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How Watersheds Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryan, and there's guest producer Noel who, frankly,
0:20
Speaker 1: I think he's done enough times. I we should just
0:21
Speaker 1: be like our other producer Noel, and then if we're
0:26
Speaker 1: in France, I would say our other producer. So just
0:31
Speaker 1: removing the interim tag the guests fag. I think he's
0:34
Speaker 1: I think he's earned it, don't you? What is with
0:38
Speaker 1: you in these snacks? All right? Everyone, you should know
0:43
Speaker 1: Josh has a largish cup. This is not large. It's
0:48
Speaker 1: a small tumbler at best, tumbler full of jelly beans
0:53
Speaker 1: and animal crackers as if you are a four year old.
0:58
Speaker 1: Four year old should not be eating the stuff. Weird.
1:02
Speaker 1: I don't like jelly beans, so well, whatever do you
1:05
Speaker 1: put them in your mouth at the same time? Is
1:07
Speaker 1: that the idea? Because they're all this mixed in there together? Yeah,
1:10
Speaker 1: I guess. I mean, really, you're eating an animal cracker
1:12
Speaker 1: at the same time as a jelly bean. Ohh no, no, okay, no,
1:16
Speaker 1: I suit you me. I thought about the different flavors
1:19
Speaker 1: of jelly beans are those of the weird jelly beans
1:22
Speaker 1: are like, hey, this is fart snake oil. Yeah, they're
1:26
Speaker 1: not supposed to be, though, I think they turned. It
1:29
Speaker 1: was supposed to be just lime and great snake. That's
1:34
Speaker 1: a good, good one. Uh. So, I've been singing the
1:36
Speaker 1: Indigo Girls song in my head all day because of
1:39
Speaker 1: water Sheds. I just want to throw that out there.
1:41
Speaker 1: Is that one of the songs? I knew it was
1:43
Speaker 1: one of their restaurants? Yeah, I didn't know it was
1:46
Speaker 1: named after a song. Yeah. Up on the Watershed is
1:49
Speaker 1: how it goes. Yeah, it's a good restaurant. It's Emily
1:52
Speaker 1: from the Anigo Girls. It was. I'm not sure if
1:55
Speaker 1: it still is, but yeah, I think it still is. Well,
1:57
Speaker 1: so she named water shed after her song. She named
2:01
Speaker 1: her song after the actual hydrological unit of watersheds. Yeah,
2:06
Speaker 1: I think she thought that naming a song um kid
2:11
Speaker 1: fears would be weird. Oh is that the song? No
2:17
Speaker 1: watershed is the song? But I was just making a
2:19
Speaker 1: joke about another one of their songs, Okay, I thought maybe. Yeah.
2:23
Speaker 1: This is the most confusing Indigo Girls conversation I've ever had,
2:28
Speaker 1: including the famous uh Indigo Girls conversation of ODT three.
2:35
Speaker 1: This is more confusing. This is the worst, the worst
2:39
Speaker 1: intro we've ever had in our lives. Alright, Well let's
2:43
Speaker 1: continue then, Alright, so chuck watershed. Well, I already kind
2:47
Speaker 1: of gave it away a little bit by saying it's
2:49
Speaker 1: a hydrological unit. So watershed is basically Actually, it's even
2:57
Speaker 1: easier to say, what's not a watershed? Not a watershed
3:01
Speaker 1: is a ridgeline or a hilltop, or a large body
3:06
Speaker 1: of water like a lake or an ocean or a bay.
3:11
Speaker 1: Everything else is basically a watershed, yeah, which is to say,
3:16
Speaker 1: a place where water sheds rain water, water comes down
3:23
Speaker 1: upon the earth and then eventually finds its way to
3:26
Speaker 1: a larger body of water via watersheds. That's right. I
3:30
Speaker 1: just saw that there was this cool thing. I can't
3:32
Speaker 1: remember the exact name of it, but a thing that
3:35
Speaker 1: you can do here in Georgia where you can follow
3:37
Speaker 1: the water from Atlanta all the way to Sapelo Island. Uh.
