It’s Time to Celebrate (and Protect) Maine’s Most Precious Resource: Clean Water

Posted on April 22, 2022 by NRCM

We’re fortunate to stay in a state so fantastically crisscrossed by pristine, contemporary waterways. From the Allagash up north, to the Penobscot within the center, to the Saco within the south—contemporary, clear water is a luxurious to which we Mainers have change into accustomed. I’m personally grateful for the federal and state legal guidelines, together with organizations just like the Pure Assets Council of Maine, that defend our rivers, streams, lakes, and waterways and perceive the significance of guaranteeing these legal guidelines are regularly strengthened. Fortunately, defending clear water is a subject that seems to transcend celebration affiliation within the Maine Legislature.  

A fantastic instance of this was the latest bipartisan help for a invoice within the Legislature, LD 1964, to improve the water high quality of greater than 800 miles of rivers, streams, and tributaries throughout the state. Each homes of the Maine Legislature strongly endorsed the invoice. One part of the invoice will improve the water high quality customary from class C to B for a greater than 14-mile stretch of the Androscoggin River from Lisbon Falls to Merrymeeting Bay.    

After I assume again to my childhood, I’m overwhelmed by reminiscences of spending time on the Androscoggin and Swift Rivers in Rumford and Mexico. Leaping off the glistening rocks that stood tall above Coos Canyon, and swimming out and in of the underwater caves that lined swimming holes like Three Swimming pools. My buddies and I have been oblivious to the numerous hours, days, months, and years lawmakers, organizations, and on a regular basis Mainers devoted to making sure these very swimming holes have been saved clear. What a legacy they’ve left, and it’s on each Mainer, me included, to make sure that legacy lives on in perpetuity.    

 Individuals might imagine that the water high quality in a city like Rumford is the same as the odor stemming from the paper mill. Within the many years previous to 1972, they’d have been fallacious–it was a lot worse. Nevertheless, that odor was one among many motivating components that inspired Maine U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie, who grew up in Rumford, to take motion and writer one of many nation’s most essential environmental legal guidelines–the Clear Water Act–which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this yr. It’s onerous to seek out one other piece of environmental regulation that has achieved extra to guard Maine’s, and the nation’s, water than the Clear Water Act. It’s a outstanding piece of laws that’s equally consequential to Maine’s financial system as it’s to the well being and wellbeing of all Mainers. 

 Fortunately, the part of the Androscoggin River across the Rumford paper mill has rebounded dramatically within the 50 years for the reason that Clear Water Act was handed. I can solely hope that our lawmakers proceed to bolster their help for clear water sooner or later. 

—by Byron Glaus, NRCM Rising Management Staff