One doesn’t need to look hard to find a zany festival in Kansas. Lucas has the Adam’s Apple Festival. Because, you know, the town is home to S.P. Dinsmoor’s historic Garden of Eden. Elk Falls celebrates its outhouses each year with a festival on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Cuba has the Rock-A-Thon. Participants rock around the clock for a week in rocking chairs, sometimes raising more than $25,000 for community projects. Lindsborg’s plethora of festivals includes Svensk Hyllningsfest, which celebrates its Swedish heritage, and Vaffeldagen, a festival of waffles. Source: KLC Journal

Big or small, a Kansas town that depends on lakes or reservoirs for its water supply faces the increasing threat of toxic amounts of blue-green algae making it into the homes of consumers. That hasn’t happened. But preventing it has, or will, come at a cost, sometimes a significant cost. Braxton Copley, Topeka utilities director, says the capital city is in the planning stages of updating two water treatment plants at a cost of about $20 million to help ensure clean drinking water into the future. Topeka faces significant challenges since it gets “every last drop” of its water supply from [...]

Toxic blue-green algae threaten cattle and have collectively robbed Kansans of thousands of hours of recreation. They drain millions from lake-based economies when outbreaks close lakes to public access. Drinking water is susceptible to the toxin, too, rendering it smelly and foul-tasting. Although there are efforts to combat them, cyanobacteria aren’t going away. As with so many other environmental and health challenges of the 21st century, Kansans will have to continue to adapt and find a way to live with them. Source: KLC Journal