3:43
Speaker 1: And it's a tour. I think you like, canoe part
3:45
Speaker 1: of it and you just sort of, you know, follow
3:48
Speaker 1: its path. It's like a little echoed So I see,
3:51
Speaker 1: I thought you meant like online. No, no, no, you
3:53
Speaker 1: actually do it. Forget it? No, it does sound pretty cool. Yeah,
3:59
Speaker 1: I saw them where that um, one drop of water,
4:02
Speaker 1: This is on a kid's website, but one drop of
4:05
Speaker 1: water stays in a lake for about a hundred years
4:09
Speaker 1: for it moves along. Is that why you're eating the
4:12
Speaker 1: jelly beans and animal crackers because I was on a
4:15
Speaker 1: kid's website. Nice? All right, so we know what watersheds
4:20
Speaker 1: are and are not. Uh, if you want the strict
4:23
Speaker 1: definition from the e p A, they said as anybody
4:25
Speaker 1: of land that flows downhill into a waterway. Yeah. So
4:29
Speaker 1: they can be very big, they can be very small.
4:31
Speaker 1: I saw somewhere that made reference to uh, something the
4:34
Speaker 1: size of a footprint could conceivably constitute a watershed. Right.
4:39
Speaker 1: So basically, anything that's defined by some sort of higher elevation, um,
4:46
Speaker 1: that moves water, that moves water put on a downward
4:50
Speaker 1: slope towards some sort of flowing water that goes into
4:54
Speaker 1: a larger body of water. Again, that's a watershed. And
4:57
Speaker 1: you put these things together, and one little watershed that
5:01
Speaker 1: feeds water to a tiny, little trickling stream that uh
5:06
Speaker 1: leads to a larger stream that leads to a river.
5:09
Speaker 1: That's one little watershed, but it's a part of the
5:12
Speaker 1: larger watershed for that one big river that that little
5:16
Speaker 1: stream feeding it is just one of many streams feeding it,
5:19
Speaker 1: and each of those streams has its own little watershed.
5:22
Speaker 1: So it's a weird little patchwork quilt or jigsaw puzzle
5:26
Speaker 1: that overlays any bit of land. Um. Those are all watersheds,
5:31
Speaker 1: and when you put them all together, they all form
5:33
Speaker 1: one cohesive hole. And the boundaries are defined by elevation.
5:38
Speaker 1: Because if you, as this article puts it, if you
5:40
Speaker 1: live on a ridge, uh and your neighbor lives on
5:44
Speaker 1: the other side of ridge, you live in two different
5:46
Speaker 1: watersheds and your mortal enemies, right exactly, if you're a
5:49
Speaker 1: half field and you're a McCoy uh. The the our
5:52
Speaker 1: own article UM had a nice little analogy with the umbrellas.
5:56
Speaker 1: Like if you turn over let's say five or six
5:59
Speaker 1: umbrellas at varying heights on top of one another, and
6:03
Speaker 1: they all had holes at the bottom. Any water, let's
6:06
Speaker 1: say it started raining, it would just collect at various
6:08
Speaker 1: different parts of the umbrella, and it would all flow
6:11
Speaker 1: down and eventually exit that bottom and maybe go into
6:15
Speaker 1: another umbrella, but that would eventually eventually get down to
6:20
Speaker 1: that main umbrella, which would be whatever main body of
6:22
Speaker 1: water it flows into, right, so ocean or a lake
6:26
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then each each watershed is defined by
6:30
Speaker 1: the um the headwater of the water it goes into correct, right,
6:35
Speaker 1: so um the well you have three things as far
6:41
Speaker 1: as flowing water goes. Right, you got the headwater where say,
6:45
Speaker 1: like the river begins and snow melting rain all flows
6:49
Speaker 1: down hill to this thing to form the beginning of
6:52
Speaker 1: the river. And there it goes there it's off headwaters
6:56
Speaker 1: release and then um, with that flow water hits another
7:03
Speaker 1: stream of some sort, you've got a confluence. And then
7:08
Speaker 1: um where they end, say like they go into a
7:12
Speaker 1: bay or something like that. Big river empties out, like
7:15
Speaker 1: the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Where it
7:19
Speaker 1: empties into the Gulf of Mexico. That's the mouth that's right.
