Message from the Director: What's Your Watershed Address?

by Shane Tippett, Executive Director, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

Virginia’s streams, lakes, rivers and bays, particularly the Bay, are the common wealth of our Commonwealth. As the nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, a set of federal guidelines establishing standards for surface water quality and pollutant discharge, it’s time to reflect on the message behind the legislation. What we’ve learned through hard experience is that we all can too easily damage our waterways, too easily demand more from a precious resource than it has to give.

We have been thinking very hard about water at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. Our strategic plan focuses on water conservation as our first and foremost goal over the next few years. We will practice it, demonstrate it, teach it. We will consider the water that falls on, flows through and streams past our Garden. We will increase our understanding as to where we fit in to the grand scheme of things, and we’ll strive to be a good neighbor to those upstream and downstream of our property.

Virginia has 497 sub-watersheds that comprise our state’s 14 major watersheds (flowing to the Chesapeake Bay, the Albemarle Sound and the Gulf of Mexico), and the Virginia’s Department of Conservation and Recreation encourages us all to know our “watershed address.” So if you plan to visit the Garden to learn more about water stewardship, find us at 1800 Lakeside Avenue, a.k.a. Thorpe Branch Watershed, Upham Brook Watershed, Chickahominy Watershed, James River Basin, Chesapeake Bay. Together, let’s learn how to make wise water decisions today that will positively affect our tomorrow.