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When rain falls onto the land (or melts from snow, sleet, or hail), it flows over and soaks into the land. The surface runoff and the water that soaks into the ground eventually flow into creeks, rivers or other waterbodies.

Ridges separate one watershed from another. Water drains down the hills into the streams in the valleys. The streams continue to flow downhill toward sea level.

As you travel downstream, streams merge into larger streams. The water shed of a larger stream consists of all the smaller watersheds, or subwatersheds.

For example:

The land that drains into the Indian Rill creek is in the Indian Rill watershed. The parking lot and floodplain meadow drain into Indian Rill as do the properties upstream of us all the way to Old Wilmington Road. The Indian Rill Watershed and all of the other small watersheds from the other small creeks all drain into the Red Clay Creek. The Red Clay flows into the Christina River which is part of the Christina Watershed which is part of the bigger Piedmont Watershed (the watershed that includes the Red Clay, White Clay, Brandywine, Naamans, and Shellpot Creeks as well as the Christina).

A watershed address is similar to a postal address. Like your house is on a street, your yard is part of a small local creek watershed. Your street is in a city similar to the way your local creek watershed is part of one of the state’s subwatersheds. Your city is in a state like your subwatershed is in a State of Delaware Watershed. And your state is within the United States like all the Delaware Watersheds are part of the Atlantic Ocean Watershed.

That means that whatever happens on the Ashland parking lot or floodplain meadow below the lot - or on our upstream neighbors’ yards along Indian Rill all the way up to Wilmington Road - can affect Indian Rill, the Red Clay Creek, the portion of the Piedmont Basin downstream of us, the Delaware River downstream of Wilmington, and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean. The same is true for your yard and neighborhood.

So remember that when you wash your car ….

Or walk your pet...

Or your car is leaking oil ….

Or you fertilize your lawn ...

Where does that water go?

This is a map of the Delaware Watersheds like the one in the foldout poster with the same title (http://www.ncc-swnpdes.com/images/FYI.pdf).

Review each watershed and how to find the subwatershed

•Ask participants to remove the yellow form and foldout poster map from their packet and write out their watershed address.