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Comment by erghjunk

2 days ago

~25 years ago I could have taken you to multiple entirely dead streams within a 20 minute drive of where I grew up - and you don't get very far in 20 minutes on Appalachian roads. Over large swaths of my home state, in fact, I could have done that from most people's homes. This is no longer the case, and a huge number of streams are now recovered or recovering. The surface water problems are by no means gone, but some of the recoveries that I've witnessed - the North Branch of the Potomac River is a good example - are breathtaking. That river was as dead as a doornail in the 90s and is now a vibrant, healthy wild trout fishery. It is still a post-industrial river, it still has dams, run-off issues, wastewater inputs, etc, but it is a far cry from what it was.