Fort Carson helps bring water conservation lessons to Trinidad students

More than 1,330 students from 74 classrooms at 10 schools filled the Trinidad Junior State College campus on May 19 for the 14th Annual Trinidad Water Festival, a day built around a simple local truth: in Las Animas County, water is not an abstraction. It is the difference between drought stress and long-term survival for farms, neighborhoods, wildlife and future growth.

Fort Carson’s Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site Directorate of Public Works again helped staff the event, continuing support the installation has provided since 2013. Students moved among 54 presenter stations spread across campus, where they saw demonstrations, asked questions and met scientists, educators and natural-resource professionals who tied classroom lessons to the realities of southern Colorado’s semi-arid climate.

The festival’s long-running motto, “Agua es Vida,” or water is life, framed the day’s message. The event, hosted annually by Trinidad State College, has been held each May on the college campus since 2012 and is designed as an outdoor experiential-education program focused on youth, education and the environment. Trinidad State College says its Trinidad campus, established in 1925, was the first community college in Colorado, a fitting backdrop for a program that tries to link local history to local stewardship.

Fort Carson’s presentations pushed that point in practical ways. Kari Pittman, a DPW archaeologist, talked with students about prehistoric settlement patterns and how people historically used shared resources. Michelle Blake, the DPW wildlife biologist, explained how plants and animals adapt to dry conditions. Paul Trygstad, an environmental protection specialist, focused on pollution prevention and protecting water resources for future generations. Juston Fariello, a contract archaeologist, assembled a display of replicated artifacts that gave students a hands-on look at the region’s past.

The festival ended with an interactive wheel that let students answer questions from presenters, a simple final step that reinforced the day’s larger lesson: conservation starts young, and it starts here. The Army has cast the event as part of a broader community partnership that connects schools, Fort Carson and local water concerns in a county where drought, watershed health and future water use remain central civic issues.

That relationship has widened beyond one festival. Fort Carson honored former Trinidad mayor Phillip Rico as its Good Neighbor in 2024, noting his role in helping schools take part in Army Earth Day events in Trinidad. The water festival now sits inside that same pattern of military-community cooperation, with local students learning that the fight to conserve water begins at home and reaches all the way to the region’s future.