We are taking advantage of river restoration “experiments” to understand reach-scale and watershed-scale controls on critical ecosystem functions by comparing physical, biological, and biogeochemical variables among four urban restored, four urban degraded and four minimally impacted forested streams (blocked by watershed size and parent geology).  We hypothesize that for effective stream restoration projects, the estimates of organic matter storage (BOM), metabolism and nutrient uptake should fall along a trajectory between these same estimates from similarly situated urban degraded and forested sites.  Our preliminary results show that restored streams have significantly lower percent canopy cover than either urban or forested streams.  Although we found no significant differences in production (GPP), respiration (CR), or BOM, we found that net daily metabolism is significantly higher in urban streams than in forested streams, with restored streams falling in between.  Many variables that are not significant among groups are strongly correlated to watershed variables.  Percent imperviousness in the watershed is significantly positively correlated with channel incision, average water depth, average concentrations of phosphate and total organic carbon, and net autotrophy (P:R).  Restored streams are not outliers to these watershed relationships, suggesting that reach scale restoration is not sufficient to ameliorate watershed scale insults.