Forty-five years ago this fall, the Clean Water Act became law thanks to the work of U.S. Sen. Ed Muskie ’36 of Maine. That we know.

Less well-known is that President Nixon initially vetoed the act, calling the legislation “extreme and needless overspending.” (The veto is so little known that some websites credit Nixon with signing the bill.)

In the Senate, Muskie led the rapid and successful override effort, and the bill became a law on Oct. 18, 1972. Muskie ridiculed Nixon’s opposition, using speech-making tactics likely learned as a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ debater, including these pointed rhetorical questions, each starting with “Can we…?,” a technique known as anaphora:

“Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and streams and oceans which continue to make possible life on this planet? Can we afford life itself”?

Today, environmental economists like Lynne Lewis, the Elmer Campbell Professor of Economics at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, are adding oomph to Muskie’s blistering rebuttal by measuring the financial benefits of clean water, at a time of ongoing

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ environmental economist Lynne Lewis (left) speaks during a media event at Veterans Memorial Park along the Androscoggin River in Lewiston on Oct. 18. Also speaking were, from left, Dick Anderson, former Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologist; Natalie Lounsbury of River Rise Farm in Turner; Lisa Pohlmann, executive director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine; and Beckie Conrad ’82, president and CEO of the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. (Courtesy of Lynne Lewis)

Last month, on the 45th anniversary of Muskie’s landmark Clean Water Act, Lewis offered some of that evidence as she spoke at a press event sponsored by the Natural Resources Council of Maine and held along the Androscoggin River:

Good morning. I am an environmental economist. Many people I meet ask what that is. Environmental economics is, in part, focused on measuring the costs and benefits of environmental policies. The Clean Water Act, authored by Sen. Edmund Muskie, a graduate of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College here in Lewiston, has been enormously successful in economics terms — meaning providing economic benefits well in excess of the costs of compliance.

The Clean Water Act provides billions of dollars in economic benefits annually, by protecting the water we drink and in which we fish, swim, boat in, and live near.

For a state like Maine that is literally filled with rivers, lakes, streams, and coastline, clean water provides enormous economic value to our state in the form of reduced health care costs, improved recreational opportunities and tax revenues to the state from increased tourism. From my research and that of others, it is clear that clean water significantly increases waterfront property values for both homeowners and businesses.

Thriving businesses and community events take place along rivers such as this. These revenue sources did not exist before the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act has resulted in a rebounding of river herring and other sea-run fish, contributing to the health of our Gulf of Maine fisheries.

The crowd-pleasing success of the Great Falls Balloon Festival underscores the value of a cleaned-up Androscoggin River. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

According to a study by the University of Maine, our lakes contribute an estimated $3.5 billion to Maine’s economy annually, supporting 52,000 jobs. Clean coastal waters support the thousands of lobstering and fishing jobs that deliver landings of more than $700 million annually.

As a result of the clean water quality in Maine, the Portland Water District is one of only 50 water districts in the U.S., out of 50,000, that can forgo having a filtration plant. It would cost $70 million to build a filtration plant and an additional $1 million a year to maintain and operate that plant.

The Clean Water Act has done more to clean up our lakes, streams and rivers than any other single piece of environmental regulation.

Scott Pruitt’s efforts to cut EPA funding for programs that keep Maine’s waters clean, and undo a major water protection rule are examples of his moves to quickly and stealthily dismantle environmental regulations at the expense of those of us who benefit from them.

The Clean Water Rule, enacted by the Obama administration, was designed to take the existing federal protections on large water bodies and expand them to include the wetlands and small tributaries that flow into these larger waters. This rule closed loopholes that had left more than 55 percent of Maine’s stream miles and thousands of acres of wetlands at risk for pollution, thus threatening the drinking water of Mainers across the state.

Back in 2015, the EPA and the U.S. Department of the Army issued a report examining the costs and benefits of expanding the protected waters of the U.S. The original estimate concluded that the water protections would indeed come at an economic cost — between $236 million and $465 million annually.

But it also concluded, in , that the economic benefits of preventing water pollution would be much greater: between $555 million and $572 million.

It’s no surprise that the benefits of protecting America’s rivers, lakes, and streams far outweigh the costs. Whether we’re fishing or swimming or just drinking the water that comes from our taps, protecting our streams and wetlands is a win for all Mainers.

The need for clean water is not controversial. Our own Sen. Muskie, the driving force behind the Clean Water Act, knew this. We can’t afford to go backward on clean water protections. The Clean Water Act benefits all of us.

