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Lesson plan Grade 9 Social Studies & Civics

Protecting the Applecross Watershed Across Town Lines

A grade 9 lesson in which students negotiate as a joint watershed board over a fictional town's attempt to restrict land use in the township that holds its water supply.

Objectives

  1. Students will identify where the legal authority to regulate land use sits in a two-government water dispute.
  2. Students will compare three policy instruments for protecting a drinking water reservoir.
  3. Students will negotiate a recorded recommendation and state the strongest objection to it.

Vocabulary

Watershed
A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.

Also: watershed protection area, conservation easement, zoning authority, payment for watershed services

Teacher overview

A town that owns a reservoir usually does not own the land that drains into it, yet what happens on that land determines the quality of the water the town has to treat. This lesson puts students on a joint watershed board formed by the fictional town of Northolt and the fictional Garrick Falls Township, which holds most of the watershed and takes none of the water. The misconception to correct early is that owning a reservoir carries authority over the surrounding land; in most states the power to zone belongs to whichever municipality the parcel sits in, so a town can hold the water rights, the intake, and the treatment plant and still have no vote on what gets built above it. Students test three instruments against that limit and find that the township government can block only one of them outright, while a second depends on township landowners agreeing to sell.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Project a simple watershed outline showing the fictional Applecross Reservoir near the bottom, the town line running across the middle, and four-fifths of the drainage area sitting inside Garrick Falls Township. Ask one question: who decides what gets built in the shaded area. Take three answers and leave the question open.

Document reading (12 min): Students read the three source documents on the handout, a Northolt council resolution, a letter from the Garrick Falls Township board, and a memo from the state environmental agency, then answer handout items 1 through 4 individually. Circulate and check that students are quoting the documents rather than guessing.

Instrument briefing (8 min): Present the three policy instruments in the handout, naming for each one who must agree before it takes effect. Ask the class to sort the three by how much township consent each requires, which is the formative check for the lesson: if the class cannot place the protection area and the easement purchase correctly, reteach the difference between regulating land and buying an interest in it before the negotiation.

Joint board negotiation (20 min): Divide the class into joint boards of six, three Northolt members and three Garrick Falls members on each board, with the remaining students as recorders. Each delegation gets four minutes to state its position, six minutes for open exchange, and four minutes to draft a motion naming one instrument and one condition. Recorders write the motion in one sentence and note which delegation moved it.

Debrief and exit ticket (10 min): Read two or three motions aloud and ask which of them Garrick Falls could reject outright and which it could not. Students then complete handout items 5 through 7 and turn in the sheet.

Protecting the Applecross Watershed Across Town Lines — Grade 9 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Northolt, Garrick Falls Township, the Applecross Reservoir, and all three documents below are fictional, written for this lesson.

Northolt is a town of 21,000 people. Its drinking water comes from the Applecross Reservoir, which the town built and owns. Four-fifths of the land that drains into that reservoir lies inside Garrick Falls Township, a separate government of 3,400 people whose residents all use private wells and receive no water from the reservoir.

Document 1: Northolt council resolution, excerpt. "The council finds that new development in the Applecross drainage area increases the runoff, the septic density, and the road salt reaching the reservoir, and that treating for those inputs would raise Northolt water rates. The council therefore petitions the state to designate the drainage area as a watershed protection area, with a minimum lot size of three acres, a limit of ten percent impervious cover per lot, and a 200-foot buffer along every stream."

Document 2: Garrick Falls Township board letter, excerpt. "The proposed protection area would apply to 62 percent of the taxable land in this township. Our residents would lose the value of land they have paid taxes on for decades, and our schools would lose the growth in assessed value that pays for them. Not one household in Garrick Falls drinks from the Applecross Reservoir. We would carry the restriction and Northolt would collect the benefit. No resident of this township votes for a single member of the Northolt council."

Document 3: State environmental agency memo, excerpt. "The department may designate a watershed protection area, but the department's practice is to require the affected local governments to attempt a negotiated agreement first. Zoning authority in this state rests with the municipality in which the land lies. The department can condition Northolt's water supply permit on a source protection plan, and it can review, but not write, the township's zoning ordinance."