7:23
Speaker 1: And all of this water it moves downhill or uphill,
7:27
Speaker 1: It moves towards the equator. The bulge in the earth
7:30
Speaker 1: attracts the water like crazy, Yeah, I can't move uphill though,
7:33
Speaker 1: can it? Uh? To us? We would think it was
7:37
Speaker 1: uphill because we're looking down onto the southern hemisphere. For
7:42
Speaker 1: the Southern hemisphere be downhill with them. It's just wacky.
7:47
Speaker 1: I will say that one time I was in a
7:48
Speaker 1: rainstorm in the desert that was so bad that there
7:54
Speaker 1: was water running uphill briefly and it was freaky looking.
7:59
Speaker 1: I'll bet like it's just something your brain doesn't know
8:01
Speaker 1: how to process and you see a definite grade in
8:04
Speaker 1: the land and water going the way that it shouldn't
8:07
Speaker 1: be going. I don't know what caused it, or maybe
8:09
Speaker 1: it was the drugs. Just kidding. Um, it was an
8:14
Speaker 1: intense storm and the desert storms. Actually this leads right
8:17
Speaker 1: into this part nicely. Desert storms are amazing because of
8:21
Speaker 1: how the water runs off compared to what I was
8:24
Speaker 1: used to growing up in the southeast. But um, there
8:28
Speaker 1: are uh a lot of different things that can happen
8:32
Speaker 1: to the water once it rains or once it snow melts.
8:36
Speaker 1: It's not gonna all end up in the Mighty Mississippi
8:40
Speaker 1: or that ocean and here they are. Yeah, there's a
8:44
Speaker 1: lot of stuff they can happen to it along the way,
8:45
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. Infiltration is one of the big ones. Uh.
8:49
Speaker 1: The rain falls on the dry ground. Obviously, water's gonna
8:52
Speaker 1: soak in, get in that soil or infiltrate it. Uh
8:55
Speaker 1: some of it will remain there and that shallow layer
8:59
Speaker 1: uh um. And then that's going to move downhill through
9:02
Speaker 1: that soil still UM into let's say an aquifer or something. Okay, Yeah,
9:10
Speaker 1: that's that's um infiltration, right. Yeah. And sometimes it goes
9:13
Speaker 1: a long way or remains stored for a long period
9:17
Speaker 1: of time before it comes back to the surface. Sometimes
9:19
Speaker 1: it doesn't, but it's just how much is infiltrating the ground. Yeah,
9:23
Speaker 1: And those um underwater rivers are pretty interesting. You've got
9:27
Speaker 1: ones that are like in a car system, like a
9:30
Speaker 1: limestone system, where it actually is like a river underground
9:34
Speaker 1: like a cave. But you also have underground rivers UM
9:38
Speaker 1: that aren't part of car systems and that are actually
9:41
Speaker 1: rivers underneath rivers. Right. So you have a river bed.
9:46
Speaker 1: All of the sediment and soil and dirt and um,
9:50
Speaker 1: sand and gravel that make up a river bed is porous,
9:54
Speaker 1: but it's also saturated, which is why there's a river
9:57
Speaker 1: on top of it. But because that riverbed is porous,
10:01
Speaker 1: water actually flows through it as well. So that's one
10:04
Speaker 1: of the other ways that water can kind of flow
10:07
Speaker 1: invisibly to us underneath the river through the ground. Yeah,
10:12
Speaker 1: and and that infiltration and how that water flows, it
10:15
Speaker 1: depends a lot on the soil characteristics, whether or not
10:17
Speaker 1: it's clay or sandy like you're saying. And then also,
10:22
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, it's just like a sponge that soil saturation.
