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Groundwater, Water Education, and Clean Water: Penn State Extension · Clean Water Conversations

0:10
SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone and welcome to Clean Water Conversations, the podcast where we have casual discussions about creating clean and clear waterways right here in Lancaster County.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm Ken.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: Hey everybody, I'm Allison.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Allison, we are in the middle of October.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: October's a fun time.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: October's a very busy time.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: It is, it is.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: But that means partners are all over the place planting things and applying for things and telling stories and attending sessions where the conversations are rich.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: It is an opportunity to create some really cool things.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: And one of those cool things, by the way, we talk about our wins.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: One of those wins was MS Forum, which was, and that's not an acronym, by the way.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: That's the name of the name of the organization.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, in case you want to know, MS4, which is municipal separate storm sewer system, this is MS Forum, which we're talking about.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: See, we're still doing mashups.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, that was on the 20th of October.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: And it was at Hotel Rock Linnitz.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: And it sold out.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and it was an amazing facility.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just being able to integrate field components, like walking around the site, hearing about the floodplain restoration projects, hearing about the way that that conservation helps that business and is a storytelling piece for international visitors.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Very cool stuff.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: And special shout out to our teammate Alex who helped put that together.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: And his whole and the whole team.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: The whole team is the preparation team.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: You're right.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: A special shout out to Alex as well as Land Studies and Warwick Township.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, awesome, awesome team.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: What do you have?
1:49
SPEAKER_00: What what what is what is winning in your world right now?
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Well, like you said, it's a busy time.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: And so having all of my dearest and closest partner friends coming together for the full partners meeting.
2:01
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: What an amazing, amazing day.
2:03
SPEAKER_02: Because we get to have breakfast together and just twice a year get the entire network together.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: So sharing what the impact of all of that collaborative work is, as well as diving into that Lit It's Run watershed.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: That's a huge story of success and an example of how it takes time to do this work.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: There are wins along the way, 100%.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: But Lit It's Run is one of those places that has seen success in water quality improvements, but it's 25 plus years of people working together to get there.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: And we have that on the 28th.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: So another one we'll have in the spring.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And so stay tuned for that.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: Thank you to everybody for coming to join us at that one.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: And there's resources on the website so you can go back and be like, oh wait, what did they say about that part?
2:47
SPEAKER_02: And how can I take action?
2:49
SPEAKER_02: Because there's so many cool ways to do it after we get together for these twice a year meetings.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: But being able to look at the network map, for example, like the visualization of all these people connected.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: It's awesome.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: So there's some cool the people doing this work.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to use that to jump into our special special person today.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Jen Fetter is the water resources program team leader at Penn State Extension and the director for the Center for Agricultural Conservation Assistance Training.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: That's a mouthful.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: It's shortened to Kakat.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'll get into some of those details, but uh as you know, Jen Fetter is just a gem.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Check it out.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: Ready to start with an icebreaker?
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Let's hit an icebreaker.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Your icebreaker question is what is an ordinary place that feels extraordinary to you because of what happened there?
3:51
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: My extraordinaries I I don't even have like one particular extraordinary.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: I find that just stepping outside when the sun breaks through the clouds after a long day at the computer is exceptionally extraordinary.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing how the heat can like get your blood flowing again and clear your mind.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: So I spend a lot of time you can't in a podcast describing myself with like my arms out and my chest forward and just like staring at the sun with my eyes closed, of course, because it's dangerous to stare at the sun.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Um during the Shahl Shank redemption pose, yes, yeah, sure.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: I've never really called it that, but that's an interesting take.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's like my most extraordinary moments are sometimes just the quiet mind.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: Because there's not a lot of time for quiet mind anymore.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: We're all so busy, busy, busy in this space.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I just love to stand in the sunshine, and that is extraordinary to me.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: That sounds glorious.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: Those moments of peace when you can soak up the sun.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: Boy, I just need it sometimes.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Allison, do you have a moment like that?
5:00
SPEAKER_02: I guess my answer would be an extraordinary moment was my wedding was on the side of a mountain in Montana.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: And so just an ordinary place to us as east coasters, kind of extraordinary topography and history there that was very different than what I'm used to.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: So now it's extraordinary to me.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: That is exciting.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: How about you, Ken?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: My my answer is more really kind of simple, is it was when we toured the Conewego wetlands restoration for the first time, standing on the shore of the wetlands and just looking around and and a crane flies by, and I'm just like, wow, this is what this would have looked like before humans came in and messed it all up.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so that has been like one of my happy places ever since.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's great.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: So similarly, what is your favorite early memory from your childhood?
