Protect New Hampshire's Lakes

New Hampshire's lakes at risk

If you’ve been to Lake Winnipesaukee, lake Ossipee or another of New Hampshire's beautiful lakes, you know what’s at stake. So many of us have spent summers enjoying our lakes. They are a part of our heritage and the natural legacy we want our kids to inherit and enjoy.

More than half of New Hampshire’s streams unprotected

Right now, more than half of New Hampshire’s streams are vulnerable to pollution and development. Polluters can dump, developers can pave over wetlands to build strip malls, and the cops on the environmental beat can’t do a thing about it.

And it’s not just small streams and wetlands that suffer — these waterways are the same ones that feed our lakes and help to keep them clean.

Polluters poke holes in Clean Water Act

Over the past decade, polluters used the courts to put Clean Water Act protections in legal limbo, arguing that the law doesn’t cover the smaller streams and wetlands that feed and clean our lakes. They tried to throw out nearly 40 years of Clean Water Act protection, leaving polluting industries free to dump into our streams and pave over our wetlands without asking for permission.

On the verge of the biggest clean water victory in decades

We have been urging Congress to protect our lakes by simply declaring that the Clean Water Act applies to all of New Hampshire's waters. But, stymied at every turn by industry lobbyists and powerful special interests, we turned instead to the Environmental Protection Agency for action.

This spring, we and our allies across the country submitted more than 170,000 petitions to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, urging her to restore protections to all of our waters and cut sewage pollution. In April, she announced a plan to do just that. In February, the Obama administration announced that it was in the last stage before officially finalizing these protections. Once they are final, this will be the biggest victory for our waterways in the last decade.

But polluters’ allies in Congress won’t give up — and now they’re threatening to stop the EPA from doing its job. At the same time, powerful corporate interests are preparing for battle: ExxonMobil threatened “legal warfare” if the EPA moves forward with its plan to restore Clean Water Act protections.

Our plan to defend New Hampshire’s lakes

We refuse to let polluters and their allies in Congress open our precious waterways to more dumping and development. We’re bringing together Granite Staters from all walks of life to protect Winnipesaukee, Winnisquam, Ossipee and all of our lakes. From anglers to sailing enthusiasts, clergy to scientists, local officials to ordinary families, we all have a stake in keeping our water clean.

Our citizen outreach staff has been knocking on doors across the state, educating New Hampshire residents about what’s at stake. But if we’re going to push past ExxonMobil and other powerful polluters, we’re going to need everyone who cares about our lakes to get involved. Join our campaign by sending the EPA a message today.