Montgomery Watershed

 I am from right outside Princeton New Jersey and the local watershed is the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed. The watershed spans 265 square miles and covers 5 counties. The Stony Brook leads into the Millstone River which runs north to the Raritan River that flows to the Raritan Bay in Sandy Hook New Jersey.

The Central New Jersey watersheds provide water for more than 16 million people across 4 states. There are many initiatives in place to protect the watershed. Some of the central issues in the area are polluted stormwater runoff, unneeded pipelines, harmful algal blooms, and useless dams.

In the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed, there are important ordinances to study and local sources of polluted stormwater runoff. The PennEast pipeline project was shut down and the Watershed Institute continues to fight against potential pipeline development in the state. The harmful algal blooms pose a large threat in the area but there have been floating wetlands that grow plants to soak up excess nutrients that cause these algal blooms. The area is filled with dams and although doesn't pose a threat to drinking water, removing them returns the ecosystem and the fish community to its original state.

Sources:

https://thewatershed.org/