SAVE THE DATE!
WATER
QUALITY AND AVAILABILITY - PANEL DISCUSSION AT SUSTAINABILITY
ACTION ANNUAL MEETING
Friday, 2 February 2018,
6:00pm
Douglas County Fair Grounds, Dreher Building, 2110 Harper St.,
Lawrence KS 66046
The Sustainability Action 2018 Annual
Meeting will host a panel discussion on "Protecting Water in Kansas: Quality and
Availability", with a local, regional, and state
focus. The panel will consist of water activists who are
leaders in their own organizations, and who draw upon varying
perspectives for protecting our valuable waters. Our intent is
to
educate, inspire, bring additional people into the movement, collaborate, and mobilize to
action. The following representatives from these groups will be
the panelists:
Dawn Buehler
- Friends of the Kaw
Elaine Giessel -
Kansas Sierra Club
Thad Holcombe - Water
Advocacy Team
Karin
Pagel-Meiners - Wakarusa Group, Sierra Club
Jessica Skyfield -
Kansas Water
Eric Kirkendall,
moderator - Sustainability Action Network
Water is our most
precious good, enabling and cleansing all life. Only 2.5% of
Earth's water is fresh - present in lakes, streams,
aquifers, and the atmosphere. It
is an all-encompassing concern, spanning the aspects of water
quality, quantity, privatization, sea level rise, wars, and
more. Water availability
is threatened by drought, desertification, pollution,
urbanization, overconsumption, and privatization. Water quality is threatened by our
industrial society in several ways, from injection wells and
fracking, to nitrate fertilizer and pesticide runoff, and
pharmaceuticals and other toxins.
Most of the pollution and overconsumption can be traced to
industrial activities such as fossil fuel extraction,
petrochemical plants, power generation, urban lawn chemicals,
and industrial agriculture. The cumulative result of all this
is that our streams have become open sewers, aquatic ecosystems
are compromised, aquifers are contaminated or threatened, crop
failures are more common for both irrigating and subsistence
farmers, cost of water treatment is rising, algae blooms trigger
ocean dead zones, and there is a drinking water crisis in
numerous cities nationwide.
The evening will begin with a pot luck dinner at 6:00pm sharp
(arrive a little early with your dish). At 7:00pm the kitchen will
close, and we will welcome everyone and give an overview of water
issues concerning our local communities. Then after introductions,
each of the panelists will describe the
state of water as they see it, and how their organization is
working to protect our waters for the common good.
In the second hour, we want to explore how all
of us can best work together as a team to define and
spark action that will lead to substantive change. Each of the
panelists and their organizations have distinctive approaches to
these issues, and any potential actions will be more effective if we
combine our efforts. We hope you will join us.