Halcyon days for the environment when Republicans were in power

Some headline that, eh?

But there was a time when the GOP was very much at the forefront of our national movement to create standards for our air and water. President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency more than 50 years ago.

President Gerald Ford — also a Republican — signed the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974, and he said at the time that nothing was more essential to the life of every single American than clean air, pure food and safe drinking water.

He was right.

And that dip into history has given me an idea — to borrow from President Obama’s recent speech at the Obama Foundation in Chicago: that we figure out ways to reach across this great divide and re-establish the support of the viewpoints of different entities that was once at the heart of our country.

Achieving that kind of pluralism, I thought, was a pretty big ask until I realized that safe drinking water is what we all want for ourselves and our children.

I know that even inside that wish there are various alternative realities, like the recent advocacy opposing fluoride in our water. Honestly, not a fan.

But let’s make way for those detours, not treat them as a dead end.

We can figure out how to capitalize on this precious resource to unite us and not be deterred by the differences that creep into our public discourse.

Yes, it’s a bit of a Pollyanna-ish view, but it’s not too hard for me to hold to the very point of Delaware Currents — safe drinking water for all.

I’m never going to convince the head honcho of a fossil fuel company to take the 180-degree turn we need in order to save our planet but even that company executive wants safe dunking water. 

Obama suggested that the route we must take to save our democracy is to find those aspirations that are concrete and practical and — almost — without argument.

Yes, clean drinking water.

And as if to further honor that thought, today we offer my interview with the new head of the Delaware River Basin Commission, Kristen Bowman Kavanagh.

You might remember that the DRBC is the entity charged with looking after our river’s water quality as well as its quantity — big job these days.

And here’s an election where we can ALL vote the same:

Editorial: Vote for the Delaware as Pennsylvania’s River of the Year

And the latest in the twisty saga of the SS United States:

Coast Guard says SS United States may be too unstable to move

No one covers the Delaware River the way Delaware Currents does, and we need that now more than ever.

Please DONATE!

Thanks,

Meg