It was the first session of the morning, but before she could give her water-quality presentation to the fifth graders gathered at her booth, Sara Woods had to fire up the crowd.

“Are we ready to get started?” she asked.

“Yeahhhhh,” came the monotone chorus.

“Come on, I need some excitement!” she said.

A much livelier “YEAH!” followed, and the 28th Annual Western Colorado Children’s Water Festival was underway in Grand Junction.

By now, Woods knows the drill. The LM site manager for the Grand Junction Disposal/Processing Site has represented the Office of Legacy Management twice at the festival. The event has a special place in her heart; she herself attended the festival as a Chatfield Elementary School fifth grader, and remembers the excitement the kids felt on the big day.

“You can see the spark in their eyes – they are so close to summer vacation but they’re even more excited to embark on the next adventure that is middle school,” Woods said. “It is the bittersweet time of the end of elementary school but the beginning of the next step. And what’s not fun about riding the bus back soaking wet from a day in the sun away from school?”

About 1,500 students from about 70 different classrooms attended this year’s festival, the largest of its kind in Colorado, its organizers say. It’s free for students, thanks to the generosity of corporate sponsors and presenters like LM, said Andrea Lopez, external affairs manager for Ute Water Conservancy District.

The kids participated in presentations by 37 different agencies on the water cycle, dams and reservoirs, a journey along the Colorado River, water distribution systems, water conservation, and dozens more. Presenters included the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the City of Grand Junction, Ute Water Conservancy District, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and many others, including LM.

To kick off LM’s presentation, and the theme “Go With The Flow,” Woods asked the group if they had heard of the U.S. Department of Energy.

“Yesssss,” they replied in unison.

Most of them had heard of uranium. Some of them knew it was used to make atomic weapons.  Few of them knew that they were standing on land that had once been occupied by a uranium mill.

Woods told them the history of the large brick building to the north of where they stood – the only landmark that remains at the mill site, known today as Las Colonias Park. She told them of the milling operations, and described the sandy soil that was left behind in the process, which locals used as fill dirt and topsoil in their gardens.

“Advertisements invited people to come and get that sandy soil,” Woods told the kids, and residents noticed that their rosebushes thrived in the dirt they’d brought home from the mill site.

Scientists later realized that contaminated dirt posed a health risk to anyone who lived near it. A massive cleanup project in Grand Junction in the 1980s and ‘90s collected more than two million cubic yards of soil and moved it to a remote site 18 miles southeast of Grand Junction. The disposal cell that contains the dirt is monitored to ensure that it no longer poses a risk to human health and the environment.

Woods told the kids that milling uranium used a lot of water, and that’s why the site was so close to the Colorado River. That meant, of course, that some of the uranium “tailings,” material left over from milling, remained at the site.

“Where do you think that went?” Woods asked.

“It seeped into the ground?” a few kids ventured.

Correct, and that’s the reason LM monitors not only the surface water above the ground, but also the groundwater underneath, she explained. The concentration of uranium is now at a safe level, which means LM only samples groundwater at Las Colonias every five years.

Grand Junction Site Lead Sam Campbell, Education Specialist Trent Haskell, and Environmental Compliance Manager Bailie Bergman, all LM Support contractors, helped Woods demonstrate how scientists check water samples for contamination. Campbell collected water samples from a side channel of the Colorado River, flowing swift and cold near the LM tent. Campbell showed the kids how LM scientists filter the water to strain out the dirt before they test the water’s pH level.

Haskell explained the difference between acids and bases, and showed the kids how to use litmus paper to test the pH balance of water samples. Each group of kids got sample packets of litmus paper to take home to use in their own experiments. A QR code on each pack leads to an online activity page where students can learn about pH levels and how to test different materials on their own.

For Woods, it was another chance to work outside on a beautiful day by the river, sharing the success story that is Las Colonias with a new group of kids every year. If she has her way, the job is hers to keep.

“I will keep showing up if it means I can spark that joy of STEM in just one student,” she said. “I will be back for many years to come.”

Original source can be found here.