Hey Y'all,
This coming week in New York City promises to be watershed literally for everyone who cares about water. From storytelling in film, to tasting water with top someliers, to high-level conversations about policy, investment, and infrastructure, a range of events at Columbia University and beyond are converging around themes of purity, sustainability, equity, and experience. If you’ve ever wondered what makes water more than a commodity, here’s what’s happening, why it matters and why you should pay attention.
Water Is Life: Speaking, Storytelling, and Savoring
On September 22, the Water Is Life: The Drop Effect speaking event leads off. It’s a chance to hear expert voices making the case for water’s centrality how drops connect to communities, health, environment, and climate. Then on September 23, the World Water Film Festival brings stories and imagery from around the globe. It’s in this immersive setting that our wellness-oriented brand will be present—Milin Patel, water sommelier extraordinaire, will lead tastings using some of our single-source waters. Taste isn’t just a flavor t’s a moment of connection to place.
The Main Stage: Rethinking Water (September 25)
The Rethinking Water Conference is the big umbrella under which many of these themes live. Hosted by Columbia University’s Water Center and Sciens Water, it gathers policy-makers, researchers, investors, utilities, industry players to grapple with real water crises in the U.S.: aging infrastructure, regulatory shifts, funding gaps, environmental justice, reuse and recycling, climate resilience, and more. On the 25th you’ll not only hear these conversations panels, keynotes, breakouts—but also have the opportunity to experience water differently: tasting, discussing, meeting people who are shaping water's future.
Why This Week, Why These Events, Why You Should Care
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Clarity in a Complex Moment: Water is linked to climate, public health, agriculture, urban development. The stakes are rising. These events cut through the noise.
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Your Water Experience Matters: The source, mineral content, environmental cost, even the shape of the bottle affect more than taste—they affect trust, health, perception. For brands like ours, this is core.
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Regulation & Accountability: Consumers increasingly demand transparency. Governments are responding with stricter rules around contaminants (PFAS, microplastics), water rights, pollution. Being ahead of this helps.
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Elevating the Appreciation of Water: With tastings, film, conversation—these events ask us to slow down, to notice. Taste water, see water’s stories, understand its challenges.
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Partnerships & Progress: From finance to community groups, innovation to policy, this week is fertile ground to learn, grow, collaborate.
What to Do If You’re There or Want to Be There
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Register early; see what parts of the schedule are open vs ticketed
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Join the tastings there’s power in experience
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Engage on social media, amplify what you learn or taste
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Bring your questions: how our waters are sourced; how transporting water impacts environment; how brands can lead in sustainability
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Follow up with people you meet—these events often spark partnerships that go beyond a week
A Final Word
Water defines us our health, our communities, our choices. It deserves more than being taken for granted. During this week in New York, Columbia invites us to reimagine what water can be for us, for our planet, for the future. If you’re anywhere nearby, or can make the trip it’s worth being part of the drop-effect. Because every decision about water how it's sourced, distributed, consumed ripples out. And that’s the real reason to care.