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Jeez, maybe one of.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I think about my childhood is that I was, was, I still am a Gen Xer, but I was a latchkey Gen Xer.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: We were feral children, right?
6:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was very different from childhood now.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: And so it's hard to believe that like my childhood memories, I couldn't have been more than like five or six, and I was fully independent in my neighborhood.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: And I just remember those days, especially the summers were endless, just running around with our little neighborhood friends and doing things that were fine and things that weren't fine.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: We were only tamed by the streetlights turning on.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: And it's magical that that was like a universal symbol.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how our parents coordinated that across the country.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: Like lights on and you had to come home, but otherwise, we were just out, and that was a great way to spend your childhood.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: There was no email going out amount amongst the parents, by the way.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how they did it.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't have no idea.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: Tupperware parties, I'm not really sure.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: That's probably true.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, with handouts.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, this could be one of my favorite new questions to ask guests on this show.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: What did you want to be when you grew up?
7:17
SPEAKER_01: So, my youngest career aspiration, I absolutely wanted to be a veterinarian.
7:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: I accompanied my cat to the vet one time, and that was the last time I wanted to be a veterinarian.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: I nearly hit the deck when the needles came out, and I just quickly lost my urge to be a veterinarian.
7:38
SPEAKER_02: But yes, that was my first early job.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: What did you end up doing as your first job?
7:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, I was like 14 at my first job.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: And I went to the local music, like rental instrument rental store.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: I was in band.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm a band geek.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: I always have been.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: And um, we had to do like a project.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: We had to pick a special project, and I had decided I was gonna ask them to let me shadow because I wanted to learn how to repair instruments.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: And so I went into the little shop that was within walking distance of my junior high, and they were like, Yeah, yeah, sure, you can do that.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: And like I showed up on my first day.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not gonna name the place because this is probably not even legal, but they were like, our office manager had shoulder surgery.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: She ended up with like a staph infection.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: She's gonna be out for like a month.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: And we were hoping instead of you shadowing the repair shop, you could just like run our office for us for a month.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: And so that was our job.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: I was like opening the mail and recording rental check payments in the register and like taking credit and walking down the street to get faxes sent at the nearby fax shop because you know that was a shame to do.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I took bank deposits, like it was wow, crazy.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that was my very first job.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: But then I went into the ordinary kid careers, McDonald's, and grocery stores and stuff like that before.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: And then my face first big girl job was I worked in a commercial greenhouse facility propagating plants and picking orders and stuff for the local little retail markets and in Bucks County, and that was more in the path I had ended up deciding I wanted to go into greenhouse, plant sciences, plant industry.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: That was before grad school.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: I had thought I was gonna go into pharmaceuticals when I went into college, thinking that I just grew up in the pharmaceutical belt of Pennsylvania down in the Philadelphia metro area, and that's what everybody did for a living.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: But I had seen greenhouses outside of pharmaceutical facilities that I drove by.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know what they do.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: I could never get anyone to tell me, but I was like, I'm gonna do something with plants in pharmaceuticals.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: Never did figure that one out and ended up just going into greenhouses and plant sciences instead.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: So that was my like trajectory into big girl stuff.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: I quickly went back to grad school.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm one of the only people to that I know that have said this.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: I was not going to go back to grad school right away.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to take some time off, save up some money.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: I got a call from my undergraduate advisor basically inviting me back to grad school, which is why I ended up doing my bachelor's and master's both.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: They had had a shortage of teaching assistant applications that year, plenty of grad students, but not enough people that wanted teaching assistantships.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, I know you were gonna save up money.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: So this basically makes grad school free, and we pay you a stipend.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm coming back to school.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: But I had actually honestly was originally thinking like a land grant institution, Rutgers or Penn State, for a master's in horticulture as opposed to the master's in biology.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: So it was a little bit of a trajectory shift.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: And okay.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: So did biology stem off of that pharmaceutical?
