The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not set policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
This week the Clean Water Act turns 50. Maine Sen. Ed Muskie is considered a prime champion of the law, its grandfather, if you will. The act, along with the Clean Air Act, which Muskie considered more important, was the impetus for major improvement in our environment. Both air and water pollution have been significantly reduced since these laws were pushed by the senator from Rumford, who went on to be a U.S. Secretary of State.
The Clean Water Act became law on Oct. 18, 1972. It was signed by President Richard Nixon.
Passing the bill took a lot of persuasion, something Muskie undertook through a series of speeches across the country. He spoke to civic leaders and to everyday people to spread his message of protecting the environment, for all Americans, not just for “speculators” who sought to buy it up for their own use, or for other commercial interests.
Some of these remarks were recently curated by Bates College, where Muskie graduated with a degree in history and government in 1936. They touch on what are now familiar themes: protecting our water and air for all Mainers; recognizing environmental protection as a means of economic development.
Here is a sampling.
Speaking at an Elks Lodge in Millinocket in October 1970, Muskie made the case for preserving the environment as a way to create jobs.
“I was asked on your radio this afternoon … if I had but one wish that I could make for Maine, what would that wish be? My answer was that I hope we find a way to create economic opportunity for all people without destroying the beauty that is this state,” Muskie said. “So I say that was my very quick reaction but now that I’ve had a few hours to think about it, I can’t think of another wish that I would make.”
“But the challenge that is in it for us, is that we begin to look at this precious resource through different eyes; that we begin to be more selective about the uses to which we’re willing to put it; that we begin to think more in terms of public ownership of these shorelands, both lake and ocean, to ensure that the public as a whole has reasonable access to it; that we adopt the kind of public policy that ensures that a reasonable proportion of these wildlands be retained in that state so that our children, as well as we, can remember what it’s like to camp out where you can hear a loon, to walk through miles of wilderness where you have the impression no one else has ever been.”
Speaking to the conference of the National Association of Counties in March 1970, Muskie emphasized the human connection to the environment.
“And we should all understand that we are all in the same boat,” he said. “That what happens to our environment must make a difference to all of us, whoever we are. And that what happens to each of us, must make a difference to the rest of us. So we must reclaim the total human environment.”
In a speech after the Clean Air Act was enacted, Muskie sought to humanize the importance of protecting our environment and to remind people that they knew what it meant to have clean water and air.
“As citizens, you know what dirty water is,” he said to the Housatonic Valley Association in Newtown, Connecticut in October 1973. “You know when you cannot swim in the Housatonic River, you know when those tributaries you used to fish no longer have trout. You know that’s pollution. And I’m not sure you’re interested in the exact quantity of suspended solids or the oxygen demand in the river, but [what] you are interested in is getting an unhealthy environment healthy, getting a dirty river clean.”
Although he did not name the former Maine senator, President Joe Biden recognized the efforts of Muskie and others who pushed for environmental improvements in a proclamation marking the Clean Water Act’s 50th anniversary.
“Fifty years ago, the Congress passed the Clean Water Act of 1972, revolutionizing America’s responsibility to protect and restore the vital waterways that sustain our communities, our economy, and our ecosystems,” the proclamation said..
“Five decades later, our Nation’s waters are dramatically cleaner. Once dead rivers and lakes are now flourishing with wildlife. People have returned to boat, fish, and swim. Sacred waters that Tribal Nations have relied on for generations are clean again,” the proclamation added. “It is a powerful tribute not only to the activists who first sounded the alarm, built a movement, and fought to pass this powerful law but also to the Americans everywhere who have since done so much to help enforce it, safeguarding our waterways and taking on polluters in court.”
