And it will be a place to celebrate--through art, poetry and music--the importance and beauty of water in our lives, to remind ourselves why this precious and endangered resource must be protected--now.

The Forum is organized by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.

The challenges and threats Wisconsin's waters face are the stuff of headlines on a regular basis. Mercury in our fish, arsenic in our drinking water, polluted runoff in our lakes and streams, the proposed Perrier bottling plant, cryptosporidium outbreaks in Milwaukee, and PCBs in the Fox River are but a few topics of public concern.

The Forum is your chance to learn more about these problems, the "big picture" they are part of-and help move our state toward possible solutions. Held at Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center, the Forum will offer two days of discussion, debate and reflection-and the chance to participate in an effort that could significantly improve the future of water in Wisconsin.

"We hope our work will serve as a catalyst for change," says Michael Strigel, the Wisconsin Academy's director of programs. "We're at a decisive moment in how we manage our waters. There is widespread consensus that we need an integrated, long-term approach in using and protecting our waters over the next century."

The Forum is the culmination of Waters of Wisconsin (WOW), an Academy-led statewide initiative on sustainable water use that began two years ago. The initiative focuses on three key areas: gathering information on the current status and trends of our waters; formulating sustainability principles to govern water use, protection, and management; and projecting different scenarios for our water's future, depending on courses of action we choose today.

All Forum sessions are designed to make even the more technical aspects of water science and policy understandable to a general audience.

Even those who cannot attend Forum events in Madison can participate in this important discussion; Portal Wisconsin will host a special chat on Tuesday, October 15, at 7:00 p.m. Chat guests are Curt Meine, director of conservation programs at the Academy; Steve Born, Waters of Wisconsin steering committee co-chair and chair of department of urban and regional planning, UW-Madison; and Fabu Mogaka, poet and Forum culture coordinator.

The arts will be an integral part of the Forum. On Monday, October 21, from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m., Warren Nelson and members of his Big Top Chautauqua band will perform a special show called "On Wisconsin Waters" at Monona Terrace. Tickets for the show are $20 and can be purchased from the Wisconsin Academy by calling 608-263-1692, ext. 10.

At the Wisconsin Academy Gallery at 1922 University Avenue in Madison, the public can view a special art exhibition, "Visions of Water: Waters of Wisconsin in Art," on view until October 30. The illustrations in this article are taken from that show. Featured artists are Amy Arntson, Barry Roal Carlsen, Greg Conniff, John S. Miller, Charles Munch, Bob Rashid, Tom Uttech and the duo of J. Shimon & J. Lindemann.

For more information about forum speakers and registration costs, visit the Wisconsin Academy's Web site or contact Forum director Amanda Okopski.