Stewardship Week is a week set aside annually to promote stewardship, or the conservation and the wise use of our natural resources, such as water, soil, forests and habitat.
It serves as a reminder that each individual has the ability to conserve our natural resources and improve our world.
Water is one of our most precious resources and we all live in a watershed.
There are 2,100 watersheds in the continental U.S.
Having available, clean water is important to everyone, whether it be for drinking water, recreation, irrigation, manufacturing, or habitat for wildlife.
Only 3 percent is fresh water.
The earth is considered to be pretty much a closed system, like a terrarium.
As a whole, it neither really gains nor loses water.
The water we have now is the same water that existed in the time of dinosaurs.
The water is constantly moving and changing form, from liquid to vapor and ice.

This move was based on analysis showing that the city’s water quality had tested below action levels defined in federal drinking water regulations for nearly two years.
The state’s decision to close the PODs signals that with respect to water quality, Flint’s water crisis is over.
State and federal mishandling of the city’s water crisis has all but destroyed trust in government agencies among Flint’s residents.
‘We are an invisible people’ Flint’s water crisis is a story of bad decisions by government officials.
Flint’s FAST Start program, funded by state and federal agencies, has set a goal of replacing lead service lines that connect water mains to homes across the city by 2020.
As of December 2017, over 6,000 pipes had been replaced, but approximately 12,000 lead service lines were still in place.
Lead is not the only issue The state’s rationale for ending the bottled water program is based on testing for lead, but for residents this has never been the only concern.
“Nor Any Drop to Drink” is ultimately a story about power, and about who really matters.
Participants in the documentary say they believe their government’s decisions have prioritized controlling costs, not their health and well-being.
From the start of this crisis, state officials have controlled much of the narrative about drinking water safety.

A newly-formed group of concerned residents, He Tangata, is calling on councillors to be clear about what they are deciding on after a degree of uncertainty in the public domain about what they are actually debating.
Many submissions during the hearings process extolled the virtues of fixing the district’s drinking water supply woes, supporters saying investment would lead to such improvements.
* Hurunui group lodges complaint about district council bias over water scheme * Council hears Hurunui Water Project submissions * Hurunui District Council agrees to buy shares in controversial water scheme In fact, the council will only be able to purchase wet shares if there are any available, and many dry shareholders will be farmers desperate for water on their properties.
He Tangata chair Nadia Maxwell wrote to councillors this week, highlighting this and other issues.
"He Tangata is very concerned that the CEO’s report once again stated one of the major benefits to the community from this investment would be the ability to utilise water for the district water schemes.
Dobbie is clearly in support of the council buying shares, and he and council’s CFO carried out the due diligence, signing non-disclosure agreements with HWP, meaning councillors have had to trust their judgment on whether the proposal is sound.
In it she emphasised that the council had to be clear due diligence had been carried out.
"Only we as Governance can judge whether this has been done.
The notice remains on the table after council agreed to look into how the investigations would be funded.
Harris said once deliberations had taken place and further clarification on matters arising had been conducted, she believed she would have the information needed to make a decision.

The young girl, Nya, collects water from a pond that is a two-hour walk from her home.
She must spend her days walking to collect water.
This organization is known as Water for South Sudan.
As we read Salva’s story, the students wanted to know more.
Rigs are needed in order to drill 300 feet down to reach drinkable water.
The passion and excitement the children displayed while presenting was invigorating.
The only stipulation was that they would provide community service and work to meet the goal of $1,000.
One of the students designed a logo with the motto the class had chosen, “Keep Walking, Make a Change.” The first service project was childcare service for parents attending a lecture at our school.
The following Monday, the students dressed for a work day in the stables cleaning stalls.
The children raised more than $3,000 in just two weeks.

In Namibia’s stark Namib Desert, where I spent 18 months doing research for my Ph.D., wildlife concentrates around natural springs.
Increasingly, animals there also rely on man-made ponds intended for livestock.
People have used plants and animals as environmental indicators for many years.
Similarly, fish and other small aquatic organisms can be effective bioindicators of water pollution.
Therefore, scientists often resort to biological indicators, such as aquatic insects and fish, to assess water quality.
Even the most desert-adapted species need water.
To find high-quality surface waters, people could observe bat activity levels using acoustic detectors to record bats’ echolocation calls.
During my time in Namibia, I observed that activity by all local bat species dwindled at springs with high salt concentrations.
If this is true, people living in those areas could detect changes in water quality, such as increased salinity, by gauging activities and drinking patterns of sensitive bat species.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

In Namibia’s stark Namib Desert, where I spent 18 months doing research for my Ph.D., wildlife concentrates around natural springs.
Increasingly, animals there also rely on man-made ponds intended for livestock.
Based on my observations, I believe that in arid places, people may be able to locate usable water sources and detect changes in the quality of sources they are already using by observing bats.
Measuring pollution with canaries, moss and fish People have used plants and animals as environmental indicators for many years.
Similarly, fish and other small aquatic organisms can be effective bioindicators of water pollution.
Therefore, scientists often resort to biological indicators, such as aquatic insects and fish, to assess water quality.
Even the most desert-adapted species need water.
Water quality affects them directly when they drink and indirectly when they consume insect prey, many of which spend part of their lives growing in water.
To find high-quality surface waters, people could observe bat activity levels using acoustic detectors to record bats’ echolocation calls.
If this is true, people living in those areas could detect changes in water quality, such as increased salinity, by gauging activities and drinking patterns of sensitive bat species.

