Sea Change.  Tsunami. Maelstrom.  Take your pick but the results of the mid-term election from an environmental perspective will bring an even more extreme and hostile approach to restoring, protecting and preserving our natural resources.  The change in Maine will be staggering – not once since the first comprehensive environmental statutes were passed in the 1970’s has there been a Republican governor and a Republican controlled Legislature.  And unlike the past leaders of the Republican party in Maine like US Senators Margaret Chase Smith and Bill Cohen or State legislators Horace Hildreth and Harry Richardson, today’s leaders of the Republican party have attempted to revive the old and false dichotomy of “jobs vs. the environment.”  At stake is the work of 40 years to provide a framework that allows Maine’s people and communities to thrive and protects Maine’s natural resources. We are in unchartered territory.

Governor-elect Paul LePage’s rhetoric on the campaign trail was alarmingly anti-environmental.  Beyond staking his election on dismantling Maine’s agencies tasked with safeguarding our environment, he has bluntly expressed support for offshore oil drilling in the wake of the worst oil spill ever experienced by our country.  He supports building wildly expensive new nuclear power plants.  Rather mind-numbing is the fact that he considers climate change to be at the least, subject to scientific debate if not outright denying it.  And he opposes sustainable  wind development.  Even more problematic is a pervasive sense that he simply doesn’t “get it” – doesn’t get the concept of sustainability, doesn’t get the economic value of a strong and vibrant environment and doesn’t get Mainers abiding conviction that ours is a unique state that merits strong efforts to maintain.

Willful ignorance may be trending in Augusta, but thoughtfulness  has a firm place in Maine’s culture. Those who are committed to a sustainable approach to managing our resources to benefit our people must now put the election behind us and focus on holding the line.  Open and active collaboration among Maine’s environmental community will be necessary to that effort.  We need to recognize that a majority of Maine people voted for two candidates who have long and distinguished records as environmental leaders and stewards.  Just as a majority of voters supported additional funding for the Land for Maine’s Future program, a clear sign that we continue to be willing to invest in safeguarding our environment.

The Conservation Law Foundation has always believed that a thriving Maine is the result of strong environmental protections and sound economic principles.  That belief – and CLF’s unique ability to translate it into practical, effective and results-oriented advocacy – will be more important than ever as a new administration attempts to dismantle the environmental protections of the last four decades.  We hope you join us in our collaborative effort to tackle the challenges that lay ahead.

October 8 is the deadline to adopt a mile of New England’s shoreline and we’re counting on you to make a difference.

Even if you never heard the term “nutrient pollution” before, you may have seen its devastating effects on the New England waters that you treasure. Slimy algae blooms and fish kills are two of the more visible consequences of too much nitrogen and phosphorus in the water. And the effects you can’t see are the most troubling: massive areas under the glistening waters of our fragile bays and lakes where no living thing can survive. This man-made problem is a solvable one and the key to our success is you!

By adopting a mile (or more!) of shoreline, you are giving CLF the ability to rescue our most precious waters. Please symbolically adopt a mile today:

Adopt 1 mile of Narragansett Bay for just $10

Adopt 1 mile of Cape Cod’s Coastline for just $10

Adopt 1 mile of Lake Champlain’s Shore for just $10

Adopt 1 mile of the Great Bay Estuary for just $10

Adopt 1 mile of Maine’s Coastline for just $10

Like you, I am frustrated by the dramatic and entirely avoidable scourge of nutrient pollution that is wreaking havoc on our most precious waters throughout the region, including Lake Champlain, the Great Bay Estuary, Cape Cod, Maine’s Coast and Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay.

This week, CLF made big news by seeking stricter controls on nitrogen pollution (a form of pollution caused by inadequately treated wastewater) in the massive Millbury, MA wastewater treatment facility know as the Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement District. Each day, this facility discharges more than 50 million gallons of nitrogen-laden water into the Blackstone River, which flows south through Massachusetts and eventually into Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay.

The impacts of the nitrogen pollution in Narragansett Bay have been devastating. We’ve seen toxic algae blooms, widespread loss of eel grass meadows–critical habitat for fish and other marine life–and even massive fish kills. Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management estimates that one of the larger kills in recent memory left approximately one million dead fish on the state’s shores.

It doesn’t have to be this way–and fortunately, the problem of nutrient pollution is solvable. But the fight to tighten pollution controls at the Upper Blackstone and across the region won’t be easy, and that’s why we need you on board. Today, before midnight, you can make a difference by adopting a mile of shoreline for just $10.

