Soundkeeper Fills Need For Waterway

Connecticut Post editorial October 11, 2009

A career lobsterman, Backer turned from a career of harvesting from the Sound to fighting to protect it.

There simply is no question that the Soundkeeper's role in suing municipalities and forcing them to improve operations at their sewage treatment plants, while costly and controversial, has helped clean up the Sound.

In a time of shrinking resources at both the state and federal levels, it's reassuring to see that Backer and his Soundkeeper Fund Inc. remain on the case of protecting one of Connecticut's and New York's most striking natural resource.

The sniping has included the label of "environmental bounty hunter."

Well, why not? If it takes bringing legal action against polluters and it costs the polluters money to make amends, what's the problem?

Were state and federal agencies equipped to focus more attention on threatened bodies of water like Long Island Sound, maybe there's have been no need operations like Backer's to have sprouted.

Until that happens and until it's the polluters, not the fish, that have reached extinction, there is a need.

 

 

10/16/2009