10:26
Speaker 1: You know, it can only get so saturated, and then
10:29
Speaker 1: you get that lovely river. Uh And then of course
10:32
Speaker 1: the land cover has a big impact too. Um, if
10:35
Speaker 1: you've got you know, what humans have done has created
10:39
Speaker 1: a lot of They pay paradise and put up a
10:41
Speaker 1: parking lot. You do not like that song really, all right? Um,
10:50
Speaker 1: you seem shy about admitting that I don't only to
10:52
Speaker 1: put things down, you know, Okay, you don't want to
10:54
Speaker 1: yuck a yum Um. I do like that song though,
10:59
Speaker 1: that's great. Uh So, Anyway, what we've done is paved
11:02
Speaker 1: a lot of things, and then that creates what's called
11:04
Speaker 1: a fast lane for rainfall. And that is it's not
11:07
Speaker 1: the only reason why, but that's one of the big
11:08
Speaker 1: reasons why we have floods. Is that this water that
11:11
Speaker 1: normally would take a more lazy route and a more
11:15
Speaker 1: natural route. Yeah, water super lazy. Um, if it hits
11:18
Speaker 1: that pavement, now, then you you get water running much
11:22
Speaker 1: faster and in ways you maybe didn't predict. Yeah. The
11:24
Speaker 1: Geological Service calls impermeable surfaces a fast lane for rain, water, stormwater, right,
11:32
Speaker 1: and it is true. And the built environment definitely alters
11:35
Speaker 1: the way water moves through it. Um. So human not
11:39
Speaker 1: just human uh intervention or obstruction, but also human use
11:45
Speaker 1: to Like when we draw water out of an aquifer,
11:48
Speaker 1: that prevents it from ultimately going to its destination or
11:52
Speaker 1: delays it, I should say, depending on what we do
11:54
Speaker 1: with that water. Yeah, Like if we drink it, tinkle
11:57
Speaker 1: it out into a stream, we actually make it go.
12:00
Speaker 1: They're faster. Are you encouraging that? Nothing wrong with that? Man?
12:05
Speaker 1: All right, Well let's take a quick break and we'll
12:07
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about some of the other
12:09
Speaker 1: things that can happen to water once it's the ground.
12:32
Speaker 1: All right. So, um we teased everyone that other things
12:36
Speaker 1: can happen to water. We can turn into wine, all right,
12:40
Speaker 1: if you believe the Bible, it can evaporate and then
12:43
Speaker 1: turn into rain part of the rain cycle. Yeah, well
12:46
Speaker 1: that's a big one. Um did we do one an
12:48
Speaker 1: evaporation or just clouds. That's probably where we covered that
12:52
Speaker 1: cloud fluffy clouds or something a little fluffy clouds. But
12:56
Speaker 1: when rainfall does come down on the ground, a lot
12:59
Speaker 1: of it does go back up into the atmosphere through evaporation,
13:02
Speaker 1: and that depends on how hot it is, a temperature, wind,
13:07
Speaker 1: atmospheric pressure, a lot of other things. Then there's also transporation.
13:11
Speaker 1: This is my favorite, is it. Yeah, we'll take it away.
13:14
Speaker 1: Oh well, basically when you have plants, they're also taking
13:19
Speaker 1: in water themselves, putting it to good use, breaking it down,
13:24
Speaker 1: creating chlorophyll, not borophyll, chlorophyll uh and um, just generally
13:32
Speaker 1: making things pretty unhappy. That's transporation. Yeah, and that will
13:36
Speaker 1: slow the runoff obviously because taking a more circuitous route
13:39
Speaker 1: well locks it up, and then eventually it should evaporate
13:42
Speaker 1: from the water or from the plants and enter the
13:46
Speaker 1: rain cycle again. Yeah. And then of course other man
13:49
Speaker 1: made things like water storage, like you know, if you
13:51
Speaker 1: build a dam or something, you're literally in control of
13:55
Speaker 1: the release of that water. Yeah, that's a huge threat
13:57
Speaker 1: to the health and vitality of wet lends. Is damn
14:02
Speaker 1: building like it helps us. You know, we have um
14:06
Speaker 1: basically a huge store of drinking water that we can
14:09
Speaker 1: create electricity from. But for the downstream ecosystems, it's damns
14:14
Speaker 1: are not good. Plus they can cause earthquakes, if you'll
14:18
Speaker 1: remember correctly, Yes, that's right, I remember, they remember. Uh
14:23
Speaker 1: so hold on. I have to say I was thinking
14:26
Speaker 1: the other day about those shorts for the uninitiated. We
14:30
Speaker 1: used to do one minute shorts that appeared on the
14:31
Speaker 1: Science Channel. They were like the precursor to our actual show.
14:36
Speaker 1: Do you remember those shorts? So the I thought of
14:39
Speaker 1: one the other day to remember the when we were
14:41
Speaker 1: playing racquetball. That was I think the pinnacle of all
14:45
Speaker 1: of them. Just the setup. Yeah, just the whole thing,
14:48
Speaker 1: everything went. It was just perfect. I thought it was great.
