A group of St. Xavier University honors students will fight to protect Rocky Mountain water from mining contamination in Idaho this summer as part of a water activism boot camp.

After a semester of studying water management and conducting field work in a St. Xavier honors class, several students will accompany biology professor Tatiana Tatum and philosophy professor Thomas Thorp to Southern Idaho, where they will work alongside a local organization working to prevent mining pollution in area waters.

"In the past several decades, river scientists have come to the realization that the health of both the environment and the economy require free-flowing rivers and measures to protect ground water sources," Thorp said. "It's not just environmentalists making these claims; it's a matter of established science. Philosophically, we need to adjust our thinking so as not to view water as an exploitable resource but as the life-blood of the planet."

Students began the semester by taking samples of southwest Chicago's Lake Marion on the St. Xavier campus. They then will study and conduct field work on the Little Calumet River in the south suburbs and a branch of the Pecatonic River near Mineral Point, Wis.

In the classroom, students will learn the biology and chemistry of water, as well as the historical politics of water ownership and management. Thorp will teach the political and judicial background of how people own, regulate and distribute water. Students will begin locally by studying the history of the indigenous Potawatomi, Fox and Sauk Tribes, and how they lived on the land and alongside the rivers.

In April, the class will travel to Mineral Point where students will take part in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources "Adopt a Stream" program and conduct field-work:.

Students also must take part in online activism by identifying and then studying some of the many groups devoted to protecting clean water, whether around Chicago or nationally.

On April 8, John Hart, of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Caribou County Clean Water, will travel to Chicago to present the annual St. Xavier honors program guest lecture.

- THE TIMES