Your donation will help push our clean water advocacy forward, not just in Rhode Island, but across the region. Just last month, CLF filed suit against the EPA for not fulfilling its duties under the Clean Water Act to permit and regulate the wastewater discharges on Cape Cod. In NH, as a direct result of CLF’s advocacy, the Great Bay Estuary has been officially designated as “impaired” under the Clean Water Act, affording it greater, much-needed protection from continued nitrogen pollution and the 20 wastewater plants in the area. Our advocates are on the ground taking the forceful legal action required to tackle this growing problem.

You may have never heard the term nutrient pollution before. But by adopting a mile of shoreline and making a difference in our clean water advocacy, let’s hope you never hear it again.

Sincerely,
John Kassel
President
Conservation Law Foundation

P.S. Today is the day. With only a few days left to act, please make a difference by adopting a mile of shoreline for $10 before midnight on October 8.

Dear CLF Supporter,

New England’s waters are in crisis. Nutrient pollution is a huge problem for our region; inadequately-treated wastewater, fertilizer-laden runoff from industrial farms, roadways, and sprawl development are fueling deadly algae blooms in some of our most cherished waters—like Lake Champlain, Long Island Sound, Cape Cod’s bay and estuaries, and the Great Bay, located between New Hampshire and Maine. These algae blooms suffocate and kill fish, shellfish and other aquatic life, creating vast “dead zones.”

Nutrient pollution is bad news. But there is a silver lining to this scummy, man-made problem: It’s solvable. For years, CLF has been working to reverse nutrient pollution in waters throughout New England. And there’s even more good news; today, you have the opportunity to make a REAL impact on nutrient pollution by symbolically adopting a mile of shoreline for $10:

Adopting a mile of shoreline may seem like a drop in the bucket, but it gives CLF and our advocates the resources we need to tackle and solve this problem; it is the very underpinning of our most crucial clean water work.

When you adopt a mile of shoreline for $10, you will fund:

• Lake Champlain LakeKeeper Program: CLF’s LakeKeeper, affiliated with the Waterkeeper Alliance, is the eyes and ears of Lake Champlain, dedicated to protecting this irreplaceable natural treasure. Part watchdog, part scientist and part public advocate, the LakeKeeper engages citizens, businesses and state and local authorities in doing their part to keep Lake Champlain clean.
• Clean Water Enforcement: All over New England, violation of water quality regulations is rampant, resulting in severely degraded waterways. Due to a combination of lax government oversight and insufficient resources, clean water can no longer be taken for granted. This is especially true in low-income communities, which bear a disproportionate burden of water pollution. CLF is putting feet on the ground to hold polluters accountable, wherever they are, for compliance with clean water laws in an effort to restore vital water quality to all New Englanders.
• Nutrient Pollution Advocacy: Nutrient pollution is a relatively recent, man-made scourge—an insidious by-product of industrial agriculture and wastewater treatment operations—that is threatening New England’s great salt and freshwater bodies. It is also entirely solvable. CLF is tirelessly pursuing up-to-date, science-based limits on how much nitrogen and phosphorus can be discharged without sacrificing water quality and stricter controls at the source to keep the pollutants out of our waterways.

Nutrient pollution is a solvable problem and CLF is securing important victories all across our region. In Vermont, as a result of CLF’s advocacy, the city of South Burlington voluntarily cut in half the nutrient pollution that could be discharged into Lake Champlain from its sewage treatment plant. In Massachusetts, the EPA introduced controls for nitrogen in the 2008 permit for the Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement District, over the objections of the district. The permit was recently upheld despite continued pressure from the district. The bottom line: Nutrient pollution, with your support, is a problem that we can solve!

Unfortunately, the clock is ticking. Literally. We are quickly approaching the point of no return for some of our region’s more fragile waterways. We need you to act now, before our October 8 deadline, to reverse nutrient pollution in New England. It takes just $10.

Today, you can make a real difference in New England’s nutrient pollution crisis by adopting one mile (or more!) of shoreline. We’re counting on you.

Sincerely,

Chris Kilian

P.S. Please click the “like” button below to share this important message with your friends on Facebook!

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

That opening line from Dickens’ classic A Tale of Two Cities ran through my head last week as I had two very different experiences of Lake Champlain, the 6th largest freshwater lake in the lower 48.

