This just in from the National Wildlife Federation: It’s time to celebrate clean water thanks to the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. We wanted to let you know that NWF has just launched a photo event called “Share Your Fish Tales” that we plan to continue through mid-October. Through the “Fish Tale” event our goal is to reach as many anglers and fishing families as possible and have them communicate through their fish pics and tales why clean water and fishing matter to them.
Here’s what is happening: Land Tawney has just kicked off the event with a personal blog on NWF’s website. He has shown his own Montana fish pics and told his fish tale and encouraged folks to do the same, by providing a link to post fish photos and short fish tales (200 words or less) on a dedicated Flickr site. As Land says, we not only want photos of you “gripping and grinning” with big fish, but photos of the waters they came from, and pictures of your child’s first fish and fishing experience.
Throughout September and early October, we plan to post guest blogs and otherwise share many of these pictures and stories, highlighting the importance of clean water to good fishing. We also want to share these messages with federal, state, and local decision makers. We welcome your groups promoting this message and this event through your own websites and blogs. As every angler knows, clean water and good fishing go hand in hand. To honor the passage of the Clean Water Act and to help renew clean water protections for our streams, lakes, wetlands, and bays, please help us raise the chorus of sportsmen voices in support of the Clean Water Act.
Share your fish tales and photos with us at bit.ly/NKtFKL and bit.ly/NcCFXK
See you on the river, Jim Burns
lariverflyfishing 
That’s such a cool fish picture. Where’s part 2 of cleaning your reel and line? Yr. spouse.
Right around the corner, spouse!
Yet as Greenberg and Holman both acknowledge, the CWA is still a work in progress even as it turns 40. An estimated 35 percent of U.S. waters are still unfit for fishing or swimming in 2012 — despite the law’s 1985 target of zero percent — and it does little to control diffuse, “nonpoint” sources of pollution like urban stormwater and farm runoff. It’s also beset by ambiguity, due partly to a series of court rulings that have raised doubts about which waterways are protected and which ones aren’t.