The online alternative news outlet Alternet has just started a water-only e-newsletter. If headlines like “Tempting Fate: Why We Insist on Living in Floodplains,” “How the Army Corps Is Swindling Americans,” and “How Do We Ensure Clean Drinking Water for All?” sound like the stuff you need more of in your life, then point your browser to the Alternet Water Page and fill in the subscription form. 

Hat tip to Water Wired for spotting this one.

If you are lacking inspiration for your next outreach effort, look no further than here. The U.S. EPA has compiled a monstrous collection of materials and examples from various clean water behavior change campaigns around the country. The website is a treasure trove of polls, commercials, PSAs, and other useful stuff.

Two caveats: The collection is so vast that it’s a bit overwhelming, and if you’re new at this social marketing/outreach/fundraising/issue advocacy thing, you may find yourself daunted by the a wide variety of materials. Also, there’s not much in the way of followup reporting. It’s hard to know whether the sample commercial that you think is clever might have actually bombed.

But, that’s nitpicking. Click on the image above and start exploring this terrific resource. Don’t be surprised if a few hours slip away while you come up with one new exciting idea after another.

Here’s a recommended resource: Check out Jay Babcock’s Nature Trumps. Over the past year or so, it has quietly marched to the top of my favorite blogs list. It’s an online chronicle of the life and times along one of America’s most polluted and unhealthy bodies of water — the Los Angeles River. In its own way, the blog reveals as much about about humans’ relationship to nature as the polls and focus group reports I cite here so often.

Jay shares stories and photographs of everyday Angelinos enjoying the river — risking arrest to fish for invasive carp, getting baptized in pools of polluted runoff, and spraypainting beautiful murals along the concrete walls that pass for riverbanks out there. Jay’s people love the river despite the abuse it’s received. In their stories, I find a comforting affirmation that humans have an inherent need to experience nature and want to provide that experience to their children.

But I also experience a sobering realization that these citizens’ vision for the river is all about today and tomorrow. The characters who appear in Nature Trumps spend little time reminiscing or regretting some bygone era when the river was pristine. For them, that’s water under the bridge.

When I look at the faces in the photographs on Nature Trumps, I see people who want straight talk from you about what’s important to them. Use words that work like nature protection, pollution control, family, children, safe, healthy, and future generations. I do not see faces that seem eager to embrace highbrow rhetoric like heritage, stewardship, and legacy. 

Jay tells real stories about real people who love a river that’s hard to love. And that’s why I read Nature Trumps.

Here’s a new company that’s good to know about: StormWaterOutreach. They’re one of the sponsors of the National Water Conference I’m attending this week.

The company manufactures a variety of materials that can be used in social marketing campaigns to encourage everyday citizens to adopt various habits that keep pollution out of their nearby water.