Letter from the president.

• Author: Kassel, John

Dear CLF Friends,

New England is changing. That doesn't come easy to many of us. We like our seasons regular, arriving when and how they have for generations. Today, much of our inherited wisdom about when to plant our seeds, why the striped bass arrive with the forsythia, and how were meant to heat our homes, is being challenged.

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Together we face a changing climate, a dramatic transformation of our energy system, collapsing ocean species and a steadily transforming food system. How are we as a region dealing with each of these challenges? The stories in this issue present an answer.

This has been a good year for CLF--a year in which we achieved some historic victories. Nearly thirty years after we filed the first federal lawsuit to cleanup Boston Harbor, CLF reached a landmark agreement with the Boston Water and Sewer Commission. It improves the control of polluted runoff from storm drains and eliminates illegal sewer connections that can cause raw sewage discharges into some of the area's major rivers, including the Charles, Mystic and...