Friends of the KAW

Join hosts Richard Mabion and Dave Bennett Freeling as they sit down with young people who have been learning and teaching others about water quality in the KC area through the Kids About Water program (KAW). Find out how you can help the next generation maintain our waterways for drinking and recreation.  We’ll also be joined by Laura Calwell, Education Director of the Friends of the Kaw and former Kansas Riverkeeper who will update you on how you can get out and enjoy our local waterways!

Friends of the Kaw

Friends of the Kaw (FOK) serves the Kansas River, known locally as the Kaw. The Kaw is the largest prairie watershed in the world! The river originates at the junction of the Smoky Hill and Republican Rivers and runs more than 170 miles to meet the Missouri in northeast Kansas. The Kaw provides drinking water for 800,000 people. Additional uses are agricultural irrigation and industrial water supply (intake) including three coal-fired power plants.  We are dedicated to protecting the river from pollution sources including: municipal and industrial wastewater discharges, new pollution sources and in river commercial sand and gravel mining.

For more than twenty years, FOK’s water-focused friends group has been the only grassroots conservation group dedicated to protecting the Kaw. Our members come from rural, urban, and suburban areas and represent canoers, kayakers, fisherfolk, hunters, birdwatchers, and locals who love the river.


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