On Saturday, CLF participated in Burlington, Vt’s Lake Champlain Maritime Festival.  Visitors from Canada, outlying towns in Vermont, and many of the 50 states descended on the waterfront for fun in the sun along New England’s “west coast.” Festival goers had a chance to take sailing lessons and inspect old-style guide boats and other watergoing vessels from the Lake’s past.  By day, the sun shone on the broad blue Lake with its breathtaking vistas of the Adirondack Mountains in New York.  And by night great music from the likes of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals echoed across the waterfront.  Although they may not have known it, many of the festival goers also had a chance to drink water from the lake as it serves as the main public drinking water source for 250,000 people in the greater Burlington area.

The festival was exactly the kind of event that highlights the Lake as a recreational, cultural, and economic resource for Vermonters and those who come to visit.  It was a “best of times” moment for our great Lake.

But less than two months ago, in the midst of the summer’s worst heat wave, the same waterfront exploded with foul blue-green algae blooms that turned the water a nasty shade of slimy green.  The Burlington Free Press has an depressing gallery of photos here.

And that brings me to the “worst of times” moments from last week.

On Tuesday, members of the St. Albans Bay Area Watershed Association invited me to come see the foul water quality that has been plaguing the Bay for most of the summer.  I drove up to St. Albans, roughly 30 miles north of Burlington, to meet with three local residents–a retiree, a high school principal, and a state police officer–who are both maddened and saddened by the plight of St. Albans Bay.

A blue-green algae scum fouls and discolors the mostly-deserted waters of St. Albans Bay near a spot that used to average 50,000 visitors a summer before algae blooms like this became a regular experience

They took me on a tour of the watershed, an area that has become dominated by industrial-scale dairy farming responsible for spreading millions of gallons of liquid manure each year onto farm fields that eventually drain into the bay.  The excess nutrients in the runoff from those fields fuel the blue-green algae that choke the life out of the Bay, depressing area businesses and property values.  Forget the image of cows grazing happily on green fields with a red barn in the background.  The cows on these farms were packed tightly into low, single-story barns that look more like warehouses.

The group took me to the waterfront St. Albans Bay Park.  The bright-green, scummy water I saw is pictured at left.  It was a blistering hot day, but no one was using the beach or even thinking about swimming.  The ice cream parlor on the park’s edge had no customers and the convenience store looked pretty slow too.

One of my tourguides, who used to take his kids swimming there all the time in the 80s, told me that the park was once a major destination for Canadians who would drive south to bask on the Bay’s calm beaches–bringing their tourist money with them.  But annual visits to the park–once as high as 50,000 people per summer–have dropped to less than 5,000 as water quality has declined.

Vermont cannot and will not prosper as a state if we continue to tell this tale of two lakes.  The Maritime festival highlights what a tremendous asset a clean lake is and can be.  Yet one wonders what would have happened if the festival was scheduled for earlier in the summer when the water near Burlington looked much as the water in St. Albans did last week.  The experience of depressed property values and economic decline in St. Albans Bay highlights what we stand to lose if we don’t stem the pollution flowing to all sections of the Lake.  We cannot tolerate a situation where you have to check a Department of Health web site to see the status of blue-green algae blooms in the part of the Lake you are planning on visiting.

Whether the problem is pollution from poorly-run megafarms, fouled runoff from big-box parking lots, or inadequately treated sewage, CLF’s Lake Champlain Lakekeeper is committed to restoring and maintaining the best of times all the time and everywhere in Lake Champlain.

There’s nothing like a major summer heat wave to help you appreciate the value of rivers, lakes, and ponds that are safe for swimming.  Like the massive herds of animals that you see on nature shows congregating by a communal watering hole, we all have a primal urge to be submerged in cold, clean water as a cure for oppressive summer heat.

Thanks to the Clean Water Act, many of our nation’s waters are once again safe for swimming most of the time.  But sadly there are still many lakeshores, oceanfronts, and riversides close to major population centers where high bacteria levels and noxious algae often make swimming unattractive and unsafe.

A blue-green algae bloom fouls the Charles River, making it off limits to swimming

All across New England, from Cape Cod to Lake Champlain, wastewater pollution, polluted runoff from parking lots and streets, and manure and other wastes from farming operations fouls water quality, depriving overheated New Englanders of the chance to safely cool off by taking a dip in their neighborhood waterway.  Ironically, the same hot weather that makes us hanker for a refreshing swim can exacerbate pollution problems by stimulating the growth of harmful algae that can make swimmers sick.

