Prairie Fest to be held Saturday

On Saturday, Debra Shore, environmental activist and commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, kicks off the fourth annual Prairie Fest with a keynote address titled "Treating Water Like a Resource, Not as Waste."

The annual Prairie Fest community conference, billed as "a festival of information and ideas for sustainable living," is sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Elgin.

Shore is the founding editor of Chicago Wilderness Magazine. The award-winning quarterly is devoted to nature in the Chicago area.

She is also a leader in the regional conservation consortium known as Chicago Wilderness, which brings more than 200 public and private organizations together to protect, preserve, restore and manage the precious natural ecosystems of the greater Chicago metro area.

In November 2006, she was elected to the board of commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, a premier wastewater treatment and storm water management agency serving 5.3 million residents of Cook County.

Prairie Fest will be from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Elgin on Highland Avenue, west of Randall Road.

The event features multiple concurrent sessions on sustainable living. Schedules, other presenters, directions and details are available online at www.uuce.org.