Indiana residents and wildlife all use and need healthy watersheds as well as, agriculture, industry and communities rely on them too. A watershed is the area of land where all of the water flows across or through the ground; that area that drains to a common waterway, such as a stream, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, or even the ocean – and our individual actions can directly affect it.

We all must find better ways to restore, protect, and manage our watersheds that make up Indiana and in doing so The First Indiana Watershed Leadership Academy (IWLA) began Jan. 9, 2006 and will conclude in June with 24 students from across the State. Participants include Noell Krughoff, Little Blue River Shelby and Rush Watershed.

The Indiana Watershed Leadership Academy (IWLA) is an in-depth training program of Purdue University. The program draws on expertise and resources at Purdue and collaborates with Indiana’s major conservation agencies. Support is provided by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management through Section 319 of the Clean Water Act. Our Purdue University Coordination Team consists of Jane Frankenberger, Associate Professor and Brent Ladd, Water Quality Specialist of the Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering, and Shorna Broussard, Assistant Professor of the Department of Forestry & Natural Resources.

The IWLA helps local leaders to engage their organizations and communities in successful watershed management through the following means:

n Education and completion of a professional certificate course in watershed management

n Statewide face-to-face class sessions/conferences and online communication tools for the exchange of problems and solutions

n A support network through collaboration and partnership with research and education experts and conservation organizations

The adventure into the understanding of Watershed Planning & Management/Stakeholder Involvement began Jan. 9 with two online modules. The course layout will have the participants completing a total of 10 watershed modules with a number of electives to help in the educational aspect of the watersheds. As the group met at the first face-to-face session at the Indiana FFA Leadership Center, Trafalgar, members engaged in a central theme of "Involving Community in Watershed Planning" with topics covering – Stakeholder Involvement, Engaging Local Officials in Watershed Planning, and Planning a Vision and Inventory of our Watersheds. Realizing that each participant is at different levels of watershed planning, the wealth of knowledge and expertise was astounding as we gathered together to learn from each other.

The watershed academy will be offered again in 2007. More information about the Indiana Watershed Leadership Program is available online at http://www.purdue.edu/watersheds.

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Additional information on watersheds

Contained in Indiana are an incredible number of river and lake systems, including the notable Wabash River the longest free flowing river east of the Mississippi. The Wabash Rive watershed basin drains approximately two-thirds of Indiana, flowing into the Ohio River at Indiana’s most southwest point.

John Wesley Powell, scientist geographer, put it best when he said that a watershed is: "that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community." Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes. They cross county, state, and national boundaries. No matter where you are, you're in a watershed! It is important to remember that watersheds refer to surface water only, groundwater, which is the source of much of our drinking water, is influenced by surface water but occurs in underground aquifers, not watersheds.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the US Water Resource Council and the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) developed the Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) as a way to catalog portions of the landscape according to their drainage. There are 6-digit HUC’s, 8-digit HUC’s, 11-digit HUC’s and then 14-digit HUC’s…all nested within each other – the bigger the HUC number is, the smaller the watershed is. The United States has been mapped to include 2,262 eight-digit hydrologic unit code level watersheds with Indiana comprised of 38 of those across the State.

A watershed plan is a plan of action and protection of the watershed created by Stakeholders to improve the quality of life for people in the watershed (Stakeholders) by helping ensure clean water and healthy natural resources.