Watershed consciousness is a form of home awareness, respect, maintenance and repair. The Watershed Way is a middle way, singing a local song, somewhere close by, between Mind and Planet. Watershed Economy Watersheds provide free or relatively cheap community services that are often undervalued or not valued in river basin protection. No one has a good method for pricing sublime beauty or the value of dawn song in spring. Watershed plants, microbes and soils act as chemical renovators, biocyclers, and filters of water quality.
Clay soils are still the best free filters known.
Neither virus nor harmful bacteria escape their abilities. For instance, constructed and natural wetlands cleanse runoff pollution from feedlots, highways, acid mine drainage, clearcuts, polish treated wastewater, and restore some of the habitat destroyed during development. Free-running creeks and rivers with their rapids and waterfalls aerate the flow, increasing its water purification and supporting salmonid fish. Watershed plant life modulates solar energy collection by shading the ground, humidifies and filters the air, and changes the color of the watershed surface compared to surface textures such as asphalt. The Forest Service has estimated that tens of millions of dollars in cooling bills could be saved by urban and desert-city reforestation and many millions saved in health costs.