Watershed Moments

I became interested in watersheds while at school in Erie. One of my classmates was involved in environmental issues and asked how her group might use Wikipedia to promote the welfare of the watershed. I suggested that forming a baseline presence at Wikipedia would allow environmentalists to collaborate on articles and begin to document what they know. I established the framework for articles on the Lake Erie Watershed, the Lake Erie Basin, and the Great Lakes Basin. The environmentalists didn't exactly rush to collaborate, though, so the articles remain roughly as I framed them. The value of the articles is that they provide a place to provide encyclopedic information about pollution derived from runoff, something you just don't find in much detail in articles about rivers and lakes. For example, the articles about Lake Erie and Erie International Airport say nothing about how de-icing of planes could cause chemical runoff that would pollute the lake if the airport didn't mitigate against it, but the watershed article contains the details. Likewise, the article about Presque Isle Downs makes no mention of how the the racino's horse barns must mitigate against eColi runoff into a local creek that feeds into Lake Erie, but the watershed article covers it. The issue of eColi runoff shutting down Presque Isle beaches is a subject that needs to be added. I would hope that environmentalists across the country would begin to use Wikipedia to document runoff issues and other concerns.