I enjoyed reading your article about the 49th year of Maine’s Organic Farmers and Growers Common Ground Fair. The large crowds and continued success is a stark contrast to the actions on the environment advocated by the current administration in Washington.

The fair was a celebration of the environment and all it offers, attended by tens of thousands in its 49th year. If you listened to the House Republicans who propose cutting the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency by 23 percent you would think clean water, breathable air, and uncontaminated food was a bad idea!

The EPA has been an unmitigated success for Maine from the get-go with Ed Muskie’s Clean Water Act. Do we really want to return to log drives stagnating our rivers and paper plants choking our air?

Some of Maine’s biggest economic engines benefit directly from a clean environment: lobstering, shellfishing, agriculture, aquaculture, and tourism.

The majority of EPA’s budget is grants and loans to municipalities for clean water programs and cleanup of toxic pollution sites, cutting these programs will affect not only our quality of life but that of our children’s as well.

The rationale for rolling back environmental protections doesn’t pass the smell test. Do we really want a return of Acid Rain and Ozone Depletion?

Remember, when you see a Bald Eagle overhead or a Brook Trout in your local stream, that’s not happenstance, it is the direct benefit of environmental protection.

Let your federal representatives know you do not want a return to the polluting past and these drastic cuts to EPA.

Tim Shaw lives in Camden