14:51
Speaker 1: It just popped in my head the other day. I
14:53
Speaker 1: was like, I totally forgot we even did those things,
14:55
Speaker 1: and then I was thinking about it. Thought it was hilarter. Yeah.
14:58
Speaker 1: The gag and that one was that I was airing
15:00
Speaker 1: like a full like basketball uniform and sweatband. Holson, you
15:05
Speaker 1: were wearing like an Oxford and jeans and we're playing
15:09
Speaker 1: racquetball like that? Was that funny as that? Yeah? I
15:13
Speaker 1: just thought it was great. Surprised that never took off.
15:16
Speaker 1: Well it did. It got us a TV show. Yeah,
15:18
Speaker 1: that's true, we did. Like it was the TV show
15:20
Speaker 1: that didn't take off. We had a couple of dozen
15:22
Speaker 1: of those shorts. Right, those are all fun. Let's start
15:25
Speaker 1: posting some of those again. Well this is my passive
15:28
Speaker 1: aggressive way of asking YouTube. Okay, Uh, so watersheds are
15:34
Speaker 1: keeping them clean as a big deal. It really matters
15:38
Speaker 1: because there's a domino effect that can happen um when
15:43
Speaker 1: they're polluted. Oh yeah, so water is great for transporting things, right,
15:48
Speaker 1: we put barges on them, jet skis on them, sailboats.
15:52
Speaker 1: It's also really good for transporting other stuff, like anything
15:56
Speaker 1: that's a pollutant is really easily moved along through water. Right,
16:03
Speaker 1: And the whole point of a water shed is moving
16:06
Speaker 1: water across land into larger bodies of water. Well, the
16:09
Speaker 1: stuff that's in the way of that water gets picked
16:12
Speaker 1: up and carried in along with it too. Right, So
16:15
Speaker 1: the pollutants that we just leave lying around, everything from
16:18
Speaker 1: dog poop to um anti freeze, ends up in the
16:23
Speaker 1: water because it's in the water shed. So it ends
16:26
Speaker 1: up in the body of water. And since we use
16:29
Speaker 1: these these bodies of water for all sorts of different things,
16:32
Speaker 1: it's a big problem. And and it's a it's a
16:36
Speaker 1: it's something that I think more people need to be
16:39
Speaker 1: aware of because you think I'll just leave my dog
16:41
Speaker 1: poop there on the ground. You don't think about how
16:44
Speaker 1: it's going to rain and flush that dog poop in
16:46
Speaker 1: there and create a coliform bacteria bloom that's going to
16:53
Speaker 1: kill a bunch of fish or give them salmonella. Yeah.
16:55
Speaker 1: I've seen certain cities on their storm drains have little
16:58
Speaker 1: signs that say things like, you know, just reminders like
17:03
Speaker 1: you know, what goes in this thing will end up
17:06
Speaker 1: in you know, some larger body of water and have
17:08
Speaker 1: a big impact. Stuff. I found the thing that said
17:11
Speaker 1: the leading cause of pollution or sediments and a lot
17:15
Speaker 1: of times bacteria like E. Coli from dog poop. Yeah,
17:19
Speaker 1: and even excess nutrients can be bad. Yeah, because those
17:22
Speaker 1: form algae blooms. Right. Yeah. So algae blooms are um
17:26
Speaker 1: where a a type of algae is already present in
17:30
Speaker 1: a body of water, but then all of a sudden
17:32
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of agricultural runoffs. Say, so there's a
17:35
Speaker 1: huge introduction of nitrogen and phosphorus, which are fertilizers. Well,
17:39
Speaker 1: algae is a plant, and algae blooms as a result,
17:43
Speaker 1: and they can block sunlight for other plants in the
17:46
Speaker 1: in the body of water. Um, when they die off,
17:49
Speaker 1: the bacteria that eats them and your decomposes them uses
17:53
Speaker 1: up tons of oxygen, so it chokes to life all
17:56
Speaker 1: out of the fish that are in the body of water. Um.
