Friday, October 16, 2009

Ann Bleed Webinar and Twitter

We are looking forward to having Ann Bleed as our presenter at our upcoming webinar: "Challenges and Opportunities of The Integrated Management of Surface Water and Groundwater." The event will take place at 2 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday, October 27th. The registration is open for the event at our website: www.groundwater.org. Many people have already registered for the event and we don't want you to miss out.

On another note, Twitter has become a craze in social media. A recent article said that it is projected to reach 18 million users by the end of the year. You can find us at our Twitter account: groundwaterfdn. We like to share news about upcoming events, our thoughts on current issues as well as reposts of others that follow us or that we follow. It's another good source of finding out information or other activities in regards to groundwater. It's a free service to join. We are hoping soon to reach 100 followers and then continue our upward growth from there.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Growing Groundwater Awareness

by Jane Griffin, Groundwater Foundation President

How appropriate that the first new program launched under new leadership at The Groundwater Foundation is titled "Growing Groundwater Awareness in Nebraska." Thanks to funding provided by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, the program is now underway.

As a person who has only recently come to truly appreciate groundwater I recognize the need to provide this critical information to the general public. I, like so many others, have always expected clean, safe drinking water to come out of the tap. I would just turn it on and not think any further about it.

Growing Groundwater Awareness in Nebraska is going to address that very issue. It will generate understanding of the role groundwater plays in our lives and the role we play (both as individuals and as communities) in protecting it for future generations.

Check back on our website for more information about the program and see what's happening in your community!

Let us know what you are already doing to protect groundwater! Or if you live in Nebraska and want us to bring educational activities to your community please contact us at
info@groundwater.org.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Drinking Water in the News

Drinking water was in the news again. This time it was an AP story about the quality of drinking water at schools across the U.S. The article found that "contaminants have surfaced at public and private schools in all 50 states — in small towns and inner cities alike." (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33008932/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/)

It's frustrating to continue to see water's appearance in the news only in a negative way. We see investigations into all sorts of contamination events and occurrences, but there's rarely a mention of the proactive approaches communities across the country are taking to protect their drinking water supplies. It would be refreshing to focus on the positive, which would encourage other communities to adopt practices to preserve drinking water.

What do you think? How can we help publicize the proactive protection efforts communities are undertaking? Is this newsworthy?

Friday, September 25, 2009

Adult Education Webinar

By Jane Griffin, Groundwater Foundation President
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to participate in the webinar entitled “Groundwater Guardian Showcase: Adult Education Programs.” It was both eye-opening and thrilling to know what efforts are going on across the country to educate people about groundwater. Three Groundwater Guardian team representatives presented their efforts to educate adults in their respective communities about groundwater: Janine Reed, Sequim-Dungeness, WA; Gabrielle Belfit, Barnstable County (Cape Cod), MA; and John Paquin, Kalamazoo, MI.

If you didn’t get to participate in the live webinar, you can access the archived version by following this link: http://www.groundwater.org/pe/webinars_20090922.html

Know that the webinar series is a new service that we are offering in our continued effort to disseminate the information. Your support allows us to continue the work!

We look forward to hearing your comments about the webinars.