PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • September 15, 2020
When I was growing up here in the 1960s and 1970s, Casco Bay at times had a distinct odor to it. If the tide was out and the breeze was blowing in, it smelled like an open sewer – largely because that’s what it was. It was one of Maine’s own citizens who led the effort to address the problem. Ed Muskie grew up in Rumford and saw firsthand what pollution was doing to the Androscoggin River. As chair of the Air and Water Subcommittee in the U.S. Senate, Muskie ushered in, among other laws, the Clean Water Act. President Richard Nixon vetoed the bill, but Sen. Muskie achieved an override. America’s waterways are much cleaner today, but the work of keeping waterways clean goes on. ~ Jeff Brown, Portland