Getting Started
We invite you to explore the Butte Creek and the Restoration Project by beginning with the What and the Where. Then dig deeper to capture the depth and breadth of the project throughout the rest of this informative and interactive website. Join us on a learning journey!
What is Watershed Restoration?
Watershed
restoration is a set of tools that a community uses to keep our waterways
clean of pollution. Watershed
restoration also includes keeping the area around a waterway free of pollution
too. This area around the waterway is
referred to as the Riparian Zone. Some
of the goals that exist in watershed restoration include:
1. Reclaiming the health and resiliency of natural areas identified as critically
damaged, altered, or threatened;
2. Providing stormwater management by capturing stormwater runoff;
3. Physically enhancing stream conditions by constructing aquatic habitat or
planting native vegetation;
4. Conserving wildlife and biological diversity;
5. Maintaining the integrity water quality and yield for all uses;
6. Enhancing opportunities for sustainable uses;
7. Decreasing or eliminating the amount of non-native invasive and nuisance species.
Watershed restoration work is challenging, but the investments today will be beneficial for us as well as for future generations. Watersheds involve a multi-disciplinary approach that reflects the certainty that environmental restoration is not enough. All people live, work, and depend on their watersheds, some do this without knowing so. The Butte Creek Restoration Council seeks to protect natural resources while cultivating a vibrant, resilient economy within the Granite Creek Watershed and on the campus at Prescott College.
Click here to view the EPA's Factsheet on the Handbook for Developing Watershed Plans to Restore and Protect Our Waters
1. Reclaiming the health and resiliency of natural areas identified as critically
damaged, altered, or threatened;
2. Providing stormwater management by capturing stormwater runoff;
3. Physically enhancing stream conditions by constructing aquatic habitat or
planting native vegetation;
4. Conserving wildlife and biological diversity;
5. Maintaining the integrity water quality and yield for all uses;
6. Enhancing opportunities for sustainable uses;
7. Decreasing or eliminating the amount of non-native invasive and nuisance species.
Watershed restoration work is challenging, but the investments today will be beneficial for us as well as for future generations. Watersheds involve a multi-disciplinary approach that reflects the certainty that environmental restoration is not enough. All people live, work, and depend on their watersheds, some do this without knowing so. The Butte Creek Restoration Council seeks to protect natural resources while cultivating a vibrant, resilient economy within the Granite Creek Watershed and on the campus at Prescott College.
Click here to view the EPA's Factsheet on the Handbook for Developing Watershed Plans to Restore and Protect Our Waters
Where is the Butte Creek?
The Butte Creek is located in
central Arizona in the Upper Granite Creek Watershed. The creek is situated around the city area of
Prescott, Yavapai County and the Upper Granite Creek Watershed is a part of the
greater Verde River Watershed. Butte Creek's headwaters can be found just
southwest of Thumb Butte, near where the Sierra Prieta and Bradshaw Mountains
intersect. The creek begins in the Prescott National Forest then flows through
the city of Prescott, roughly seven miles downstream to its confluence with
Miller Creek (Miller Creek then flows to its confluence with Granite Creek). The Butte Creek Restoration Council at Prescott College works mainly with the lowermost quarter mile of Butte Creek that
flows through the college campus between North Willow Street and Grove
Avenue.