Get to know your watershed!

Eagle Mountain Lake

Image credit: Eagle Mountain Lake, view from the Western shore, Tarrant County, TX, by Gordon Reid, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, unported/Wikimedia Commons.

Fort Worth's water needs are met by water from several lakes (which are actually manmade reservoirs), located largely to its northwest. These include Lake Bridgeport, Eagle Mountain Lake, and Lake Worth. Water flows through the Ash Creek area into Eagle Mountain Lake and flows through all of the northwest lakes via the west fork of the Trinity River. The West Fork and the Clear Fork of the Trinity join at Benbrook Lake just southwest of Fort Worth, then flow through Fort Worth and into Dallas where these join the Trinity's other forks. From there the Trinity's waters flow southeast past the Cedar Creek reservoir, to Houston. Thus rain in Dallas and Fort Worth provide water for Houston downstream (see the CBS information, "What happens to rain . . . . -- linked to below -- and also the map below on this page, on the right). The Tarrant Regional Water district may also pump water between the lakes or reservoirs. The seventeenth-century French explorer, Nicholas de la Salle, called the Trinity River 'the River of Three Canoes' (Wikipedia, Brazos).

J. Perret: Quotes About Water
jperret.tripod.com/water.html
Benjamin Franklin said, in Poor Richard's Almanac (1746), that, "When the well is dry, we know the worth of water." See this and other quotations.

Tarrant Regional Water District: Watershed Protection for Tarrant County
www.trwd.com/water-supply/environmental/environmental-stewardship/watershed-protection/
TRWD protects the Big Sandy Creek portion of the Eagle Mountain Lake watershed, Cedar Creek, the Richland Chambers Lakes, and the Trinity River, which is where Tarrant County water comes from. It's also planning projects with Lake Worth (see www.trwd.com/water-supply/environmental/environmental-stewardship/watershed-protection/#arlington).

Trinity River Authority of Texas
www.trinityra.org/
The River's "conservation and reclamation district" "provides water from reservoir facilities, water and wastewater treatment." It also provides "recreation and reservoir facilities" in the River basin.

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ): Upper Trinity River Watershed Projects: Protecting Recreational Uses
www.tceq.texas.gov/waterquality/tmdl/nav/uppertrinitywatersheds/112-uppertrinitysurvey

CBS: What happens to rain that falls in Dallas and Tarrant Counties?
dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/06/27/map-watersheds-for-dfw-lakes-why-rain-that-falls-in-dallas-provides-drinking-water-to-houston-not-dallas/
Trinity River watershed

Image credit: Map of the Trinity River watershed in Texas, by I, Kuru, from USGS data originating, Creative Commons Attribution 2.5, 'Share alike'/Wikimedia Commons.

Hint: it flows into basins downhill. So where does your water come from if not from your rain? Click to see maps. Also see map to the right.

USGS (United States Geological Survey): Science in Your Watershed
water.usgs.gov/wsc/map_index.html
For the Fort Wort (Tarrant County, TX) district: click on the Texas Gulf region map then when you go there click on 1203 then on the map of the smaller area on 120301 then on 12030102 for Tarrant County's watershed map! Here it is:
District 12030102: Tarrant County
water.usgs.gov/wsc/cat/12030102.html
More information on Tarranty County
water.usgs.gov/lookup/getwatershed?12030102/www/cgi-bin/lookup/getwatershed


Eric Hadd (Georgia Middle School): Map Your Local Watershed
academics.smcvt.edu/vtgeographic/lesson%20plans/map_local_watershed.htm
Lesson plan for grades 4 to 12; "Students learn how to map their local watershed from a topographic map, then find the watershed on an aerial photograph. Students use maps and aerial photos from the Web."

Environmental Protection Agency Nonpoint Source
www.epa.gov/nps/nonpoint-source-volunteer-monitoring
Methods manuals for volunteer monitoring of streams, estuaries, lakes, more!

(August, 2017.)