Our Watersheds: Our Responsibility
This month, Keep Pinellas Beautiful (KPB) is teaming up with Tampa Bay Water's Imagine a Day Without Water campaign to highlight the importance of water and keeping our waterways healthy. Water is essential for all life, and it is also a vital resource for tourism and recreation in Pinellas County, which welcomes over 15 million visitors each year. That's why it's so crucial to keep our waterways clean. And it all starts with protecting our watersheds.
What is a Watershed?
A watershed is an area of land that drains rainwater and snowmelt into a body of water, such as a river or stream. The water from smaller bodies eventually makes its way into larger bodies of water, such as bays and oceans. The United States is part of a watershed, as all US land drains into a body of water. This means the land you’re on is a watershed, even if there is no visible water.
Pinellas County is part of the Tampa Bay Watershed, which is 6,410 square miles and drains into Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Across the county, rainwater travels from lawns and driveways through the gutters and into storm drains, expelling into our local water bodies such as Brooker Creek or Lake Seminole. Eventually, this water makes its way to the Bay and Gulf. This makes it crucial to be mindful of possible pollutants in your household that could drain into the beautiful water Pinellas County is known for.
Why Are Watersheds at Risk?
Unfortunately, healthy watersheds are uncommon in the highly developed areas of the country. As water drains through streets, lawns, and driveways, it picks up pollutants that follow it to the waterbody it ends up in. These pollutants include fertilizer, animal waste, overflow from sewers, and motor oil, to name a few. The increased frequency of extreme weather created by climate change also impacts watersheds by causing unexpected flooding, causing habitat and property damage.
How You Can Help
Keeping our watersheds clean is the first step in the protection of our waterbodies and their habitats. Because watersheds are on land, careful consideration must be taken into the disposal of trash and chemicals. Here are some steps you can take to keep the Tampa Bay Watershed in great health:
Avoid pouring toxic household chemicals and oil down the drain. While it may seem harmless to dispose of household cleaners and used oil down the drain, these chemicals (antifreeze, ammonia, bleach) can be toxic to the bodies of water they eventually end up in. Instead, dispose of them with your local household hazardous waste (HHW) program. Pinellas County’s HHW collection facility is open for drop-offs select days a week and is located at 2855 109th Ave N, St. Petersburg. They also host collection events on select Saturdays as a convenient way to dispose of household chemicals.
Dispose of dog waste in the trash.
Avoid using fertilizers! Instead, plant native, low-maintenance plants that require little to no water or fertilizers.
Recycle yard waste in compost piles.
Keep motor oil off the road by driving less; try carpooling, public transit, or cycling instead.
Work With KPB to Preserve Our Water
At KPB, we work daily to keep the water of Pinellas pristine. With the help of our volunteers and ambassadors, we host regular cleanups to remove trash and debris from our watershed and water bodies. With plastic being one of the biggest polluters of our water, KPB has also developed a microplastic program in an effort to improve the water quality of Tampa Bay. Since 2020, this program has assessed over 77 samples of Pinellas waters for microplastics using the Florida Microplastics Awareness Project’s methodology.
Join us in our mission to preserve our water by becoming a microplastic ambassador or attending an upcoming cleanup.
