The region's water bodies provide clean drinking water, as well as areas of natural beauty, biological diversity and cultural significance. However, natural resources are threatened by unmanaged growth that requires land to be paved over for expansive roads, parking lots, and buildings.

Pavement decreases the land's natural ability to absorb and filter rainwater before it returns to the water table. Large impermeable surfaces, like parking lots, prevent water from slowly filtering through the ground to be cleansed of pollutants and gradually returned to aquifers, rivers, lakes, and streams. Instead, water returns directly to waterbodies in the form of "runoff," a mix of rainwater and the many pollutants the water has picked up from our roadways and parking lots; such as gas and oils.  Additionally, this water erodes stream and river banks, adding sediments to waterways. The erosion and pollution that results from sprawl has such a negative impact on water quality that it could overwhelm the progress that has been made to clean up the region's water.