Work around our homes to benefit the environment

By Letters to the Editor,  The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, PA


April 18, 2010, 1:49AM

For generations, the common wisdom was to slope yards and streets to move precipitation away from properties and into nearby streams as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, the salts, other de-icing chemicals, stuff we put on our lawns and miscellaneous street drippings and droppings also are flushed into these small water bodies that can poison aquatic life.

Recent memory includes the winter flood of 1996 when a torrent of ice coming down the Susquehanna River took out part of the Walnut Street Bridge. Hundreds of small tributaries draining water quickly from neighborhoods and farms throughout the Susquehanna basin contributed to a raging river whose damage is still visible today.

Altering the effects of large storm events or ice jams breaking loose might be beyond the control of us mere mortals. However, we can have a measurable impact on smaller, more regular flooding episodes. In the last few years, a new approach to rainwater and snowmelt has started to emerge --- slow down the runoff and hold on to precipitation as long as possible.

The Yellow Breeches, Conodoguinet, Paxton and Swatara creeks don't need to be muddy, roaring rages every time it rains. If each of us tried to imitate nature around our homes and worked to help neighbors and government properties to do the same, more fish would swim, more birds would sing and our watersheds would be much healthier.

PAUL ZEPH
President
Appalachian Audubon Society