NACD's 2026 Stewardship Week will be celebrated April 26 - May 3, with the theme: Soil. Where it All Begins!

This year’s focus highlights soil as a living resource that supports food production, water quality, wildlife habitat, and healthy communities. Conservation districts across the country use this week to connect people of all ages to the role soil plays in everyday life and long-term natural resource conservation. Stewardship Week is a visible way for districts to share their work and connect conservation to the communities they serve.

Your district can celebrate by hosting educational events in your community with ready-to-use education materials from NACD, designed for classrooms, field days, and community events. Resources include a K-8 Instructor Guide, student journals, and activity mats. Each education piece is flexible, so districts can adapt activities to local priorities.

Plus, NACD offers multiple toolkits to help you advertise throughout the week. Use our press toolkit—including press release and radio public service announcement templates—to work with local news, radio, and television stations. Or, use our newly published social media toolkit—complete with fun facts, infographics, suggested captions, and customizable captions—to post about the week on your district's Instagram and Facebook pages.

Has your district been hosting education events already? We want to hear about them! Email NACD's communications team at info@nacdnet.org to share stories and photos with us to be featured in a special edition of eResource on April 28.

Find resources mentioned here and more on NACD's website.

JOIN CONSERVATION COFFEE ON BREWING PARTNERSHIPS

Join NACD's next Conservation Coffee webinar, Brewing Partnerships: Tackling Nitrate in Northeast Nebraska – Producer Outreach and Source Water Protection Through the Lower Elkhorn and Lewis & Clark Natural Resources Districts on April 23 at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Presented by Jim Olson, Source Water Protection Specialist, learn how proactive outreach and producer partnerships are protecting drinking water in northeast Nebraska.

Nitrate contamination remains a persistent drinking water challenge across agricultural regions of the Midwest. This presentation shares an outreach model used in northeast Nebraska to proactively engage producers and communities whose water supplies are approaching the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nitrate maximum contaminant level. The session will highlight communication strategies, measurable outcomes, and lessons learned and explore the value of building a collaborative Source Water Protection Network to expand conservation impact.

Register for free here to receive a link to join.

WHAT'S UP IN WASHINGTON?

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS UPDATES

Budget hearings are scheduled to take place beginning Wednesday with subcommittee and full committee markup starting next week.

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 16, before the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee. Watch the hearing here.
• The U.S. Forest Service will appear at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, before the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. Watch the hearing here.

SALINE COUNTY CD

CLEANS LOCAL STREAMS

A few years ago, the Saline County Conservation District’s (CD) local partner, Saline River Watershed Alliance, installed a piece of equipment called a trash trap in one of the local streams after noticing the need for trash catchment in the watershed. Inspired by the Watershed Alliance and the ever-present litter pollution in their local waters, the district seeks to continue this work by constructing, installing, and maintaining two additional trash traps in the county.

Trash traps are cages installed in a moving body of water to collect litter. Constructed on pontoons, trash traps float above the water allowing aquatic life and water to move freely underneath while collecting debris that floats on the water’s surface. In Saline County, trash traps collect up to 16 pounds of trash every 6 weeks. Considering the items collected are largely lightweight items made of plastic, paper, and aluminum, 16 pounds of trash is a point of pride for the organizations maintaining them.

To construct these trash traps, Saline County CD has partnered with a local community college that provides technical career programming. The college’s welding instructors seek out real-world projects like this to help students strengthen their welding skills. The instructors created the plans with guidance from Saline River Canoe, the organization that maintains the existing trash trap in the county. The students will construct the two traps with materials purchased using Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s Grants to Districts funding. By partnering with this local welding program, the Saline County Conservation District can cut construction costs in half, allowing two units to be built for the price of one.

Collaboration on this project extends to installation as well. To determine the best placement of the traps, the district worked with the Benton Stormwater Team to determine high-need areas where the trash traps would be most useful. The Stormwater Team has also taken responsibility for obtaining proper permission from the city to install the traps.

Once installed, the traps need to be cleaned out every six to eight weeks. The district plans to primarily engage volunteers to complete clean-ups, with additional support from partners like the Saline River Canoe and the Benton Stormwater Team. The district will also be seeking to engage students, including those who built the traps, in cleanout events, since Arkansas students need community service hours to graduate.

As Jenny Lanier, District Manager of Saline County CD remarks, “It brings awareness and [the students] take pride in doing so much good for conservation in our county.”

Saline County CD shows its dedication to community engagement through projects like these. Volunteers and partners have made this program possible, and the district continues to leverage this engagement for conservation education throughout the county.

Read the full story on NACD's blog.