10:39
SPEAKER_01: It stemmed off of the horticulture, the pharmaceutical piece.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: I'd always really had an interest in the sciences, especially biological sciences.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Took a lot of extra classes in high school.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: We had a greenhouse at my high school that I worked in during my study halls and things like that.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: It was not huge, but they used it for like growing the plants for biology classes and classes and things like that.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: So I had already really gotten myself deeply ingrained into plant spaces.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: So she had to step away from the cat and needles.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: I went as far away as you can.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, like a lot of my peers at Villanova for biology were pre-med.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: And I was not.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: And so they're all in these animal physiology courses and things like that.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: And I managed to successfully get through both my undergrad and grad school without ever taking animal physiology or any of those classes.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Just I knew that wasn't my path.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: I took a lot of molecular biology, genetics, cell biology.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: And then at what plant courses I could, and then into I actually was not taking ecology classes.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: It was not my space.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: I was very much out of that in my undergrad spaces.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until grad school that I took a course on plant ecophysiology, which really was my first ecology course.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: I had the same thing though.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: Entering as a bio major, everybody else was pre-med.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: I was like, that is not what I'm here for.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: And no, I'm not taking organic chemistry.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: No, I found the environmental studies track.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: It was not and it's funny because Villanova is so well known for like their environmental engineering programs now and their stormwater programs.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: And so when people see that I went to Villanova, they just assume that that must have been what I was there for.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: And that's how I ended up in this water resources space.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, I had some classes in the engineering building.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: I think I had Spanish in the basement.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: And I had like a lady class on the second floor.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: That was it.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: So you found your path.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: You found your people.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: I taught that teaching assistantship changed everything for me.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: It was the first time I stood in front of a class and taught.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And it flipped the switch.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: It really did.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, and now look at you.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was tremendous.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: Leading entire conferences about teaching.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: So we're getting into that.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Now you're currently working for Penn State, where you are the water resources program leader and director for Center for Ag Conservation Training.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: Assistance training.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Assistance training.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's okay.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: It's a mouthful.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: I was just going to say that's that is, yeah.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: Just get the acronym out of the way, though.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: So we can't bug buzz you later.
13:15
SPEAKER_02: That's true.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: So I'm allowed to tell you.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: So we call it CACAT, C-A-C-A-T.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: It just makes it easier because it is a mouthful.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: So what does your job there entail?
13:27
SPEAKER_00: So we alluded to it a little bit.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: There's, I mean, two pieces of the puzzle there.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: I've been the program leader for our Extensions Water Resources program for for quite a while now.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: And we cover sort of broad array of water resources-related topics, but we have sort of six major programmatic areas that range from safe drinking water or mostly around private drinking water resources, to stormwater and ag water resource issues, urban stormwater as opposed to stormwater resource issues, pond management, and teaching kids about water resources as well, and kind of moving them to be the next generation of water stewards, which is really important.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: So it kind of helped our team to stay on path with our strategic plan and move in the direction we have identified based on our stakeholder input and the impacts that we know we can have and what's available to us resource-wise.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: But but the Center for Conservation Assistance Training, the Kakat side of it is more new, modern piece of my job.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: That honestly, it's been two and a half, almost three years now, and I'm still just barely scratching the surface of that.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: So we started in 2023 with a contract from the State Conservation Commission.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Or the SEC.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: The SEC, yes.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get those all on the table.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: The SEC oversees the state's new funding for best management practices on farms in the state, the Ag Conservation Assistance Program, or ACAP.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: And ACAP came into being in 2022, so our center followed very quickly behind that.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: The idea for our center is to provide education and training resources for the folks who are then implementing the ACAP program and other ag conservation programs across Pennsylvania, because there's so many of them and they all play together, they leverage off of each other.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: Um we're the kind of the people side of this puzzle is helping to provide the resources to the people who need the resources to be successful in that job.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: So and it's all tied back to water, right?
15:39
SPEAKER_01: The goal is to get practices on the ground that are helping to keep Pennsylvania's waterways clean.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty massive.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: It's just a day's work.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Needing an entire new center, brand new funding source.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: Well, new staff to go along with it.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: That was my whole first year, and the job was just endless job searches, and I loved that, but also was so happy when it was over.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: And I just had a team and we could get to work because it was it was a lot daunting.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: So and how many people on your team?
16:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, so we have seven educators, but then we have a support team.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: We have two GIS staff and communication staff.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh, GIS.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: GIS.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sorry.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: That's not a word.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Man, you caught that.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: It would be GIS.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm or GIS.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: We all know that Brian Gish would be all for that.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: That is true.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it was a word.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: I was I immediately thought of him when he said that.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: So where do we go from here?
16:48
SPEAKER_01: You have to geographic information systems.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: So you have people that are really good at that.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: We do.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: We have educators and educators and and a support team.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: And I have a like a little piece of lots of people who aren't entirely part of my team, but help with research and help with the technical issues of certain types of best management practices, BMPs.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: We haven't done that one yet.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Like whether they're more agronomy or grazing practices or more engineering or road-based practices.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: So we kind of tap into a lot of other people's resources.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: And all of this is housed within Penn State.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: Is it part of the extension program?
17:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the center falls officially under Penn State Extension.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: And so that works out really well considering that that was primarily my role already, is running an extension program.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: But some of my staff work in other parts of the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: And I even collaborate with some folks who run the College of Engineering because we are very similar to the Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies that helps with that program, which is also administered by the SCC.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: And uh and then delegated out to county conservation districts, very similar to ACAP.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: If we made like a string version of this on the wall of how these things overlap or crisscross or that would it would make a nice Halloween decoration.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh, true.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: It would make a kush ball, is what it would do.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: That'd be like she just discovered her new Christmas gift for everyone as the Gen Xer.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: I love being a Gen Xer.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: Like it's so crazy.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Our toys were dangerous.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Our lives were wild.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: But it was fun.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: So much.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Love it.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Now I first met you through Lancaster Watershed Leadership Academy.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: You came and talked to our class about source water protection, well head protection.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, this season of the podcast, we are talking about the expiration of the current bay agreement.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: The end the end of uh 2025.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: How does groundwater fit into those goals?
19:05
SPEAKER_00: And how does groundwater fit into like the Kakat program that you were talking about?
19:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: So groundwater, the much forgotten about water.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: I heard you said earlier it doesn't exist.
19:17
SPEAKER_02: It's there.
19:18
unknown: It's there.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's there here, but there are parts of the country where it's true there anymore, right?
19:25
SPEAKER_01: So we're really fortunate in Pennsylvania with these abundant groundwater resources, and it's the reason there are so many bottled water suppliers here in Pennsylvania, right?
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Spring water, right?
19:38
SPEAKER_01: I like the quotes.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm sorry.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh sorry.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: You guys can't see me.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Air quotes, spring water, right?
19:44
SPEAKER_01: So groundwater is water that moves beneath the surface, but generally not the way people imagine it or envision it, right?
19:54
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people picture it as rivers, ponds, lakes, swimming pools, whatever you want to imagine underground.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: And in some cases, there are underground rivers, especially right here in Lexter County, where we have cars, which is the limestone geology that dissolves and leaves big gaps and open spaces and then eventually collapses in and takes half the parking lot at the outlets with it.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: The groundwater is generally in tiny spaces.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: It's continuous, right?
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Water doesn't really exist in individual droplets except for like right after you get your car waxed.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: So it's usually in a continuous form underground, moving through those pore spaces.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: And it is directly connected to the surface, right?
20:39
SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't live in a in a vacuum underground either.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Eventually it's going to come back to the surface.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: And that's where those springs generally are, right?
20:48
SPEAKER_01: Something is pushing it back to the surface, some impenetrable layer, some barrier of rock, uh bedrock or whatever.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Or it just reaches a point where the ground level is so low that it emerges back above the ground.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: Because it is, it's a, they call it the water table because it's flat under there, right?
21:09
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's just like water in your glass doesn't sit on a slant, it's flat underground too.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: And so it emerges above ground where our streams are.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: And that's why our streams keep flowing, even when it hasn't rained for a month in the middle of summer, the water just keeps coming.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: And where does it come from?
21:26
SPEAKER_01: It's coming out from underground.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: We have all this stored groundwater.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: And so for the beyond 2025 piece of this puzzle, right?
21:36
SPEAKER_01: We have to tie it all back there, is that if we don't protect the quality of our groundwater, we're also not protecting the quality of our surface water.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: And vice versa.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: They're so interconnected to each other.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: And water moves very slowly underground.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: It is a great thing, but also can be a bad thing for us in our efforts to get the water in Pennsylvania.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Clean to get the water in the Chesapeake Bay clean again, because we could do absolutely everything we possibly could on the surface to keep the water on the surface clean.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: But the groundwater is already contaminated in some places.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: And as it slowly moves back to the surface, it's going to continue to bring those contaminants back to the surface.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: And primarily we're talking about nitrate because it's so water mobile and there's so much legacy nitrate underground from practices of your, I think, appropriate language that can stay there for 20, 30, 100 more years.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: And we don't even really know how long it's taking for nitrate to move from one place to another underground and come back out in streams.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: And so we have these sources of nitrogen that just are appearing.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: And we're trying to like trace them back to, well, it must be this wastewater treatment plant or this farm or this neighborhood's fertilizer problems.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: And what it might be is the chicken farm from a hundred years ago, or you know, it could be some legacy condition that we just have zero control over anymore.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: So but it's also an even bigger reason to protect what we have.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
23:13
SPEAKER_02: We're making it easier on the future generations.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: And we're using groundwater directly too.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: Don't get me wrong, it's not just coming out at the surface.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Those all those bottled water suppliers are here because they're tapping into those groundwater resources.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: All of our homes in our communities that aren't connected to modern drinking water infrastructure are still relying on their own private wells and drinking water sources.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: And so they're both impacted by those contaminants, but also potential contaminators themselves.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: Just because we drill a hole in the ground, we're just creating a place for contamination to go down into that groundwater.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: So those are my favorite parts of your presentation of like anybody can drill anywhere for water.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: And it's just so unique to Pennsylvania.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: I just I love watching everybody in the audience their jaw drop.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Like, what?
24:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: We're like out in this country, is there's just no regulation.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no rule that says only you can drill wells.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: You you um need to register yourself as a business, but you certainly don't have to take any kind of test that says you know what you're doing.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Now, that's not to say well drillers are not doing a great job, but there are plenty of DIYers out there in the world that do it yourself first.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: I'll leave that.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that's a world of words.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: No, it's actually not.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: No, I think it's in the dictionary now.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: So it's right there next to ear, regardless.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: So much for accuracy in grammar, yeah.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, right.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: So it's really easy for contamination to find its way down into our groundwater just because of all the wells we've drilled and uh the lack of regulation around that.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: It's something we'd love to see more education about.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm gonna take that education piece and give you a shout out.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: Oh, thanks.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: Even a few years later.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: But you won an award for the governor's that with the governor's award for environmental excellence in Pennsylvania.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: I did.
25:10
unknown: Yeah.
25:10
unknown: Yeah.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: It was give us the scoop.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: So I will I accept that on behalf of a team, not on behalf of Jen Fetter.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: But in 2019, we were really fortunate to be recognized for our Dive Deeper Summit, which is an event we've been holding since 2012.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: We hold it every other year, and that is a gathering of anyone who teaches any youth or adults about water resources to get together and talk about innovative strategies, approaches, new curriculum, new tools, new resources, new lesson plans they've come up with, new motivation to keep doing what we do in hard times.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: And it's a conference that spoke to me because that conference didn't exist.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: And I went to a lot of conferences on environmental education or about water resources, but none of them were about water resources, environmental education.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: And so there was like a session here for me, a session there for me, and then I'd find myself with like an hour with no real relevant session at these conferences, and then I'd have to go out and find like a cupcake bakery or something to fill that hour, and then come back to the conference.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, would it be really great if we had a conference that just spoke to this audience?
26:30
SPEAKER_01: And now we do, and I never get to go to any of the sessions, but it's really awesome.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh we we love the conference.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: We started out 80 large.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: We grew at our biggest conference actually during COVID to about 225.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: It was international.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: We had Canadians.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: It was really cool to be virtual, but we didn't feel it had the same impact as having it in person, really giving people the experience of teaching the hands-on lessons and then being able to take them back to their classroom, to their nature centers, to wherever they were teaching.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: And so we oh COVID, was that an abbreviation or is that a word?
27:08
SPEAKER_01: Did I miss that one?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: COVID's good.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, COVID's fine.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: COVID's not good.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: It's a dirty word as an acronym.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: Not an acronym.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: So we went back to in-person events and you know, we have done flowed.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Conferences are are challenged now by the fact that virtual resources do exist post-2020.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: And but it's still great.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: We just held one this year.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: We're off cycle because of 2020.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: We had that virtual conference in 2021.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: We immediately went back to having in-person conference because we had a contract.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: So now we're on the odd years, but it's still just a it's a tremendous day, very recharging opportunity to get people excited about training our future generation of water conservationists, get them excited about water.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: It's awesome.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: I think I was at the first one.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: I think you were.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: And it I still remember it, like the leaf packs and the videos of the macro invertebrates that they had, some people had at tables.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: It was wonderful.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: And so I've, yes, I appreciated your idea and how it's grown.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: And it's just so cool.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: We love it.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: It's so fun.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything of all of those years having that conference?
28:15
SPEAKER_00: Anything that like stands out that just blew your mind when you heard it.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I like I said, I hardly get to sit through any sessions, but when I do, when I actually sit down and I just go through a session, I think the thing that blows my mind is just how excited everybody is to be teaching about water and what a huge community we have.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: That it's so great.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: One of the questions we ask on the evaluation at the end of the conference is did you meet anyone new today that you plan to stay in touch with after the conference?
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Because to us, that is one of the big impact points of just bringing this community together and feeling like an island out there.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: A lot of teachers do, they're like the only teacher teaching water in their courses or whatever, and they just want to know they're not alone.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: What do you think is probably the biggest thing, the biggest lesson, the biggest mindset that the next generation needs to learn going into the future when we're past our time to make clean water that they that they'll have to pick up the baton, I guess.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: I told this story a lot when I talk about the importance of youth water education, is like even if you don't if it sounds terrible, even if you don't care about the future generations, even if you don't care about the children, right?
29:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're working hard, right?
