Comments on: What’s the Story with Watershed Road Signs?

By: Signs Signs Everywhere a Sign … « Central Indiana Watersheds

Signs Signs Everywhere a Sign … « Central Indiana Watersheds — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:46:44 +0000

[...] Sign … Coincidently while working on some watershed signs for Eagle Creek Watershed, this post from “Water Words That Work” showed up today. The point is made in the post that again [...]

By: flyfish509

flyfish509 — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:40:18 +0000

I see them as extremely valuable, especially when the waterbody is well known and already perceived as valuable. The Chesapeake signs elicited a “gee whiz” response in our car (we know what a watershed is) because of its geographic extent.
DOT rules demand brevity, so it is a challenge to reach those who don’t understand “watershed”. I see it as an opportunity to educate; people will talk about signs.
Signs for “entering” and “leaving” should obviously be posted at crest of hill.

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:15:04 +0000

I was in Tennessee this weekend, saw some of these signs, and immediately thought of this blog.

On one hand, I think that these signs might be helpful toward familiarizing people with the word watershed…when used correctly.

Some of the signs that I saw were perfectly positioned right at the crest of a mountain so that drivers would see the sign right as the water body in the valley below came into view. Coupling the sign with the beautiful view seemed to me a great illustration of the meaning of the word.

However, other signs that I saw were placed at random locations along the highway, or directly beside a creek just before the bridge that ran over it. Those signs were meaningless: drivers had already been in the watershed for several miles before seeing the signs. In those situations a sign that said, “Now crossing beautiful XXX creek. Keep it clean! Don’t litter” would have made a lot more sense and had a lot better impact.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:31:20 +0000

Good point! Unless you plan to include a definition on the sign as to what a watershed is, stick to the waterbody name — people relate to that. I still talk to folks who know “watershed” in terms of “a watershed event”, a turning-point in history. While I’m sure there are some nice poetic echoes there, it won’t help them understand drainage or groundwater.