Municipal Tools for Watershed & Water Resource Protection

Please use the links provided to access information on the SWP, its projects, and watershed issues

Municipal Tools for Watershed and Water Resource Protection

Schoharie Watershed Program

A program of Greene County Soil and Water Conservation District

Schoharie Watershed Program

PO Box 996, 6049 Main Street

Tannersville, NY 12485

Phone 518-589-6871

Fax 518-589-6874

GCSWCD Main Office

907 County Office Building

Cairo, NY 12413

Phone 518.622.3620

Fax 518.622.0344

GCSWCD Home Page

Watershed Protection Planning

A watershed is the geographic area where all water running off the land drains to a given stream, river, lake, wetland or coastal water (see images to right). Watershed planning and management comprise an approach to protecting water quality and quantity that focuses on the entire ecosystem of a watershed. This is a departure from the traditional approach of managing individual wastewater discharges, and is necessary due to the nature of polluted runoff, which in most watersheds is the biggest contributor to water pollution. Polluted runoff is caused by a variety of land use activities, including development, transportation, agriculture and forestry, and may originate anywhere in the watershed. Due to its diffuse nature, polluted runoff has not been effectively managed through regulatory programs alone.

Watershed planning and management involve a number of activities, including targeting priority problems in a watershed, promoting a high level of involvement by interested and affected parties, developing solutions to problems through the use of the expertise and authority of multiple agencies and organizations, and measuring success through monitoring and other data gathering. Watershed management activities may take place at the state, river basin, or individual watershed level. Most issues are best addressed at the individual watershed level. For example, identifying sources of pollution that are carried by stormwater to a reservoir is best carried out by people working within that reservoir’s watershed. Other issues are more appropriate at the basin level, such as determining appropriate discharge limits for wastewater licenses within the basin. Still others may best be operated at the state level, such as the operation of a statewide permit program.

Click Here for more information about watershed planning.

Informational Papers Related to Watershed Protection

Managing Stormwater through Low Impact Development (LID) Techniques (386 Kb pdf)

Creating an Effective Riparian Buffer Ordinance (468 Kb)

NYS DEC Better Site Design (2.2 Mb pdf)

Floodplain Regulation 101 (Vermont) (47 Kb pdf)

Low Impact Development (Vermont) (103 Kb pdf)

Example Watershed Ordinances

Buffer Protection and Management Ordinance (Baltimore County, MD) (60 Kb pdf)

Floodplain Preservation Management (Portland Metro, OR) (30 Kb pdf)

Ordinance on Riparian Habitat Areas (Napa, CA) (26 Kb pdf)