29:37
SPEAKER_01: I can think of the number of times that Alice and I, we've been out in the field digging holes, getting trees in the ground, working with landowners, convincing them to put in best management practices to benefit our local waterways, whether that's on their farmland or in their residential backyard or helping at a community park or wherever.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: Just so much work.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: It's labor-intensive, a lot of money being invested, a lot of programs started, laws written, passed, things that we've all worked so hard for.
30:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: In 20 years, there's going to be an entirely different generation of decision makers out there, and they will cut all those trees down again because it's just nature.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: I want to see the stream.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: I want to look at it.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: Like I want to mow my lawn and not trip over walnuts or whatever.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Like they will just see those things as the nuisance that the previous landowners saw them as and not the resource that they are to water quality.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: If we don't help them understand that now, recognize and see those practices going in and look at them in 20 years and go, I remember when that was happened and I didn't used to be there, and how cool those things are and how great they are for our water quality.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: So true.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: You inspire and educate so that you feel that passion about it.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: And you do that for youth of, I should say, you do that for students of all ages.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's true.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Students of all ages, yes.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: Adults are students too.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Just trying to really think critically for themselves about the pros and cons.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, a beautiful view shed of your stream is a pro, and it may add to your property value in essence, as long as that property doesn't wash away into the stream in the process.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, and educating and understanding different perspectives of what beauty is.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm my lawn is not perfect.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: It's perfect for what you need.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: But it does not fit the gold standard of like well manicured monoculture.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: That's jargony, right?
31:43
SPEAKER_01: But I I what it's fun though, because it was already like that when I bought the house, and not so much because the people who live there before me had any kind of environmental consciousness, but just because they were super lazy about their lawn.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this is great.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: Because my neighbors keep bees and my random clover lawn feeds them.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it's a partnership.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: Although she's not sharing the honey, I'm a little disappointed.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: I gotta go knock on her door at some point.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's all it's all a piece of the puzzle, right?
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and some other cliche statement there, but it's real.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: So you did say about those adult trees.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: That that's one of the things that that I keep coming back to is the buffers that we plant today are the forests of tomorrow.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Because we keep picturing them in the in the sleeves.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: And at some point they will be the the next forests.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the other things that needs to be taught to the next generation is maintenance of all of the, we've already used it, of all of the BMPs that we're installing now.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: Maintenance is is a sticky wicket for sure.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: It has led to the failure of a lot of best management practices over time.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: I think ideally after 10, 15 years, I'd like to say that most of these naturalized type BMPs really shouldn't need maintenance.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: And if they do, there's some other problem going on there.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: It's not the BMP itself that needs the maintenance.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: It would be nice to like set it and forget it.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: But the first three to five years are absolute intensive labor for any kind of best management practice.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: Now, there are some practices out there like manure storage.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: Like you're gonna have to keep emptying that thing until you get rid of it.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: There's no end in sight to the maintenance of that and checking it for leaks and that kind of stuff.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, like the natural area type practices should become natural areas.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't have to maintain natural areas, but we have tremendous problems with invasive species moving through our natural communities, whether they are best management practices or just, you know, natural areas.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: And so we can't let those things get out of control.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: That's that's so tough for folks.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: It's it's labor-intensive, it's confusing.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: Is this a good plant, a bad plant?
33:57
SPEAKER_01: I see butterflies on it.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: It must be a good plant.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: No, not necessarily.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: Like they sell Japanese knotweed honey at the farm show, which I love that it's delicious.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: It's a darker color honey, not as dark as buckwheat, but it's kind of hedging in that direction if you're a honey connoisseur.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: And I really love it.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: So I'd love to see like purposeful use of invasive species while they're out there.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: But I'd love to get to the point where there is no Japanese not wheat honey anymore because we've managed to get it out of control.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: So that kind of stuff is it's challenging.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: We were just talking about that this morning with our team with the ACAP program and the center about how we can talk more to landowners about managing invasive species along with the best management practices that they're putting in.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: Because that is still trust a tremendous challenge still for the state.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: Is that one of the goals of your team is to work directly with landowners or we're kind of not the middleman.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: We're the person like, I don't want to even say that the districts are not middlemen.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: They are the leads on the program, but we're kind of in the in the corner, like feeding them tools and resources to talk to the landowners.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: Extension talks to landowners at great lengths.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: And so I do have plenty of time in my job where I'm also talking to residents, homeowners, business owners, farmers about their water resources.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: But but from Kakat's perspective, the center's perspective, we're not working directly with the landowners most of the time, but we're there to be backup support to the districts, to others that are implementing ag conservation on the ground.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
35:32
SPEAKER_02: And knowing that ACAP started in 22, the Kakat started around 22, 23, this whole babe agreement by 2025 thing sort of plays in.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: We're looking at Lancaster's clean and clear by 2040.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of numbers flying around.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm curious as that 2025 goal, it's a milestone for us locally.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: We're thinking a little bit longer term, but I hope we all are.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not really a stop.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: It's a board now.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: I know.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: We get we're we didn't.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: Can you all keep thinking it's gonna be like why 2K?
