by Amanda Malachesky
November 20, 2002

“Watersheds come in families; nested levels of intimacy. On the grandest scale the hydrologic web is like all humanity—Serbs, Russians, Koyukon Indians, Amish, the billion lives in the People’s Republic of China—it’s broadly troubled, but it’s hard to know how to help. As you work upstream toward home, you’re more closely related. The big river is your nation, a little out of hand. The lake is your cousin. The creek is your sister. The pond is her child. And, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, you’re married to your sink.” – Michael Parfit, National Geographic

For many in the Mattole, the term “watershed” has become a household word, and can be defined as the area of land that drains into a particular river. No matter where we live or where we visit, we are always located in one. But what exactly is it, and why does it matter to us?

A watershed is an organism, not unlike ourselves, with a pulse and dynamic processes of change and fluctuation happening constantly. Simultaneously local and global, each individual place is affected by everything upstream as well as the larger patterns of rainfall and weather. For example, hemispheric ocean and air currents determine the amount of rainfall the Mattole will see annually.

When we examine patterns of settlement, roads, cultivation, forestry practices on a watershed scale, it is easy to feel that the problems at hand are too large to tackle. Add human jurisdictions such as county governments, public agencies, and state and federal laws into the mix, and managing the “water” in the “shed” is no longer as simple as figuring out where to find your drinking water. However, while these larger, global and political weather patterns will influence the Mattole as they always have, Mattolians have many ideas about how we can hold onto our abundant winter rain well into the dry summer months.

Local Mattole issues

Much of what ails the Mattole is typical of trends seen all over the world. Siltation and erosion have resulted in less water flow in the summer months as channels have filled in. Changes in vegetation have resulted in a landscape with a lesser capacity to retain water during the winter rains, leaving springs and wells with a less abundant flow than in the past. When measures are not taken to assist water in returning to disrupted landscapes, a majority of rainfall leaves the earth’s surface, rushing out to sea in a quick torrent, never to return. However, if water can be slowed down on its movement towards the ocean, it has the opportunity to infiltrate and recharge aquifers and springs, and can last longer into the dry season.

The bright future of possibility

The Mattole landscape is still watered by entirely natural sources: springs, wells, and streams. Since we are individually responsible for the development and use of local water supplies, we can take action to increase the retaining capacity of the watershed, thereby potentially increasing water quantity and quality.

Though summers are long and dry, the Mattole is rich in water, receiving, on average, between 50 and 120 inches annually depending on location. With the roof area on my modest 580 ft2 home, and an average rainfall of 55 inches in Petrolia, I could collect 21,082 gallons of water in one season. The average American uses 50 gallons of water for household use per day, so my potential rooftop yield amounts to 421 days worth of water, solely from the roof. For a family of four, the 21, 082 gallons could provide 50 gallons per day per person for 105 days, almost the entire length of the dry season.

Smaller collection systems could also be set up on the various outbuildings that many Mattolians own such as chicken coops, barns, extra cabins, and garages. I know a landowner in Ukiah who provides all the water his flock of chickens needs for the whole year by collecting rainwater from the roof of the coop into a 500 gallon storage tank. Using collected rainwater for such purposes could significantly reduce the dry season burden on springs and aquifers.

Though storing large amounts of water in tanks can be expensive, ponds are another storage solution to contain large quantities of water and have the added benefits of water storage for fire, creating habitat for plants and animals, and storing water for irrigation available during the dry season. (See “Ponds for water storage—a good idea?” by Jim Danisch, on page XXX)

Other ways to increase the amount of water on your property are numerous. Besides water conservation techniques such as low-flow items, drip irrigation and mulching, (see Water Conservation Tips, page ????) a little creativity can go a long way. Local landowner Howard Orem has built numerous groundwater recharge ponds on his property beneath Apple Tree Ridge in Petrolia. Howard claims that all of his ponds together allow 20 million gallons of water annually to infiltrate back into the aquifers below. While this scale may be daunting, smaller, well-constructed ponds can slow water down and allow infiltration. Ponds can even have the added benefit of reducing sedimentation as water filling a pond slows its movement across the landscape, allowing the sediment to settle out.

Another technique to slow water, allow infiltration, and provide beneficial use for humans is the use of swales (see diagram), which are ditches dug on the contour of a slope. Water flowing into them from upslope collects, seeps into the ground, and fruit trees or other useful plants can be planted on the downhill side, and utilize the water in the soil through the dry season. Penny Livingston-Stark , (see sidebar) director of the Permaculture Institute of Northern California in Point Reyes, CA has implemented this technique, and has successfully grown fruit trees without watering through the summer on her northern California property called Skywater Center. Annual rainfall and weather patterns at the site, near Alderpoint, are similar to the Mattole.

As we rise to the challenges of our time surrounding water, creativity is our most powerful tool. A broader method of thinking brings solutions we may never have considered. In addition to addressing the global webs we are engaged in, the first steps bring us back to our own home, our own creeks and rivers and how we may support them.

Further Reading:

Yoemans, P.A. Water for Every Farm: Using the Keyline Plan. Second Back Row Press, Leura, NSW, Australia, 1981.

Mollison, Bill. Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. Tagari Publications, Tyalgum, Australia, 1988.



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Table of Contents for Mattole Restoration Newsletter, Issue 19 - Winter/Spring 2002-03