Water Festivals to Highlight Importance of Clean Water

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Hundreds of school children from several counties will gather in Charleston and Huntington this month to learn more about the importance of clean water and the impact it has on our lives and the environment.

The Charleston Water Festival is scheduled for Sept. 3 at the State Capitol Complex and the Marshall University Water Festival is scheduled for Sept. 17 in Huntington.

In Charleston, children will learn about: ‘Water Conservation’ from West Virginia American Water; ‘Acid Rain’ from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Air Quality; ‘Aquatic Habitat’ from the New River Gorge National Park Service; find out how it is to be an aquatic bug in a stream with pollutants in ‘Macro Mayhem’ in a presentation by the DEP’s Watershed Assessment Branch; learn how to identify benthic macroinvertebrates and understand how everything is connected to water in ‘Stream Ecology’ with West Virginia Save our Streams; and run through a ‘Tree Life Cycle’ with the West Virginia Division of Forestry.

At the Marshall University Water Festival, children will: tour the Green Roof installed in the spring of 2015 on the university’s engineering building; learn about ‘Aquatic Habitats’ with the New River Gorge National Park Service; take the ‘Incredible Journey’ through the water cycle with a representative from DEP’s Public Information Office; learn about ‘Acid Rain’ with DEP’s Division of Air Quality; run through the ‘Tree Life Cycle’ with the Division of Forestry; make fish out of recycled water bottles with Marshall University’s Sustainability Program; and learn about the ‘Natural History of Snakes’ from the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.

The Charleston Water Festival is sponsored by the DEP’s Project WET, which stands for Water Education for Teachers. The Marshall University Water Festival is sponsored by Marshall University and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

For more information about the Charleston Water Festival or the Marshall University Water Festival, contact Tomi Bergstrom of the WVDEP Watershed Improvement Branch at 304-926-0499 ext. 1098.

For more DEP news and information, go to www.dep.wv.gov. Also, be sure to connect with the agency on all social media platforms. Follow @DEPWV on Twitter and find us on YouTube by searching “Environment Matters.” For specific information about our REAP (Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan), West Virginia Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), West Virginia Watershed Improvement Branch, Youth Environmental Program and Human Resources initiatives, connect on Facebook.