17:59
Speaker 1: It can make things quite smelly. It's it's just not
18:02
Speaker 1: good for anybody. And and the reason why these algae
18:05
Speaker 1: blooms happen is because of the fertilizer runoff that's being
18:09
Speaker 1: introduced into the bodies of water. All right, well let's
18:11
Speaker 1: take another break in. Uh more more depressing news right
18:14
Speaker 1: after this. All right, Charles, where's the where's the silver
18:38
Speaker 1: lining here? Well, let's here's some more bad news. I
18:41
Speaker 1: was hoping to change that in the United States of
18:46
Speaker 1: our waters are impaired or threatened, and impaired means that
18:49
Speaker 1: it doesn't support one or more of its intended uses.
18:53
Speaker 1: Impaired means it's drunk. It is it's a drunk like
18:57
Speaker 1: drunk with pollution. So one or more of a stended
19:00
Speaker 1: uses could mean, you can't swim in it, you can't
19:02
Speaker 1: drink it, um, don't you know. It's always scary. It's like, yeah,
19:07
Speaker 1: he's good fishing over there, just don't eat them, right,
19:09
Speaker 1: that's always like oh wow, yeah and bad. But it
19:12
Speaker 1: could be it could be anything. It could be from
19:14
Speaker 1: there's high levels of mercury in there too. You know,
19:17
Speaker 1: there's um toxins or um I'm sorry, bacteria. Yeah, that
19:23
Speaker 1: could kill you. Flush eating bacteria lives in bodies of water. Yeah,
19:28
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons and a lot of a
19:31
Speaker 1: lot of stuff you just take well, oh well that's
19:32
Speaker 1: the that's the natural state of that body of water.
19:35
Speaker 1: That's absolutely not true. Yeah, And like you know, you're
19:38
Speaker 1: pointing out here that it's all it's all interconnected. The
19:41
Speaker 1: e p A has a paper called Sustaining Healthy Freshwater
19:44
Speaker 1: Ecosystems and they really try to drive home the point
19:47
Speaker 1: that these are not isolated bodies of water like it's
19:52
Speaker 1: it's all very much tightly linked to one another. And uh,
19:56
Speaker 1: the human impact has this domino effect that you know,
19:59
Speaker 1: you throw that cigarette out of your car and you
20:01
Speaker 1: don't think it's a big deal that's gonna end up
20:04
Speaker 1: either in a bird's nest or a body of water,
20:08
Speaker 1: just two places, right, can't you see a little baby
20:12
Speaker 1: bird being like what is that? Why did you bring
20:15
Speaker 1: that home? Just nuzzling up against it, rubbing its little
20:18
Speaker 1: baby bird head. Uh? Where else around the world, this
20:23
Speaker 1: is obviously a big problem. It's not just the United States, uh,
20:26
Speaker 1: and the Amazon basin, the Amazon River doten is threatened
20:29
Speaker 1: with extinction because of the domino effect of watershed runoff pollution. Well,
20:36
Speaker 1: you said it earlier. You said human human activity basically,
20:42
Speaker 1: and it's not just us polluting. Like say, you pour
20:46
Speaker 1: out your anti freeze and just go in yuck into
20:50
Speaker 1: yourself about how great that was. I just dumped it
20:55
Speaker 1: down the storm drain. You're not supposed to do that.
20:57
Speaker 1: That's not good, right, not good. It goes beyond that,
21:00
Speaker 1: like our activity. Like say, um, if you tear up
21:04
Speaker 1: some trees along a stream bed, Well, tree roots have
21:08
Speaker 1: a really great effect of holding soil in place. And
21:13
Speaker 1: without the roots to hold the soil in places, the
21:16
Speaker 1: stream passes by and maybe floods a little bit after
21:19
Speaker 1: a big rainfall. It takes a lot of sediment with it. Well,
21:23
Speaker 1: you say, so long, river bank, Who cares that sediment
21:26
Speaker 1: can go clogg the gills of fish downstream and kill
21:30
Speaker 1: them all. Because you just couldn't live with a tree
21:33
Speaker 1: in your backyard, or because you just had to build
21:36
Speaker 1: your river house that you visit three times here. But
21:40
Speaker 1: even still, even if you did build that, you would
21:42
Speaker 1: want to keep a buffer of trees along the river bank. Like,
21:45
Speaker 1: there's just some steps you want to take, right And
21:48
Speaker 1: it's it's easy to overlook a lot of the activity
21:51
Speaker 1: that we do UM that has these these negative effects
21:56
Speaker 1: on UM water bodies because we're doing them elsewhere but
21:59
Speaker 1: in the watershed that's still connected to the body of water.
