Healthy streams are important for many reasons. We depend on them for our drinking water and use them for recreational pleasures, such as swimming and fishing. They are also important as a home for wildlife and aquatic organisms.
As you may have noticed, many of our streams and rivers are not healthy. They turn muddy when it rains and turn green when it doesn't. Healthy streams should be clear with gravel or rock bottoms, and have abundant logs, sticks, fallen leaves and vegetation.
Take a look at a stream on or near your property. It probably has a muddy bottom, few logs and steep banks leading down to it. It may even lack a forest canopy to protect it from the hot sun.
We need to improve our environment, specifically our streams and rivers. Here are a few things we can do to improve our rivers and streams.
First of all, we can try to prevent runoff. In order to prevent runoff, we can route all runoff water to infiltration areas. Good places for water infiltration include garden areas, flower beds, and areas with trees and/or shrubbery. Heavily mulching an area with 3 inches of wood bark chips will help improve the infiltration rate, allowing for faster uptake of water by the soil
Another easy way of increasing soil infiltration is to add gypsum, which can be obtained from recycled wall board. Gypsum, or calcium sulfate, opens up heavy, clay soils allowing water to pass into and through the soil without puddling up on the surface.
Another direct way to conserve our rivers and streams is to never use water from an outside source during a drought. Rivers and streams fall to very low levels during a drought, causing problems to aquatic ecosystems. Some of the water loss is natural, but a large part is due to municipalities pumping water from the river for human use.
One of the best ways you can directly affect streams and rivers is to NOT pump or siphon water from them to water your plants. In order to eliminate or reduce outdoor water use, follow some of the water wise tips I have spoken about before. Plant drought tolerant plants. Mulch around your plants. And use household waste water, where possible, to irrigate your plants.
One last thing you do to improve our rivers and stream is to protect the stream corridor. The stream corridor should be protected to a distance at least one tree-height wide on either side of the stream, so that trees can fall and help supply important woody debris.
Billy Skaggs
Agricultural Agent Hall County Extension Coordinator
734 East Crescent Drive
Gainesville, GA 30501
Phone:(770)531-6988 Fax: (770)531-3994
Email: [email protected]
Sunday
August 10th, 2025
6:18AM
