OUTDOOR CORNER: IT'S A SMALL WORLD, ESPECIALLY SHEN IT COMES TO OUR WATER

What are some things that bind us together? Mark Twain said that when the compliments work down to babies we all stand on common ground.

Another thing that binds us together is that we all reside in watersheds.

What goes on in a watershed? We live and work there. We harvest trees for lumber and paper. We grow crops and livestock so we can eat. We build homes to live in, stores to shop in, and places to conduct business. We hunt, fish, and recreate in them. We use them for transportation.

And they produce water, cool, clear water as the Sons of the Pioneers used to harmonize.

And sooner or later water problems become people problems.

Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes, just like people. Here in Southeast Missouri we are all part of the Mississippi River watershed. Some, but not all, of us live in the Walker Branch or Hubble Creek watersheds.

Most of us like to think we care about our neighbor. We don't set out to harm anybody.

But if we all are connected in a watershed, will not our actions have an impact on our neighbors land and water? If we are connected by use of the same water resource, all of a sudden what people do in Iowa may not seem so neighborly. Do the commercial fisherman at the mouth of the Mississippi think we are good neighbors? The fishery that supports their families, communities and way of life is in trouble. They are looking up the watershed for the culprit.

But like most things that go wrong, it starts off with the little things:

"My little bit of fudging won't hurt. I'll harvest my timber, but I don't need to fix the haul roads back up. I'll clean right up to the stream bank because my little quarter of a mile or so won't matter. I'll build a few new homes and my little bit of soil run off won't matter. I'll straighten out my little bit of stream. The increased velocity won't hurt my downstream neighbor a whole lot.

"My little bit most likely won't matter."

But you do your little bit and our neighbor does a little more and first thing you know the little bit got big.

We live in a watershed. To live we need natural resources. Most people don't want to live in a teepee. We need people to log, farm, mine and build homes.

But as consumers are we willing to help pay to do things right? Is it cheaper to do things right up front? Or is it cheaper to deal with increased flooding due to channelization, and removal of vegetation from stream banks? If we start doing things different will it be better than paying for expensive flood control projects? Are more rules cheaper?

Miners used to take canaries down in the mines. When the bird went belly up the miner knew to get out something wasn't right. We all tend to shrug it off when a small fish, plant or critter disappears from a watershed.

Beware of the dead canary.

Water and watersheds will get hotter politically. When the news report is talking about harvesting issues, land zoning, water rights, water transportation or flooding the real issue is life in the watershed.

What we do to the soil and streams we do to the water someone drinks .

Right now the discussion seems to consist in blaming the other guy. We all live in a watershed. We all contribute to the use and benefit from the resource. Perhaps we would make better progress if we adhere to the adage of getting the timber out of our eye before we remove the splinter from our neighbors.

Willie Nelson used to sing, we're all in this gig together so we had better learn to sing each other's song.

Joe Garvey is a district forester with the Missouri Department of Conservation.