Come learn about water at the third annual Water Festival at the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center from July 11 through 15.

The festival is bringing back familiar faces and events such as folk singer/songwriter Peter Mayer and Clean Water Service Day according to naturalist and teacher Maria Anderson.

A new event at the festival is the kickoff event with the Cedar River Watershed District’s Project Manager Cody Fox, who will give an update on the district’s nearly $8.4 million, five-year capital improvement project which is focused on improving water quality and reducing flooding. This event is co-sponsored with the Izaak Walton League.

RSVP by July 8.

Minnesota native singer/songwriter Peter Mayer will hold three concerts at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 13 and 9:30 a.m. Thursday, July 14 for the senior special and at 1 p.m. for the family concert in the Ruby Rupner Auditorium.

Anderson said Mayer has really good messages in his lyrics about the idea that everything depends on everything else.

“Peter Mayer is … the big entertainment of the week,” Anderson said. “He was here last year too and he’s amazing and he has a big fan base. It seems like there are people calling to sign up to come to his concert from throughout the area.”

RSVP by July 12.

Anderson said that week’s nature play will be special since it’s during the water festival.

“It’s a little more focused on water,” Anderson said. “We … do water stuff with every nature play with our canoe and kayaks and pond scooping.”

This nature play day will include canoeing or kayaking and pond scooping at 1 p.m. Nature center staff will also lead water quality testing on the pond and Dobbins Creek. They will check levels of nitrates, phosphates, dissolved oxygen, E. coli and turbidity.

Testing will also take place on Friday, July 15 and will occur at different spots outside of the nature center.

Participants will also get the chance to hunt for crayfish in the pond at 2:30 p.m., which range in size from 1 to 4 inches, so they could pinch a little bit, but probably not enough to hurt you too bad, Anderson said.

“Crayfish are pretty tough. They can handle it even the water where [it’s] somewhat polluted, but it’s just a way to kind of get kids in the water and having fun and thinking about what lives in the water too,” Anderson said.

This nature play will also include playing the water survival game, created by Anderson. Participants start out as a raindrop and travel through the water cycle while trying to stay clean. The game teaches the parts of the water cycle and different ways water can become polluted.

Wrapping up the week on Friday is Clean Water Service Day with many events starting at 8:30 a.m. First is a river clean up and the goal is to “leave it cleaner than you found it.” Participants will canoe a stretch of Dobbins Creek or the Cedar River. Early registration is required for this event.

Also on Friday, City of Austin Water Quality Specialist Nels Rasmussen will take groups around the city to attach reminder plates to storm drains that say “No dumping. Drains to river.” Anderson said if someone wanted to focus on their neighborhood, Rasmussen would be open to that. Contact Rasmussen at 507-437-9955 or nelsr@ci.austin.mn.us to schedule a time.

“People sometimes think they can just put their trash down there and it’s throwing it away, [but] it’s going right in the river,” Anderson said.

The last event on Friday is a tour of the sewage treatment plant, because “everything has to go somewhere.”

Over 800 people attended Water Festival events last year, Anderson said. The festival originally started as a class in 2011 and grew after Anderson used the class as her intern project. She did the same project again the following year and then it became a yearly event.

“The water festival … was sort of me and Larry [Dolphin] both having that passion for that,” Anderson said. “And we had been doing Ecoblitz as … the big summer thing for a few years and decided to phase that out and do something more focused on water.”

Anderson hopes people will understand and recognize the impact people can make, either positive or negative, on the streams and rivers in the area.

“You can’t control what’s happening upstream, but you can control what you’re doing to the water where you are so that the people downstream from you aren’t getting your pollution,” Anderson said.

Anderson said she tries to get her class to recognize how everything is connected.

“We’re part of the water cycle, too,” she added. “We need water to survive and so it’s super important that we aren’t careless with that resource and treat it with respect and work on keeping it clean and recognize how much it matters.”

For RSVP information, visit www.hormelnaturecenter.org/waterfestival, call 507-437-7519 or email info@hormelnaturecenter.org.