On May 25, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the federal Clean Water Act of 1972, a landmark law that protects waters that are crucial for drinking, agriculture, shoreline protection and wildlife habitat. According to Democracy Now, the ruling "effectively ends protections for about half of all the wetlands in the contiguous United States." This fantastically reckless Supreme Court action is a grave setback to the fight against climate change and the struggle to protect threatened and endangered species, whose numbers are increasing at an alarming rate.

Unfortunately, Governor Mills, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, the Belfast City Council, the Belfast Water District and the Belfast Planning Board have also abandoned our vital wetlands by supporting the $500 million Nordic Aquafarms project, which would destroy 56 acres of mature forest, wetlands and wildlife habitat.

But fortunately there is a local group, the Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Conservation Area (harriethartley.org), that is fighting to protect those 56 acres, in perpetuity, and I urge all Pen Bay Pilot readers to get involved in the Friends' work. What the Supreme Court's May 25 action makes clear is that only we as private citizens, banded together, can protect our beautiful environment and the climate on which we depend for our very lives and those of our children and grandchildren.

Lawrence Reichard lives in Belfast