How Healthy Soil Protects Your Drinking Water

What does soil have to do with your drinking water? More than you might think. Denver Water supplies clean water to 1.5 million people across the Denver metro area — and the quality of that water starts not at a treatment plant, but in the soil of the Rocky Mountain watersheds that feed it. In this video, we visit Fraser, Colorado, where Denver Water has partnered with the NSF ASCEND Engine, Colorado State University, NEON, and XPRIZE to build the SHIELD Living Laboratory: a 1,500-acre working site where startups, researchers, and innovators can test and validate cutting-edge soil health technologies in real-world conditions. We talk with the people building it — including Denver Water's Climate Change Adaptation Program lead, a world-renowned soil scientist, and others whose technologies could reshape how we manage land and water across the American West. This is a story about soil. But it's really a story about what it takes to protect one of our most essential resources — and the partnerships making that possible.