It isn’t supposed to be this way! When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, it set a national goal of restoring all of our nation’s waters to safe-swimming status by 1983 and provided funding, permitting, and enforcement programs designed to achieve those goals.  Though the Clean Water Act has helped us make long-overdue progress toward that goal, our national commitment to properly funding and enforcing this fundamental law has waned along with water quality in many places.

Last night the heat was so bad in my un-air-conditioned home I had to get out for a swim.  Even though there are several stretches of the Winooski River running through my small city of Montpelier, Vt. where water flow and depth conditions would make for nice swimming, I know too much about the untreated pollution that runs off  city streets right into the river to walk down to the Winooski for a swim.  Instead, I had to jump in the car and drive a round-trip of 30 minutes into the countryside to find the clean-water relief I was seeking.  I’m lucky in this regard, because many New Englanders in more densely populated areas would have to drive farther to find a clean swimming hole even though, like me, most have another waterway that could be made–and by law is supposed to be–safe for swimming much closer to home.

By allowing regulators and policymakers to underfund and underenforce Clean Water Act programs, we are forfeiting one of our most valuable natural assets–safely-swimmable waterways.

At CLF, we are committed to achieving the national vision of restoring and protecting all our waters so they are safe for swimming and fishing–including our urban waters that flow through sweltering cities where people are most in need of a more carbon-neutral alternative to air-conditioned cooling off.  Our country still has much work to do on this public health/public happiness issue.  The heat wave is a reminder of why that work is worth doing.  To learn more about CLF’s clean water efforts for New England, please visit our web site.

Conservation Law Foundation gives a hearty round of grateful applause to Phish, the band’s excellent WaterWheel Foundation team, and the band’s fans!  A huge thanks to Beth Montuori-Rowles and Matthew Beck in particular for doing what you do to facilitate Phish’s amazing support for hundreds of charitable organizations throughout the country including supporting CLF back home in Vermont.  The band has provided incredible support to CLF over the years through its charitable giving foundation including several opportunities to talk to phans at the WaterWheel Foundation tables at concerts in New England and New York.

Last night, an intrepid team of CLF’ers was given the opportunity to talk about CLF’s work at the band’s local concert at the Comcast Center, in Mansfield, Massachusetts (for old schoolers like me a/k/a Great Woods).  The sold out show was full of energized and interested folks who were eager to hear about CLF’s work.  Our contacts ranged from high school students, a local watershed association scientist, a former CLF intern (hey Danica!), CLF members, Page McConnell’s very nice aunt and uncle, small business owners, union workers, environmental professionals, an organic chocolate maker, and lots of folks who just wanted to find out more about CLF and WaterWheel.

We took the opportunity to talk about our current effort to stop offshore oil drilling off of the coast of New England.  Yes folks, that’s right, for the first time in decades, the moratorium on oil exploration on George’s Bank — one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems and just off of our coast — expired this year and hasn’t been reinstated.  It should be a no-brainer to reinstate the prohibition given the current disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.  I have heard that there is a risk of oil hitting our coasts even from the Gulf oil disaster, let alone drilling miles away fr0m our own shores.  Well, not so fast!  Congress and President Obama have not renewed the moratorium on drilling along the New England coastline and we need them to act now.

So, CLF and WaterWheel urged phans to show their concerns by signing a petition to President Obama urging him, and Congress to act quickly to renew the drilling moratorium.  We are excited to report that hundreds of concert-goers signed on to make their voices heard.  There is still time to sign the petition on CLF’s webpage at http://www.clf.org– just hit the take action tab at the top of the page and select Prevent an Oil Disaster in New England. We also let folks know that CLF has played a big role in making sure that the Cape Wind windfarm off of Cape Cod and Nantucket was approved this past spring.

Of course, true to form, the music was fantastic as well.  There is nothing like a Phish show for amazing musicianship and an incredible light show.  Many thanks to Jon Fishman, Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, and Page McConnell for years of amazing music, wonderful charitable hearts, and a heck of a lot of F-U-N!!!  Thanks again.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ announcement that he will retire from the United States Supreme Court will bring some much needed attention to the larger issue of judicial nominations under the Obama Administration. 

These days, it is hard to  find a good word to say about the ultraconservative majority of the United States Supreme Court that Justice Stevens has tried, with limited success, to counterbalance.  That’s especially true for those who care about clean water (query: because clean water is fundamental to human survival and prosperity, shouldn’t we all care about clean water?)  In a few short years, the Roberts’ Court’s rulings have managed to seriously undermine and restrict one of America’s most important and successful laws–the Clean Water Act. 

