Juday Creek, South Bend, Indiana

Clear water is an unusual phenomenon in northern Indiana, but this stream flows clear even after heavy rains. It is my hope that landscape developers will do more to preserve and restore the natural features of the land in and around their projects, allowing water to move gradually through natural areas, being cleaned as it percolates through soil. Then it could seep into attractive, meandering streams instead of being shunted immediately to mud-walled ditches and fouling everything downstream with silt and chemicals. If we truly had clean, oxygen-rich water in our rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands, our quality of life would be improved dramatically, and our fish, wildlife, and native plant life would be much more diverse. Special thanks to the many people who work to keep Juday Creek clean and intact!