LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT.

• Author: Campbell, Bradley

It's easy to take clean water for granted. Whether turning on the tap to fill a glass, jumping into a lake on a hot summer day, or eating freshly caught fish, we expect that our water will sustain and refresh--rather than harm--us. So vital is clean water to our health, communities, and economy that its protection is embedded deeply into our society, from laws like the Clean Water Act to the taxes we pay to support wastewater treatment facilities.

CLF was founded six years before Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972. In the decades since, few have used that landmark law so effectively, from our groundbreaking lawsuit forcing the cleanup of Boston Harbor in the 1980s to our ongoing first-in-the-nation litigation against Big Oil for failing to protect their facilities from climate risk.

However, while our local waters no longer teem with raw sewage, threats to New England's waters are increasing today.

Polluted stormwater runoff, undertreated wastewater, excess fertilizer from farms and lawns--these threats are pervasive and no less insidious than those that prompted the passage of the Clean Water Act. Moreover, a river, lake, or pond can look blue and beautiful on the surface even as pollution slowly kills fish, plants, and other wildlife below.

The...