22:02
Speaker 1: I don't know if we've driven that home enough yet
22:05
Speaker 1: that the activities we do on the watershed affect the
22:09
Speaker 1: bodies of water in the end, that's right, but people
22:12
Speaker 1: are taking action UM. The first Watershed Protection and Flood
22:16
Speaker 1: Prevention Act came about in nineteen fifty four. That was
22:19
Speaker 1: a little bit more about coordinating UH flood efforts or
22:24
Speaker 1: flood prevention efforts rather UH. And then in nineteen seventy
22:27
Speaker 1: two they added some more conservation efforts to that, and
22:31
Speaker 1: then in they I think they made it friendlier to
22:35
Speaker 1: get loans for groups carrying out measures that would help
22:40
Speaker 1: promote watershed management financial loans. Yeah, and there's like a
22:43
Speaker 1: lot of ways that you can get involved. Um. The
22:46
Speaker 1: e p A is big time into putting you in
22:49
Speaker 1: touch with people who are already trying to protect your
22:51
Speaker 1: local watershed. Yeah. Um, there's stuff you can do if
22:55
Speaker 1: you're a loaner. Um, if you have a leaky faucet,
22:58
Speaker 1: fix it. It wastes water. It also increases the potential
23:01
Speaker 1: for pollution. That's one thing. What else can you do?
23:05
Speaker 1: You can fix that septic tank? Yeah, that too, that
23:08
Speaker 1: can increase pollution. The things you can poop out all
23:10
Speaker 1: over your yard, right, take care of it, yeah, because
23:13
Speaker 1: it spreads disease your fecal material. Uh what else? Add
23:17
Speaker 1: plants and trees instead of removing them, Right, that's a
23:20
Speaker 1: good one. If you have a asphalt driveway, carry it
23:24
Speaker 1: up and put down pavers. Now what does that mean? Well, um,
23:28
Speaker 1: you know pavers have um joints between the pavers so
23:32
Speaker 1: the water can trickle through them. It's a permeable surface
23:36
Speaker 1: rather than impermeable. You know what. I kind of like
23:39
Speaker 1: or the and this has got to be slightly better,
23:43
Speaker 1: is the instead of the solid driveway just the two
23:46
Speaker 1: strips where your tires go, oh yeah, that's Grandma's house
23:50
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, and then having either the grass strip
23:52
Speaker 1: or pebbles or something in between. It's kind of nice, yeah.
23:55
Speaker 1: Or or what about the ever popular neglected stre up
24:00
Speaker 1: of rocks with the grass growing up through them, which
24:02
Speaker 1: is what mine would end up looking like invariably. Or
24:05
Speaker 1: have you ever seen the ones where it's like a
24:07
Speaker 1: steep driveway but they basically put tiny steps in the
24:10
Speaker 1: center of them that you walk up. I always thought
24:12
Speaker 1: that was love those, totally love those I went by.
24:17
Speaker 1: You know that while you may not know, but there's
24:19
Speaker 1: a street what's the name of the street leading up
24:22
Speaker 1: to our office where there's a row of houses where
24:25
Speaker 1: the drive the yard. It's like it's one of the
24:28
Speaker 1: steepest things I've ever seen. And it going back up
24:34
Speaker 1: towards Glen Iris, there's a cut through street off of
24:37
Speaker 1: North and uh, I mean, it might as well be
24:40
Speaker 1: a cliff, but it's all covered in grass and I'm
24:44
Speaker 1: just every time I passed it, I think, how in
24:45
Speaker 1: the world did they cut that? Oh yeah, the machete.