This problem does not only affect school children, adults, babies, politicians, alt-leftists or alt-rightists.
This is a problem that can affect every citizen of the United States.
The problem is clean drinking water and stems from many sources, such as pipelines surrounding areas of water supply and Flint, Michigan.
Why deprive people of water that is safe to drink?
The protests were for their right to access clean drinking water.
The Dakota Access Pipeline’s website reads that, “The DAPL is the safest and most environmentally sensitive way to transport crude oil from domestic wells to American consumers.” The DAPL has had five spills in six months as of January 2018.
The money was, in part, an acknowledgment of the months of anti-pipeline protests that had taxed local agencies during construction, but it was also a nod to the possibility of environmental contamination,” “The Intercept” reporter Alleen Brown said.
There are also water problems engulfing poor rural areas in the United States.
Households lose their access to water on a daily basis simply because they cannot afford their bills.
To combat this, the Environmental Protection Agency has recommended that water and wastewater services should not make up more than 4.5 percent of a household’s income.

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – An unusual emergency impacted thousands of people at Mayo Clinic-Saint Marys on Monday and continued into Tuesday–the water in the complex was declared unfit to drink.
Signs went up Monday inside the campus directing people: "do not drink the water."
New signs went up on Tuesday saying “Don’t drink water because of sediment.” When people flushed toilets at Saint Marys, dark-colored water came into the toilet from water supply lines.
On the internal Mayo Clinic News Network, the direction to staff was more specific, saying, "Refrain from consuming the water and using it in clinical care until further notice."
After 3 p.m. Monday any Saint Marys units that needed more bottled water were instructed to call an emergency phone line.
Bottled water is being made available to all.
"The water is suitable for hand washing, but hand sanitizers are being placed in bathrooms as a precautionary measure across the hospital."
Rochester Public Utilities advised KTTC at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday that it had become aware of the problem on Monday morning, and sent utility crews to flush water and test it outside of the Saint Marys complex.
"RPU is confident that the issue is internal to the campus," said spokesman Tony Benson.
In order to verify that it was isolated to the Saint Marys campus, RPU flushed the areas surrounding the campus immediately and found no discolored water."

Gorkhaland Territorial Administration ( GTA) is assisting the project.
It may be mentioned that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has taken the initiative to carry out all-round development in the hills.
The Panchayat and Rural Development department has identified 600 jhoras that will be regenerated.
The Jhoras are the prime source of rinking water in the hills.
There are four main reasons for the crisis of drinking water in Darjeeling and its neighbourhood.
Four NGOs, Acquadam, Aghryan, Prasari and Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation have joined hands with the Panchayat and Rural Development department for successful implementation of the scheme.
Work is on to restore 36 springs and plans have been taken to restore 300 more.
The Dhara Sevaks have been given Eco projectors and they are going to the villages to create awareness among the locals.
Now, the villagers have come forward to help in the restoration of the Jhoras.
The Dhara Sevaks are watching the discharge rate of water from the Jhoras and are keeping the statistics.Senior officials of the Panchayat and Rural Development department held meetings with the managers of the tea gardens in Kolkata and Siliguri for restoration of the Jhoras that are situated inside the tea gardens.

ARENA has announced an Australian-first trial of drinking water systems that produce clean drinking water drawn directly from the air using solar power.
The $821,500 total project will demonstrate the technology not yet seen in Australia – a product that produces clean, renewable, infrastructure-free drinking water extracted from the air using solar energy.
The SOURCE hydropanels are infrastructure free with no external electricity or water required for operation.
Each SOURCE hydropanel produces enough water to displace over 20,000 plastic water bottles over 15 years.
Under the trial, SOURCE will be rolled out in 150 sites across Australia including Sydney, Adelaide, Perth as well as regional towns and remote communities.
The pilot will trial SOURCE in a variety of locations including airports, cafes, community centres, commercial buildings and sustainable properties.
The project will reduce the reliance on plastic bottled water while also provide accessible clean drinking water to rural communities with limited access to clean drinking water or electricity, or during droughts.
The pilot phase of the project will also incorporate a third party study to evaluate the environmental impacts of bottled water in Australia.
Using a combination of solar PV with solar thermal technology, SOURCE’s ability to create clean drinking water could be utilised to achieve positive solutions around water supply,” Frischknecht said.
“The potential benefits of this technology to the environment are important.