These days, there is lots of talk about being environmentally sensitive. Maybe you conserve farm water, are driving less and walking more, composting manure, and using a worm bin. Perhaps you use cloth bags at the store, have installed compact fluorescent light bulbs in your home and barn, and recycle everything from bailing twine to paper feed sacks. But there are more ways we horse owners can help the earth. By conserving farm water we help keep watersheds clean.
Understanding Watersheds
Consider the watershed in which you live. Picture it as a big mixing bowl. Each watershed has a system of creeks, streams, rivers, and depressions that the water drains through on its path to an ocean or underground aquifer.
No matter where we live or what we do, the runoff we produce affects water quality. Runoff from homes, streets, parking lots, forests, farms, and ranches contributes to what scientists refer to as "non-point pollution." Activities like logging, home building, road construction, traffic, industry and agriculture, washing your horse, and sprinkling your lawn have an impact. All runoff-whether it contains oils, chemicals, sediments, septic tank wastes, or animal waste-has the potential to reach surface waters through storm drains, streams, and waterways. The pollutants can become a permanent fixture in the watershed (or mixing bowl) in which you live.
H2O Pure & Simple
- Prevent runoff and erosion.
- Conserve farm water every way you can.
- Reduce the use and impact of chemicals at home, in the barn, and around your farm.
- Choose biodegradable, non-toxic, earth-friendly products.
- Cover and compost manure.
- Protect vegetation, trails, and streambeds from the impact of horses.
As horse owners, we should be aware that runoff from manure can cause a heavy impact if it reaches streams and wetlands. Sediments cloud the water. Nutrients upset the natural balance of plant growth, thereby reducing oxygen and creating a poor environment for fish and other aquatic life. Bacteria from manure can contaminate water, making it unsafe for recreation and rendering marine life hazardous for human consumption. Even if you don't have a stream or body of water on your property, contaminated runoff from manure or chemicals can still make its way into a local lake, creek, or groundwater.
Pollution to surface water is only one concern. Up to 60% of us rely on groundwater (the huge expanses of underground aquifers) for our drinking water. This natural resource, a remnant of the Ice Age, is limited just like oil. Some accounts say our groundwater aquifers will be tapped out within a hundred years. Clean, safe drinking water is the most valuable resource on earth.
What we do on our horse properties and with our horses can reduce non-point pollution, conserve water, reduce mud, make our pastures more productive, and make our horse lives easier to manage.
