Definitions

Watersheds: the portion of a landscape that drains to a particular stream, river, or other body of water. If rain falls on saturated soil, it will run off downhill. Runoff from all the surfaces in a watershed eventually will reach the stream or river, for which the watershed is named. Do you know your watershed by name?

Storm dDrains: the inlet in a parking lot or street gutter where water runs into the pipes underground pipes, which transport rainwater to our local waterways UNTREATED. 

Permeable: a material that allows other substances to flow through it.  An example would be soil that water can filter or seep through.

Illustration by Celeste Rusconi

Untreated: the water is not altered, cleaned or changed before it is discharged into our local waterways.  Whatever materials or substances run with the rain into the storm drain system end up in our local waterways