24:49
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just gonna hang out and wait
24:52
Speaker 1: next summer until someone goes to cut the grass. In
24:55
Speaker 1: the meantime, you should clean up the watershed at that
25:01
Speaker 1: little grass cliff feeds man. That runoff must be amazing. Yeah,
25:05
Speaker 1: just flows like a waterfall. Do you anything else? I don't? Okay,
25:11
Speaker 1: Well let's end this one. Huh. If you want to
25:14
Speaker 1: know more about watersheds, well go figure out where your
25:16
Speaker 1: watershed is and help clean it up. There's websites where
25:19
Speaker 1: you can do that. Type in your like find your watershed. Yeah,
25:22
Speaker 1: that's one surf, your watershed surf. Your watershed is the
25:25
Speaker 1: E p A S one where they're more than happy
25:27
Speaker 1: to put you in touch with anybody who can help
25:29
Speaker 1: you figure out how to keep your watershed. You want
25:32
Speaker 1: to help your watershed? Great? Great, did you mention the
25:35
Speaker 1: the Watershed Challenge? So? Uh, every March twenty two there's
25:41
Speaker 1: a World Water Monitoring Challenge where you can get like
25:45
Speaker 1: a monitor water monitoring thing and monitor the water quality
25:49
Speaker 1: of the water in your watershed sending the results. There's
25:53
Speaker 1: the last stuff you can do anyway, go search all
25:55
Speaker 1: of that stuff. Uh. And in the meantime, it's time
25:58
Speaker 1: for listener mail. I'm gonna call this kitty Genevese follow up. Hey, guys,
26:06
Speaker 1: recently listened to that episode and had a few observations.
26:09
Speaker 1: I've read much about the case before and have read
26:11
Speaker 1: Abe Rosenthal's thirty eight witnesses account, but it never occurred
26:14
Speaker 1: to me that I knew basically nothing about Miss Geneviez
26:18
Speaker 1: other than how she died. Like you guys were saying,
26:20
Speaker 1: you made that point and then made an effort to
26:22
Speaker 1: add some color in her life, uh to her life.
26:25
Speaker 1: I appreciated. That inspired me to watch the documentary The
26:28
Speaker 1: witness which you recommend. Um. The documentary was heartrending knowing
26:33
Speaker 1: more about Miss genevie Seeing the footage of her dancing
26:36
Speaker 1: in the park with her friends made me really, really sad.
26:39
Speaker 1: But like Josh, I struggled to see any common understanding
26:42
Speaker 1: between Miss Geneviez's brother and Winston Moseley's son. That was
26:46
Speaker 1: certainly a fascinating interaction to watch. Honestly, though, the final
26:50
Speaker 1: scene with the screaming actress, remember we were talking about that, Yeah,
26:53
Speaker 1: that was I was gonna be corny and ended up
26:55
Speaker 1: moving me. She was not moved. Now are this is us?
27:00
Speaker 1: Don't know if it's a lady or dude could. But honestly, though,
27:03
Speaker 1: the final scene with the screaming actress, such a very
27:05
Speaker 1: bitter taste in my mouth left me feeling that a
27:07
Speaker 1: good documentary had been finished with a tasteless hackey stunt
27:11
Speaker 1: that achieved nothing. Um yeah, I could see I could
27:14
Speaker 1: be taken that way, I guess. So that is from
27:16
Speaker 1: Chris Downing in Sydney, Australia p S. I will balance
27:21
Speaker 1: my commendation of that episode always love that PS. I'll
27:27
Speaker 1: balance my commendation above with the observation that evil Kinevil
27:31
Speaker 1: was not a man worthy of a double episode. But
27:34
Speaker 1: I forgave you immediately for that. Yeah, that was crazy.
27:37
Speaker 1: I remember like the look on our face faces when
27:41
Speaker 1: we decided to make it too. Yeah. I just couldn't
27:43
Speaker 1: believe it, but we plowed ahead. Yeah. I'll always say
27:47
Speaker 1: Isaac Newton got one evil says a lot about us. Yeah. Uh,
27:53
Speaker 1: that's the way it worked out. We still did one
27:55
Speaker 1: on Isaac Newton. They'll get off our bats. Yeah, maybe
27:57
Speaker 1: we'll do a part two one day on that even score. Uh.
28:01
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us like
28:03
Speaker 1: Chris did. Thanks, by the way, Chris, you can tweet
28:07
Speaker 1: to us. I'm at josh um Clark on Twitter, and
28:10
Speaker 1: you can also reach us at s Y s K
28:12
Speaker 1: podcast on Twitter. You can reach Chuck at Charles W.
28:15
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant on Facebook or Stuff you Should Know on Facebook.
28:19
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
28:21
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. There's always joined us at
28:23
Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot
28:26
Speaker 1: com For more on this and thousands of other topics,
28:33
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