For example, the NewYork Times recently reported on the chaos one of the Court’s rulings has created:

Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators.   As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them.  And pollution rates are rising.

A majority of these Justices seems intent on handing down a death sentence to the Clean Water Act

In another example from 2009, Coeur Alaska v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Corps., the Court badly misinterpreted the CLEAN WATER ACT to reach the conclusion that a gold mining operation was entitled to a permit allowing it to discharge “210,000 gallons per day of mining waste into Lower Slate Lake, a 23-acre subalpine lake in Tongass National Forest,” even though the ” ‘tailings slurry’ ” would “contain concentrations of aluminum, copper, lead, and mercury” and would “kill all of the lake’s fish and nearly all of its other aquatic life.” 

President Obama has an important opportunity, actually I would argue it’s a responsibility, to rebalance the federal judiciary after years of ultraconservative domination and transformation.  (If you want to understand how the judiciary was so effectively radicalized by the right, read Jeffrey Toobin’s book “The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.”).  The administration’s slow pace and cautious character in nominating people to fill court vacancies has been drawing criticism since November of last year as evidenced by this New York Times editorial.  Unfortunately, recent reporting in the L.A. Times indicates that President Obama still hasn’t made much progress due to a combination of White House inattention and timidity and Republican obstructionism in the Senate.

Terrible judicial decisions, like those discussed above, are turning this country’s essential environmental protection laws on their heads and at the same time putting the public health and environmental sustainability of this country at great risk.  America has some excellent environmental laws.  To be sure, we need to make them stronger to deal more effectively with newly-understood challenges like global climate chaos.  But when we have judges who are ideologically unwilling to affirm the pollution-controlling principles set forth in the laws, we have no hope of achieving the level of environmental protection essential for our continued national prosperity.  

If we want to ensure that our environmental laws work to keep us healthy and happy, we must urge President Obama to follow the lead of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in appointing judges like the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. 

Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas understood the purpose of our environmental laws and the values that motivated their enactment by bi-partisan majorities of Congress

Justice Douglas truly understood the values that informed Congress’ adoption of such successful laws as the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Wilderness Act.  In his 1961 memoir “My Wilderness; East to Katahdin,” Douglas expounded on the value of rivers as public resources:

“Rivers are choice national assests reserved for all the people.  Industry that pours its refuse into rivers and the other commercial interests that use these water highways do not have monopoly rights.  People have broader interests than moneymaking. Recreation, health, and enjoyment of aesthetic values are part of man’s liberty.  Rivers play an important role in keeping this idea of liberty alive.”

For this and all the other ideas of liberty that are threatened by a judiciary dominated by radical conservatives, we must take action.  Call or email the White House and ask president Obama to find us the men and women who will follow in the tradition of Justice Douglas, and help the president fight to get them appointed to the federal courts.

Our hearts go out to New Englanders dealing with the flood disaster caused by record-setting rainfall over the last couple days.  The director of CLF’s Rhode Island Director, Tricia Jedele, has circulated some extraordinary pictures of the deluge that really bring home the scope of the devastation.

The tragic events playing out on the ground in Rhode Island–flooding and subsequent failure of public health infrastructure like sewage treatment plants–have been eerily predicted as likely outcomes of human-caused climate change.  But when you see the destruction occurring in Rhode Island and elsewhere in southern New England, you realize that terms like ”climate change” or even “global warming” are grossly inadequate descriptions of what is really going on: total climate chaos.  

CLF's Rhode Island Director Tricia Jedele documented the awesome, destructive power of the Pawtuxet River swollen by intense rains.

Here are just some of those eery predictions taken from a 2008 EPA National Water Program strategy document titled “Response to Climate Change” at p. 11 (note that this document was created during the Bush Administration so it probably underplays the science a bit).  The report cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) conclusion that “annual mean precipitation is very likely to increase in Canada and the northeast United States” as a result of climate chaos.  It concludes that the climate chaos we are causing with our greenhouse gas pollution will “alter the hydrological cycle, especially characteristics of precipitation (amount, frequency, intensity, duration, type) and extremes” p. 10 The report also concludes that: 

• increased frequency and intensity of rainfall in some areas will produce more pollution and erosion and sedimentation due to runoff (EPA 2007h);
• “[w]ater-borne diseases and degraded water quality are very likely to increase with more heavy precipitation” (IPCC 2008, p. 103);
• potential increases in heavy precipitation, with expanding impervious surfaces, could increase urban flood risks and create additional design challenges and costs for stormwater management” (Field et al. 2007, p. 633);
• flooding can affect water quality, as large volumes of water can transport contaminants into waterbodies and also overload storm and wastewater systems (EPA 2007h)

Tens of thousands of homeowners in Warwick and West Warwick are learning firsthand how flooding can shut down wastewater systems, badly contaminating the rivers and backing raw sewage up into people’s homes.  Yesterday’s Providence Journal reports that it may take days or even weeks to get the plants in those communities up and running again.  

