By Cassie McClure and Suzanne Michaels
More than 800 fourth grade students, along with their educators and dozens of volunteers gathered in Young Park for the 8th Annual Children’s Water Festival sponsored by Las Cruces Utilities (LCU). Many City departments - Police, Fire, Parks and Recreation, and the Office of Sustainability, plus Elephant Butte Irrigation District, Doña Ana Community College Water Technology program (where LCU interns showed off their presentation skills to their LCU peers), and New Mexico State University’s Extension Office – also staged presentations for the students, to show how water is critical in all of our lives. Students were able to get answers to questions about how water arrives at their homes and where it goes when it leaves as wastewater, while recognizing water as the valuable resource it is in our desert home.
CAPTION: LCU Water Production Operator Horacio Palacios shows how exactly water is pumped from under the ground to their homes. These fundamental lessons are what fourth grades from across Las Cruces, gathered to learn all about water at the Las Cruces Utilities’ Children’s Water Festival.