Our community has some special people that volunteer at Stillwaters Environmental Education Center a few hours every month on the Cutthroats of Carpenter Creek Monitoring Team. They tromp out into the stream, marshes and bay to measure the water quality there and observe the physical environment. Why would they bother? Why should we care?

You may remember the line from that Joni Mitchell song, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Well, it’s true! We live near things very special – our healthy, functioning streams, wetlands and wildlife habitats.

Do you ever think about that when you drive down West Kingston Road? The wetland systems you see on either side of the road are saltwater/brackish marshes. They have special vegetation, sediments and water properties that are processing nutrients for the insects and small aquatic critters that small salmon eat on their way to the sea. The vegetation and large woody debris creates deep and shallow areas. The deeper areas provide fish places to hide, feed and rest while their bodies transform to live in salt water. All these complex chemical and physical changes are happening right under our noses, every minute of the day.

Another example of natural habitats is just up the road – the wooded wetlands and upland areas farther along West Kingston Road. All the wooded lands connected north and south, from Eglon to Indianola, are home to some of the largest animals in the Pacific Northwest’s food chain: black bears. Bears live here along with many other levels of the terrestrial food chain – coyote, foxes, rabbits and bats – down to their smallest prey like voles, grubs and insects.

In most places where people live in great numbers, these food webs have already been fragmented and whittled down to only a few predators and prey, usually raccoons and rats. Not here! You and I live where natural land- and water-based ecosystems still thrive with multiple layers. We have freshwater systems, saltwater areas and very important estuarine areas all within a few miles.

Perhaps if you have always lived in Kitsap County, this is not special to you. However, for many of us who come from places where these diverse natural systems are already long gone, our experience of nature have been remnant patches of a stream or wetland and these large intact ecosystems are quite rare.

So why doesn’t a discussion of water monitoring just jump right into talking about dissolved oxygen and temperature measurements? Because we first have to remember why anyone would go out in the weather to do monitoring and observe our streams and bay: because they are STILL HERE TO SEE AND LEARN FROM!

Through the next few months I hope these articles help you learn about Carpenter Creek and Appletree Cove and begin to ask questions about what you see around you every day. We will explore what our measurement efforts are and what they tell us. We will talk about what is a “functioning” stream and what it means to all of us if it is not functioning. While watching water quality, we are watching ourselves.

Betsy Cooper is a board member and stream monitor at Stillwaters Environmental Education Center. She also serves on the Kingston Citizens’ Advisory Council.