and post 2. Give feedback to these people, your opinion and other ways they could reduce their contamination of their watersheds.
1.My main watershed is the Los Angeles River watershed. It covers about 834 square miles of land. It engulfs a large swath of Los Angeles, including all of San Fernando Valley, the western part of San Gabriel Valley, and much of Los Angeles.
My subset of the Los Angeles River watershed is the Arroyo Seco watershed. Geographically, the Arroyo Seco Watershed is a subwatershed of the Los Angeles River Watershed. The basin sits between the San Gabriel Valley to the east and the San Fernando Valley to the west, and drains into the L.A. River at the confluence in Lincoln Heights.
A super helpful resource I found about protecting our watershed:
https://www.lacitysan.org/san/faces/home/portal/s-lsh-wwd/s-lsh-wwd-wp;jsessionid=j-EPgG43eHRc7luJdjcfcVRnsb2Y6YT6aicxWbvPwAm69uO7ol3i!-839466798!-945519779?_afrLoop=9277741549133339&_afrWindowMode=0&_afrWindowId=null&_adf.ctrl-state=eh3399zu2_1#!%40%40%3F_afrWindowId%3Dnull%26_afrLoop%3D9277741549133339%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3Deh3399zu2_5
I wish I had a better plan for greywater in my cottage, but I don’t own the property and have to leave that stuff up to my landlord. He is pretty persnickety about things like that. They are environmentally conscious, to some level, because they bought me energy and water-efficient washer for clothes, but that is the extent of it that I know of.
I don’t use my dishwasher but when I did I used plant-based detergents. I still use those with hand washing dishes and for clothes. Our cleaning materials are mostly plant-based or vinegar-based as well. Castile Soap is a favorite of mine. But I do see that there is some Ajax that has been used recently. I will switch that to Borax now. Our shampoo is non-toxic and paraben and sulfate-free. Same with body wash and soap. We don’t have a garbage disposal so sometimes I put cereal or soup in the toilet to flush down. I am not sure if that is okay now or not. I don’t use tampons, not that those would go in the toilet anyway. But we are currently transitioning to a non-toilet paper and paper towel household. We have a bidet and I have invested in a bunch of washcloths for the bathroom and kitchen. So hopefully TP will no longer be going into our greywater. We water our little garden and a few plants on the front porch, but let the remainder of our back garden be wild and natural. My daughter and I tend to share baths, to save water and neither of us takes long showers.
2.The Dona and Roberts Bay Watershed is my local watershed, which lays over a total of 97.4 square miles. It consists of 30 lakes/ponds, 17 rivers/streams, and 5 bay and takes over 90% of my county.
I actually came across a link for a local volunteer group called N.E.S.T that was on our county homepage. They work to protect our local waterways and watersheds. Im really interested in volunteering for them when quarantine is over.
https://www.sarasota.wateratlas.usf.edu/NEST#nest-home
My favorite place in my watershed would have to be Roberts Bay. I grew up on Roberts Bay, so itll always have a place in my heart. Also, it is the water sports bay in my county and I absolutely love water sports.My favorite water sports are wakeboarding, tubing, and kneeboarding.
Now that I am back home in Florida, I feel that it is much easier to be more in control of how eco-friendly I can be. My family uses very clean shower and cleaning products because, over the years, we have become aware of how products can harm us and damage our drainage system. Other products and appliances we use are toilet paper, toilet cleaner, and dish soap. We do have a garbage disposal that we use quite often. I would really like to cut back on the use of our dishwasher, considering, as of now, it gets run every other day. I also really want to make a conscious effort to take shorter showers.