Clean water is the lifeblood of Maine. It supports our lobster and marine fishing industries as well as our nation-leading recreational brook trout and locked salmon fisheries. And as our life blood, a healthy system needs all its parts, large and small, to remain healthy and functioning.
Having spent many years as the commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources, I know just how important clean water is to our state. Our marine fisheries, including the lobster industry, pump more than $1 billion into Maine’s economy and support nearly 20,000 jobs. These jobs are directly dependent on clean water, and clean water starts upstream. We can’t have clean bays and ocean waters without clean rivers, and we can’t have clean rivers without protecting our small streams and wetlands, too.
That’s why it is important for Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King to support the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to clarify and strengthen Clean Water Act protections for small streams and wetlands.
Recreational freshwater fishing also is an important engine for the Maine economy with an economic impact of $370 million, according to recent statistics. A lot of that comes from brook trout and landlocked salmon fishing. Brook trout and landlocked salmon need very clean, cool water to thrive, and we will lose these spectacular freshwater fisheries if we don’t protect our small streams and wetlands. Small streams provide cool, clean water for brook trout and salmon and wetlands filter out pollutants that would otherwise harm the waterbodies these fish live in.
Protecting small streams and wetlands is also critical to keeping our drinking water safe and clean. Small streams have a major influence on the quality of the waters they flow into. Near half of all Mainers get their drinking water from utilities that rely on surface water supplies, such as lakes and rivers. If the quality of the water in the smaller streams drops, the quality of the water in the large lakes and rivers that provide our drinking water will drop, too. That means less safe drinking water and extremely expensive treatment systems for which Maine residents will pay through increased water rates.
Wetlands are nature’s best filters for pollutants that otherwise would flow into our drinking water supplies. By absorbing rainwater during storms, wetlands also help protect Maine homes and towns from flooding. Wetlands save about $30 billion per year in flooding costs in the U.S.
Mainers owe a huge debt of gratitude to our late senator Ed Muskie for the Clean Water Act. Without that law, many of our rivers and coastal waters would still be too polluted to support the recreational and commercial fishing opportunities we take for granted today. These early steps were the big, obvious steps like cleaning up rivers and lakes. In the late 1970s, my uncle, Gerard Cote of Auburn, excitedly told me about the return of cormorants to the Androscoggin River because that meant there were fish for the birds to eat in the river. Now we need to tackle the smaller system parts — the streams and wetlands that make up healthy ecosystems.
Unfortunately, several members of Congress are threatening to block an EPA proposal that would clarify and strengthen Clean Water Act protections for small streams and wetlands throughout the U.S. Without this clarification, these areas are at increased risk from pollution and damage from development, here in Maine and across the nation. Already, more than 5,000 Mainers have joined 800,000 Americans nationwide and submitted comments in support EPA’s proposal. I urge Collins and King to join in supporting the proposal and ask they vote against any bills that would undermine it.
George Lapointe of Hallowell has 30 years of experience in management of marine fisheries and natural resources. He served as Maine’s commissioner of marine resources and led the Interstate Fisheries Management Program of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.