A C.P.R. plan is a plan for the conservation, preservation and restoration of a watershed. Watershed citizens and other users of the watershed develop these plans as a guide to help maintain, preserve and restore a stream's water quality and health.  Although these terms are used everyday, what exactly is meant by them? 

Conservation is using resources sustainably, that is so we don't use them up or harm the system that produces them.  For instance, we must carefully manage grazing and forestry so that the land is not left bare which leads to erosion.  We also need to leave areas in a natural state so that wildlife habitat remains and so that the streams have strong and stable banks.

Preservation attempts to keep ecosystems in a largely natural condition.  Certain parts of the watershed are central to the health of the stream and need to be preserved in near-natural state.  For example, the riparian areas and the floodplains must be relatively undisturbed for a healthy stream.  

Finally, restoration is taking action to return a damaged stream to a more healthy condition.  Often we do not know what the prior state of a watershed was and we are forced to use other less-impacted watersheds for reference.  We must strive to understand this and not try to prevent a watershed from changing in a natural, healthy way.

Most watersheds need C.P.R. in that we need conservation of the healthy parts, preservation of the critical parts and restoration of the damaged parts.

We invite you to develop your own CPR plan.