36:04
SPEAKER_02: Everything just stops on December 31st, 2025.
36:07
SPEAKER_02: But my toaster still works.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't that the thing?
36:13
SPEAKER_01: Like they were trying to freak us out about your small kitchen appliances.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: We're all gonna die.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I'll flip it.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: What brings you excitement and eagerness to look beyond 2025?
36:24
SPEAKER_01: The goals set forward in the Bay program are our end were ambitious and they needed to move us, right?
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Because we're a people who love to like compromise.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: So you have to set the bar high to get anywhere.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really great.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: I've been involved in some of the conversations about like where the Bay program is going beyond 2025 and really thinking about what else can we do to continue the movement towards clean water.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: And yes, the the practices in the ACAP program are critical.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: We still need to do that.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: We need to count them, we need to get them on the record, we need to report them into the program, but we need innovative approaches to addressing clean water that goes beyond just day-to-day practice, day-to-day practice implementation.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: It's really great we've gotten to that point, day-to-day practice implementation.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: We we need to reach the cherries at the very top of the tree.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: We need to think about what clean water truly means and looks like.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: Is it ever going to be zero water?
37:34
SPEAKER_01: Which that's like I could go on a tirade for hours about people who advertise their water treatment systems and zero water because there's just no such thing as zero water.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: But rewind a little bit to that nitrogen nitrate in the groundwater part of this conversation.
37:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
37:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, honestly, we're never gonna have zero parts per million nitrate in natural spaces.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: Anything over two parts per million in groundwater is supposed to be indicative of human influence in groundwater.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: So naturally, groundwater should be like two parts per million or lower.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: And anything above that, we start to look for where it's coming from from man-made causes.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: And the ecosystem needs a little bit.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: There is this such thing as decomposition, right?
38:19
SPEAKER_01: And stuff dies that exists whether we put it there or not, right?
38:24
SPEAKER_01: Trees drop their leaves, the leaves break down, the plants use nitrogen, and it has to go somewhere when it comes back out of the plants again, when this is all said and done, right?
38:36
SPEAKER_01: So there's always nutrients and carbon and things cycling through our systems.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: The water, water is thirsty.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Sounds funny.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: The water is very thirsty.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: It's the perfect solvent, right?
38:48
SPEAKER_01: And it wants to dissolve things.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: So it's gonna come in contact with things, it's gonna dissolve them.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: And if it's not dissolving stuff in the atmosphere and in the groundwater and on the surface, then it's dissolving your pipes in your house.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Like you know, it becomes very corrosive water.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: So we have to temper our expectations to what that looks like.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: Fish live in water.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: Fish eat, fish do the thing we all do after we eat.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, so what does clean water really look like?
39:23
SPEAKER_01: It's manageable, it's serviceable, it's treatable in an affordable and sustainable way to make it potable water for people to drink.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: But we need that quoted.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: That was good.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, take it.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: Do what you want with it.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: But but it's not gonna be that you can just walk up to a stream and drink it.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: That's not what we're aiming for.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: We just want it to support the life that it should be able to support.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: We want it to be usable as potable water with reasonable amounts of treatment.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: We want it to be available for recreation, for swimming and having fun and kayaking.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: And we want the fish that we catch to be edible.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: Right.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: Right.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: So I think those are the four things we want, right?
40:08
SPEAKER_01: So there's probably some other stuff out there.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, tempering expectations a little bit about what we're aiming for and how do we achieve those four uses of water in lots of different creative ways.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: So well, and thank you for the role that you and Penn State have played in those conversations.
40:23
SPEAKER_02: I think having that perspective.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned land grant institution earlier, and now you get to live and breathe it and lead it.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: And so thank you for the way that you're doing that with Penn State.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: I think that's an important part of the Bay program hearing from Pennsylvania, but then also making it a reality for our landowners here when you're doing well testing.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: I love the extension leg of the land grant university system.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's such a critical part.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: Lots of universities, colleges have outreach programs, and I credit them for that because they're not required to.
40:51
SPEAKER_01: We're actually required to, you know, we really have to have this extension piece to be a land grant institution, land grant university.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: And it is where we really meet the people, right?
