Dear Water Activists,

This month is the 31st anniversary of the Clean Water Act.  This Saturday,
October 18th, the EPA, in partnership with several industry groups is
sponsoring what they call "World Monitoring Day."  While the volunteer
water monitoring that they are encouraging can be a good thing, it in no
way makes up for their poor enforcement of the Clean Water Act or their
efforts to gut the Act.  It is possible that these volunteer monitoring
events may generate some press.  If you see an article in your local paper
related to the anniversary of the Act or about World Monitoring Day, this
would be a great opportunity to write a letter to the editor talking about
all of the bad things that the Bush administration has done which are
making our water dirtier and weakening this vital piece of legislation.
Below is a sample letter which you can use or modify if you'd like.

If you have an opportunity to send a letter and it gets published, I'd love
to hear about it.

Thanks, and have a nice day.

Ananda D. Hirsch
Sierra Club
Program Assistant
Environmental Quality Program
Phone: (202) 675-6693

Sample LTE

The recent article [TITLE OF ARTICLE] made me think about how much cleaner
waters in [NAME OF STATE, REGION, TOWN, OR BODY OF WATER- WHATEVER YOU
PREFER] are than they were 30 years ago.  Instead of being reassured that
the Clean Water Act will continue to protect and clean up [NAME OF STATE,
REGION, TOWN, OR BODY OF WATER] waters for generations to come, I am deeply
concerned about the future of our lakes and rivers at the hands of the Bush
administration.

Instead of enforcing the Clean Water Act, which has made many of [NAME OF
STATE, REGION, TOWN] lakes, rivers and wetlands cleaner and safer over the
past three decades, the Bush administration is making it easier for
polluters to dump waste in our streams and pave over our wetlands.

It is foolish to think that what we can dump waste in the waters upstream
without polluting the waters downstream. It is time for the Bush
administration to do what we know works- enforce and preserve the Clean
Water- not give in to pressure from corporate polluters.  Why should we
settle for anything less than clean water?

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