Welcome to the Water Wellness Toolbox
This project is supported in part thru a Rose Foundation grant from the Puget Sound Mitigation Fund and through a Waterworks grant from King County Wastewater Treatment Division. The content herein does not constitute an endorsement by King County government, its employees, or its elected and appointed officials. Thank you to the Rose Foundation and King County for the support!
The Water Wellness toolbox provides information and resources for a holistic approach to engaging community members of all ages in improving local watershed health and decreasing impacts from stormwater. In our experience, improvements in water quality are most successful when a community of all ages learns about watershed health; locals participate as valued members in figuring out water quality challenges together; and (especially in rural areas where landowners have large properties) people are given tools and agency to improve water wellness practices on their own lands.
On Vashon-Maury Island we have had success with the above multi-faceted approach to Water Wellness. In this toolbox we share what we've learned and resources we've compiled in hopes that it provides other small rural communities with a starting point to enact your own programs. We hope that this cuts down on the leg work needed to start a comprehensive program like this and gives you a chance to learn from both our successes and mistakes!
This tool box is divided into 3 resource bins that you can access through the buttons below. This is followed by a short story of the toolbox.
Education bin: This resource bin includes information to teach children and adults about stormwater and watershed health including: basic information that can be used for public outreach, vetted curriculums on watershed health topics for all ages of school children, and Vashon Nature Center's community science curriculum on watershed health that involves local 6th graders in monitoring creek health using stream invertebrates.
Community Science bin: This resource bin includes information to engage the public in collecting community science data on stormwater and watershed health including: protocols for collecting stream invertebrates, suggestions for labs for water quality and stream invertebrate analysis, datasheets, materials lists.
Stewardship bin: This resource bin was created in partnership with Garden Green Vashon and provides information for landowners on how to garden without pesticides and in ways that increase water infiltration to slow down and treat run off into our waterways and Puget Sound. Resources include fact sheets on a how to deal with a variety of common garden pest and weed problems without pesticides and short how-to videos on organic gardening practices.
Origin of the toolbox: a short story
This Water Wellness Toolbox is built by staff and partners of Vashon Nature Center based on 7 years of building a community-based watershed health stewardship program on Vashon-Maury Islands.
This effort was instigated by worry over King County stream invertebrate data that showed that the second largest salmon-bearing creek on the island, Shinglemill Creek, had low Index of Biotic Integrity scores despite having protected lands and forests that looked beautiful and pristine.
In response, Vashon Nature Center, at the request of the Vashon-Maury Island Groundwater Protection Committee, embarked on a community science and education program to discover how we could improve Shinglemill Watershed health.
Over the past 7 years, Vashon Nature Center has launched an island-wide community education program and involved 5th-11th grade students, families, and adult community members in an interconnected suite of community science projects that relate to watershed health including: Salmonwatching, Beach surveys, Stream Invertebrate surveys, Stormwater sampling, eDNA testing for fish presence, and fin clip DNA sampling.
Data from these projects is reported to King County and local conservation practitioners (like Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust) and have resulted in real management changes on the ground from the installation of large woody debris in salmon-bearing streams, to cleaner car wash practices at school fundraising events, to design and placement of a rain garden in the headwaters of Shinglemill creek with the cooperation of a private landowner in Vashon town.
Coho salmon in Judd Creek. photo by: Kelly Keenan
Shinglemill Creek and Maria Metler, Vashon Nature Center Education Programs Manager during a community stream invertebrate sampling survey. photo by: Bianca Perla
McMurray middle school students explain their stream invertebrate data and what they think it shows about the health of Shinglemill Creek through time. photo by: Bianca Perla
McMurray students learn about stream invertebrates (caddisfly pictured) from Jeff Adams, Vashon Nature Center board member. photo by: Bianca Perla
McMurray 6th graders learn how to take stream invertebrate samples in Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust's Judd Creek Preserve as part of their watershed health unit taught by Vashon Nature Center. photo by: Bianca Perla
Students learn how to draw stream invertebrates as part of a biological illustration unit taught by Vashon Nature Center and expert art illustrator Annie Brule. Photo by: Bianca Perla
Students sort stream invertebrates to order with VNC education programs manager Maria Metler as the first step in creating an Index of Biotic Integrity score for Shinglemill creek. photo by: Susie Fitzhugh
Student drawings of mayfly larvae. Photo by: Gay Roselle, 6th grade science teacher
This toolbox collates and shares the resources that we have collected along the way to engage community members and local schools in a holistic and community-based effort to improve water wellness on Vashon-Maury Islands.
Long-term stream data shows improvement in biotic integrity scores in creeks over these 7 years indicating that community restoration efforts may be paying off!
We wish for a future for the Salish Sea region with more salmon, thriving streams, healthy marine environments, and communities that are connected to their watersheds, derive wonder and sustenance from their gifts, and are proud of their part in living respectfully and as beneficial and contributing species! This toolbox is one way for us to share and contribute to this wish. photo by: Kelly Keenan
We hope these resources are helpful to you! Please reach out to us if you have any questions, suggestions, or additions you think will make this toolbox better. Do you have questions not answered in this toolbox? Do you have resources or approaches that are not covered but that you have found valuable and would like to share with others? We can all learn from each other and we appreciate all the work that goes into leading communities towards water wellness practices. We want to thank you for the work that you do in whatever capacity you are doing it--whether you are a teacher, community councilmember, interested volunteer, parent, landowner, business owner, or other, it takes a village!
vashonnaturecenter.org 206-755-5798 info@vashonnaturecenter.org