41:02
SPEAKER_01: All this science, all this research, and how we translate it into things that everyone can use and not just let it get stuck in in the academia vortex.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: I believe that brings us to my favorite part of the show, and that is trivia time.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh boy.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm nervous.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: Don't be nervous because I've actually been looking forward to uh doing this trivia.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: And here's why.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: When we try to try to mold them around people's interests.
41:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: And you have said that you're a frequent visitor to Hershey Park in Disney.
41:38
SPEAKER_03: I am.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: And you I love this phrase.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: You described yourself as a connoisseur of eating.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: That is awesome.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: So I whipped up a little trivia round about theme park food.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: Yes, good.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: See, there's no reason to be nervous.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first one.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: According to a blog post, this well-known snack was invented at Disneyland when a restaurant wanted to use up their leftover tortillas.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: Doritos?
42:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: Doritos! I have no idea.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: Disney invented Doritos?
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: One of the restaurants at Disney did anyway.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, then I guess Disney.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm going home smarter than I came here.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: To keep their parks exceptionally clean, Disney theme parks discourage and do not sell what confection.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: Bobble gum.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: It is gum, yeah.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: No gums in the park, no.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: Which theme park grows over 30 tons of fruits and vegetables annually?
42:40
SPEAKER_00: And these foods are often cooked and served at the parks restaurants.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: This is a Disney theme park.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: This is Epcot.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: It is Epcot, yeah.
42:48
unknown: Wow.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: I told you you would enjoy this.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: What is the top-selling concession at the wizarding world of Harry Potter?
42:58
SPEAKER_01: Butterbeer.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: It absolutely is butterbeer.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: And anyone who tells me that they don't like it, I'm sorry, but you're wrong.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: It's better frozen.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: I have not had it frozen.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: Or spiked.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Even better.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: Even better.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: It's frozen and spiked.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: From 1997 to 2008, you could get food from what fast food chain at Disney Parks.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: McDonald's.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: What Disney Animatronic Show was originally designed as a dinner show experience.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: I love this one.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: Was this the tiki room?
43:38
SPEAKER_01: It is the tiki room.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
43:41
SPEAKER_03: Tiki tiki tiki.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Now we're gonna do a lightning round.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: I will tell you the name of a restaurant at Epcot.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: You tell me what country that restaurant represents.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Beergarten restaurant.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: Germany.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: It is Germany.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: Chefs de France.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: That's a tough one.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: Is it France?
44:12
SPEAKER_00: No, it's Canada.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: It's Akkershus Royal Banquet Hall.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: Norway.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: That is Norway.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: I would have never gotten that one.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: I am so impressed.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: I love how much you know about this.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: La Cantina de Sananhil.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: I love Mexico.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: Me too.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: That's actually my favorite restaurant in the whole park.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: Watching the boats go by.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: That's always cool.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Lotus Blossom Cafe.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: That is my brain just exploded.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: Either China or Japan.
44:47
SPEAKER_01: Pick one.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm working on it.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: I think it's Japan.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: No, it's China.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking the Green Dragon's right next door.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: No, Green Dragons in Lancaster County.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that one too.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: I guess the Jade Dragon.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a Jade Dragon down there.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the Green Dragon in Ephraim is what I had my brain myself.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: See, you can go there and get some food.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there you go.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Get some Army Navy surplus.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: You betcha.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: This is probably the easiest one on the whole list.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: Tutto Italia Ristorante.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: That is Canada.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: Italy.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: They have a really, really nice gelato stand you can get affogato at outside.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
45:30
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: And finally, Rose and Crown Dining Room.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: The UK.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: That is the UK.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: That's our trivia.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: That was super fun.
45:40
SPEAKER_01: See, I oh you killed it.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: You killed it.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: You didn't ask me any Hershey Park foods.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I could not find trivia on Hershey Park Foods easily.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: All right.
45:50
SPEAKER_01: I can get you some questions for the next guest if you need them.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: That is our trivia and that is our show.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Jen.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jen.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: For coming here and chatting with us and educating the next generation and helping other people to educate the next generation and for everything that you do.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
46:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, happy 2025 to you guys.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: And beyond.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: And beyond.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: And beyond.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: That's another Disney quote.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, that is our show, and we will be back in just a couple of weeks.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: Until then, take care.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: Bye, everybody.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: Cleanwater Conversations is brought to you by Lancaster Clean Water Partners and by our contributing sponsor, Native Nook Nursery and Nature Shop, your local source for plants, trees, and everything you need to create a beautiful, thriving backyard habitat.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: For more information, go to native nooknursery.com.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: If you have comments or suggestions for show topics or are interested in becoming a sponsor, please contact us at info at Lancaster Cleanwater Partners dot com.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.