ACTION ALERT! 2 quick ways to help make clean water a reality

1. Right Now!

Contact your Members of Congress:

The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act is new legislation just introduced in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. This legislation will clean up both the Chesapeake Bay and our own rivers and streams for swimming, fishing, and boating. It will set a legally binding deadline to clean up the Bay and our local waterways by 2025 and puts some legal muscle behind President Obama’s Executive Order on Bay clean up. It will also create regional pollution caps covering all waterways that lead to the Bay.

Unfortunately, these bills were introduced without a single cosponsor from Pennsylvania. We can – and must — do better than that.

We need your help in getting Pennsylvania’s members of Congress to step up and fight for clean water. With Pennsylvania providing more than half of the water that makes up the Chesapeake Bay (much of it polluted), having our members of Congress cosponsor the bill is crucial. The legislation will also mean our own rivers and streams — the Juniata, Conodoguinet, Octoraro, Loyalsock, and Susquehanna — get cleaned up.

Please contact your members of Congress (click this link for an instant letter) and urge them to join in sponsoring this critical Clean Water legislation. Let them know you support clean and healthy water and that you expect them to do the same.

2. Beginning Nov. 9th
In May, President Obama issued an historic Executive Order on Chesapeake Bay clean up, the first and only one about the environment. The President recognized the Chesapeake Bay as a national treasure and called on the federal government to lead a new effort to protect the nation’s largest estuary (where the river meets the sea) and all the waters that drain to it. A Federal Leadership Committee will oversee the drafting of seven reports to outline how our federal agencies can protect and restore our water resources.

Your public input is vital. The draft strategy and revised reports will be released on Monday, November 9, 2009; the public comment period will begin then.

So mark your calendars for November 9 and let the Federal Leadership Committee know what clean water means to you. Your comments will mean a strong plan of action for the Bay.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

And do your part...