Held at Veterans Memorial Park on the Androscoggin — Exhibit A when it comes to the beneficial effects of Muskie’s landmark legislation — the gathering’s speakers also included Rebecca Conrad ’82, CEO and president of the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. No stranger to the area — she co-owned an Auburn business for 20 years and has worked at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ — Conrad said she knows “firsthand the river’s power and potential as an economic driver in the community.”

One of the landmark environmental laws developed by the late U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie, the Clean Water Act turns 40 in mid-October 2012.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, from which Muskie graduated in 1936, presents a panel discussion exploring the history and future of the Clean Water Act at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 1, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

The event is open to the public at no cost. An installment of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships’ Civic Forum series, the event is jointly sponsored with the history department, the environmental studies program and the Muskie Archives. For more information, please call 207-786-6202.

The panelists are:

• Stephen Hinchman, an attorney who works with the Androscoggin River Alliance, an organization dedicated to the health of the river, the local economy and local communities;
• Pete Didisheim, advocacy director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, one of Maine’s best-known environmental advocacy organizations;
• Emily Figdor, director of Environment Maine, a research, education and advocacy organization;
• and John Storer, engineer for the city of Auburn’s water and sewerage districts and the Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission.

A native of Rumford, Maine, Muskie grew up well-aware of the sorry condition of the Androscoggin River, rendered one of the nation’s dirtiest waterways by decades of municipal and industrial pollution. An early champion of environmental protection, Muskie spearheaded the Clean Air Act of 1970 and later the Clean Water Act.

Today, while not pristine, the Androscoggin is dramatically healthier and is increasingly the focus of recreational and economic development initiatives.

Coinciding with growing public awareness of environmental issues and the establishment of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, these laws were instrumental both in reducing pollution of the nation’s air and waters, and establishing the pro-environmental mindset that continues to shape U.S. society and policymaking today.

Environmental historian William Cronon.

With the 40th anniversary of the landmark federal Clean Water Act approaching in mid-October, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College will observe the occasion with a talk by influential environmental historian William Cronon at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Cronon’s talk, titled The Riddle of Sustainability: A Surprisingly Short History of the Future, is the Charles and Virginia Tangney History Lecture at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Open to the public at no cost, the event is the second installment in this fall’s Civic Forum Series, produced for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships.

The talk is jointly sponsored by the history department, the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, and the environmental studies program, as well as the Harward Center. For more information, please call 207-786-6202.

Cronon is Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studies American environmental history and the history of the American West.

He is a national leader in the study of past human interactions with nature, concentrating on how people depend on the ecosystems around them to sustain their material lives, how they modify the landscapes in which they live and how ideas of nature shape the world around us.

Cronon heads UW-Madison’s Center for Culture, History and Environment, which brings together scholars from disciplines as diverse as anthropology, history and forestry to study environmental and cultural change throughout human history.

He has written and edited several prize-winning books, including Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (Norton, 1991), which was awarded the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for best non-fiction work in 1991 and was one of three nominees for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in History.

Oct. 18 is the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act of 1972, one of two transformational pieces of environmental legislation championed by the late U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie, Democrat of Maine. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has a special interest in this legislation that launched a massive cleanup of the nation’s waters.

A member of the college’s class of 1936, Muskie was a native of Rumford and grew up near the Androscoggin River, which by the mid-20th century was one of the U.S. waterways most badly affected by industrial and municipal pollution. The Androscoggin has long been the focus of research by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students and faculty, including one chemist, Walter Lawrance, who was the state-appointed Androscoggin rivermaster.

The environmental legacy of the late U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36, who was dubbed “Mr. Clean” for spearheading clean water and air laws in the 1960s and 1970s, found its way into a Supreme Court ruling May 15.

The ruling, affirming the states’ right to regulate river water quality, was handed down in a Maine case. At issue was whether a Westbrook paper company needed state licensing to operate five company-owned hydroelectric dams on the Presumpscot River. The state, wishing to use the licensing procedure to force the company to make dam improvements, argued for the power to license under the Clean Water Act of 1970. The company argued that dams weren’t covered under the law.

Writing a unanimous opinion, Justice David Souter championed the Clean Water Act and Muskie’s vision of states having ultimate control of their rivers, not the federal government. He quoted from Muskie’s 1970 floor speech in the U.S. Senate as the Rumford native introduced the legislation:

“No polluter will be able to hide behind a federal license or permit as an excuse for a violation of water quality standards,” said Muskie. “No polluter will be able to make major investments in facilities under a federal license or permit without providing assurance that the facility will comply with water quality standards. No state water pollution control agency will be confronted with a /fait accompli/ by an industry that has built a plant without consideration of water quality requirements.”