Definition: An area of land to which all water flows

Let’s break that down some more:

Think of a watershed as a funnel, no matter where you pour the water in the funnel it is going to spill out the bottom. Now imagine that that funnel flowing into another funnel which flows into another funnel and so forth. The Ottawa River Watershed is just one part of the Lake Erie Watershed. You read that right, water here in Allen County flows north towards Lake Erie. The Ottawa River Watershed is a “headwater stream” of the Lake Erie Watershed. This means that we are a “starting point” for the water that will eventually end up in the Great Lake.

Answer: Glaciers!

When the last ice age (Wisconsinan Glaciation) hit 14,000 years ago, giant glaciers slowly made their way south from the Arctic. Moving at a speed of approximately 100 feet per day, these ginormous frozen beasts flattened anything in their path, including the ground. When the ice age was over and the glaciers receded back north, they left northern Ohio super flat.

Answer: Your actions matter!

Little things we do here in the Ottawa River Watershed can have huge impacts on the rest of the Lake Erie watershed. It is important to protect our waterways because “our waterways” are a lot of people’s waterways.