Millions of beaver ponds and dams once sponsored a lush mosaic of wetlands throughout the Chesapeake region. These slowed, spread and retained water flowing to the Bay from every creek and river, letting it soak in and percolate through the ground. Because beavers have been gone for so long - they were trapped out of the Chesapeake Bay watershed by 1750 - there is an ‘ecological amnesia' as to the benefits they conferred, the world they created, and how the watershed ‘thought’ for thousands of years. 

Water’s Way: Thinking Like a Watershed explores the impact of development, agriculture and the channelization  of streams and creeks on the natural processes that once worked to control runoff and filter the water – and how natural elements like beavers and trees could aid efforts to restore the Bay.