The serious water pollution is not limited to raw sewage.  Today’s Burlington Free Press carries a stunning AP photo of a massive oil slick running through a flooded industrial area near the Pawtuxet River under the headline “Worst Flooding in 200 years.”  The story goes on to recount the serious damage to bridges, highways, dams, and personal property caused by the floodwaters throughout New England.  Incidentally, right next to the headline about flooding, the Free Press reports that “Vermont headed for record heat” this weekend. 

Sadly, above the stories on record-breaking flooding and record-breaking heat in the Burlington Free Press , the top headline reads “Obama expands drilling.” 

We must learn the hard lessons from this hard rain: Climate chaos is happening and it is already costing our society billions in hidden costs associated with climate disasters like the recent flooding.  The longer we wait to take serious actions to stem our emissions of greenhouse gases, the higher the price we will have to pay.  This week, the price is being measured in destroyed infrastructure, lost productivity from businesses that must stay closed during flood disasters, badly-contaminated-disease-bearing water, displacement of people whose homes are destoryed, and the list goes on.  

The message that Tricia Jedele sent along with her pictures brings home another point about the environmental justice aspects of this most-pressing human problem. ”There is a connection here to how our failure to respond appropriately to climate change and address adaptation will disproportionately impact the poorer communities.  The small mom and pop, main street types of businesses will be hardest hit.”

These costs MUST be part of the cost-benefit analysis that is driving debates over issues like expanding offshore drilling for more fossil fuels to burn in America’s cars.  When your car is under water and the bridges and roads you need to drive on are too, are you really all that excited that we sacrificed our oceans and increased our reliance on the fuel sources causing climate chaos, all so we could save 3 or 4 pennies per gallon at the pump?

The next time you enjoy the serene beauty of Cape Cod’s National Seashore or the untrammelled mountain Wilderness areas of the Green and White Mountain National Forests, pause at a particularly pristine spot and utter a quiet thank you to Stewart Udall.  Obviously the former Secretary of the Interior under presidents Kennedy and Johnson didn’t make these places so intrinsically beautiful and ecologically significant.  Instead, he dedicated his life in public service to ensuring that they, along with so many other of America’s natural treasures, remained that way for future generations to enjoy.

The wildlife-rich 40 miles of sandy beaches, marshes, and wildlife cranberry bogs along the Cape Cod National Seashore were forever protected thanks to the tireless leadership of former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall

Udall, who passed away on Saturday, was a great champion of protecting wild places through common ownership and management by our national government.  He was a leading proponent of the Wilderness Act of 1964–one of our nation’s wisest and most successful conservation laws.  And his  legacy lives on in the numerous national parks–like the Cape Cod National Seashore–national monuments, and wildlife refuges across the country that were added to the government’s public land holdings on his watch and through his efforts.

Among the many wonderful tributes written since his passing, the Associated Press obituary includes a passage from one Udall’s 1963 book “A Quiet Crisis”:

“If in our haste to ‘progress,’ the economics of ecology are disregarded by citizens and poliymakers alike, the result will be an ugly America…We cannot afford an America where expeidience tramples upon esthetics and development decisions are made with an eye toward the present only.”

Over the years, CLF has worked hard to expand and defend the legacy of Udall and other courageous government officials who understood that the economics of ecology are central to our nation’s continued prosperity.  In the 1980s, CLF’s efforts led to a significant reduction in the use of dune buggies and other off-road vehicles that were degrading habitat and disturbing the Cape Cod National Seashore’s natural tranquility (echoes of that effort are evident in CLF’s ongoing campaign to protect Vermont state lands from being chewed up by ATVs).  More recently, CLF was a leading member of the coalition that drove passage of the New England Wilderness Act of 2006, which protected more than 80,000 acres of wild forests in the Green and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire. 

A great man has died.  But in his memory the work of protecting  America’s wild places continues on.