As New Hampshire grows we’re learning more about the hazards facing water quantity, quality and infrastructure and are exploring new ways to combat them. Hydrologists, environmentalist, inventors, and water groups are working hard on this effort, thinking up new technologies, new ideas and new plans so we’ll have enough clean potable water for our future. We conclude our series by exploring the future of our state’s drinking water and what some in the state are doing about it.

Guests

• Harry Stewart, Water Division Director at the Department of Environmental Services
• Brian Goetz, consultant for Weston and Sampson, a Portsmouth-based water treatment and wastewater design and consulting company and current president of New Hampshire’s Water Works Association

We'll also hear from

• Dean Kamen, founder and owner of DEKA Research and Development Corporation in Manchester; he has invented a water purification device called the Slingshot that can take any kind of polluted water and transfer it to potable water by using minimal energy

Right now most of New Hampshire’s drinking water sources are well protected, but in the future we may need to draw from rivers and lakes that suffer from storm water pollution, run-off problems and the hazards of development. In the next installment of our series on drinking water we look at the quality of our drinking water, threats to water quality and how they're cleaned up before reaching our tap.

Guests

• David Paris, Water Supply Administrator for Manchester Water Works Water Treatment Plant
• Bernie Lucy, Senior Engineer at the Drinking Water and Groundwater Bureau at New Hampshire’s Department of Environmental Services

We'll also hear from

• Andrew Nelson, owner of Nelson Analytical Labs, a full service water and environmental testing laboratory in Manchester

McCain rips Obama on foreign policy as Illinois Democrat travels overseas. The attacks come as UNH poll finds the candidates in a near dead heat.

It’s not all that uncommon for modern architectural design to clash with the local expectations of a community - especially what that community houses a college. A new building proposal at Dartmouth is straining town-gown relations between the school and some residents of Hanover. Dartmouth released plans for a new, $52 million visual arts center last week.

The design by a Boston architectural firm Machado and Silvetti Associates calls for more than 99 thousand square feet located downtown. The school says it would provide a “new gateway” for the college on the southern end of town.

But one member of the committee that acts as liason between the school and the town told the student newspaper The Dartmouth, "it’s creating an urban landscape in what used to be a traditional New England town. It’s gaudy and southwestern, and we’re not. It’s going to look funny with snow on it."

Word of Mouth’s architectural conitributor Don Kreis joins us to give us the details. His day job is with New Hampshire’s Public Utility Commission, where he’s general council.

The modern building proposal in Hanover seems downright tame, though, compared to what’s on top of a contemporary art museum in Paris right now. A pair of Swiss artists has created a single-room hotel and set it atop the Palais de Tokyo. The piece of interactive art allows one exclusive couple to spend the night in what may be the world’s first portable hotel. John Laurenson of Deutsche Welle Radio checked in to Hotel Everland to find out more.

Steve Reich is perhaps the preeminent composer living today, and one of his most heart-wrenching and affecting works is called "Different Trains for String Quartet and Tape". It tells the story of Steve Reich's early childhood - his train trips between the East and West coasts to visit his separated parents - and also of the train trips Jews were forced to take during the Holocaust.

The piece, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet in 1988, is notoriously difficult to play. But the Borromeo String Quartet recently took up the challenge. Jenny Attiyeh, producer of the podcast and public radio interview program Thoughtcast, attended a rehearsal at the New England Conservatory, where the Borromeo is currently in residence.

(Photo by Liz Linder)