The joint board is weighing three instruments:

  • Instrument A: a state-designated watershed protection area imposing the lot size, impervious cover, and buffer rules in Document 1.
  • Instrument B: Northolt purchases land and conservation easements in the drainage area from willing township landowners, paying market value.
  • Instrument C: Northolt pays Garrick Falls $340,000 a year out of its water rates in exchange for a township-adopted watershed ordinance, and the township receives three of seven seats on a joint watershed board.
  1. According to Document 1, what specific problem does the Northolt council say the protection area would prevent?
  2. Document 2 gives a reason about who pays for the restriction. State that reason in your own words.
  3. Document 2 gives a separate reason about representation. State that reason in your own words.
  4. Document 3 says the department will require the two governments to attempt an agreement first, and that zoning authority rests with the municipality where the land lies. What do those two statements together tell you about where the power to impose Instrument A actually sits?
  5. Instrument C would be paid out of Northolt's water rates. Who ultimately provides that money, and what do they receive in return?
  6. Name one unintended outcome of Instrument A that the Northolt resolution does not mention, and explain who would feel it.
  7. Which instrument would you move at the joint board, and what is the strongest objection to your choice?

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: Higher treatment costs from development in the drainage area.
    Document 1 names runoff, septic density, and road salt as the inputs, and states that treating for them would raise Northolt water rates. Students should quote or paraphrase the rate consequence, not only the list of pollutants.
  2. Answer: The township would bear the cost while Northolt gets the benefit.
    Garrick Falls landowners would lose development value on 62 percent of the township's taxable land, and the township's schools would lose the growth in assessed value, while no township household drinks the water the restriction protects.
  3. Answer: No township resident can vote for the Northolt council.
    The rules would be sought by a body that township residents have no part in electing, so the ordinary remedy of voting out the officials who imposed a burden is unavailable to them.
  4. Answer: The township holds the zoning power, so Instrument A depends on the state acting over the township's objection.
    Northolt cannot impose the protection area itself. The state can designate a protection area, yet its stated practice is to send the parties back to negotiate, and it will not write the township's ordinance for it. That makes Instrument A the slowest and least certain path, and it explains why Northolt has any reason to offer money at all.
  5. Answer: Northolt water customers pay, and they receive protection of their own supply.
    The $340,000 comes from rates, so every Northolt household and business funds it. In return they avoid the higher treatment costs the resolution warns about, which is a genuine exchange rather than a gift, though students should note that customers pay whether or not the township ever restricts anything.
  6. Answer: Accept any well-supported unintended outcome with the affected group named.
    Strong answers include three-acre minimum lots pushing development into a scattered pattern that requires more roads and more septic systems per house; landowners selling to a single large buyer because small parcels lose value, concentrating control of the watershed; the township raising its tax rate on remaining property to replace lost revenue, which falls hardest on residents with fixed incomes; or resentment that makes the township refuse cooperation Northolt will need later on road salt and culverts.
  7. Answer: Accept any instrument the student moves with a named objection.
    A strong Instrument C answer argues that it is the only option that pays the party bearing the cost and gives the township a permanent seat, and concedes that Northolt ratepayers fund a benefit they cannot enforce directly. A strong Instrument B answer argues that a purchased easement runs with the land and outlasts any council, and concedes that willing sellers may not own the parcels that matter most. A strong Instrument A answer argues that only a rule covers every parcel at once, and concedes that it will take years and may lose.

Differentiation

Support

Give students a document-analysis frame with the three fictional documents summarized in one sentence each and space for a direct quotation under each summary. Pair the frame with a two-column chart headed "Who decides" and "Who pays," and complete the first row with the class using Instrument A.

Extension

Ask students to draft the four operative sentences of the intergovernmental agreement Instrument C would require, naming the payment, the term, the seats on the joint board, and what happens if the fictional township later repeals its ordinance. Students then identify which of those four sentences would be hardest for a Northolt council member to defend at a rate hearing.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "watershed," "protection area," "easement," and "zoning" using the projected watershed sketch, with the town line and the shaded drainage area labeled in both languages where possible. Provide sentence frames for the negotiation: "Our delegation supports Instrument ___ because ___," "We cannot accept ___ unless ___," and "We move that the joint board recommend ___."

Extensions

Students look up whether their own drinking water comes from a surface source and, if so, which counties or towns the watershed crosses, using only the utility's published consumer confidence report or source water assessment summary. They then write a paragraph comparing that arrangement with the fictional split between Northolt and Garrick Falls. A second option is to write the two-page memo the state department would send back to both governments after reading the motions the class produced.