d growing sickness, it has managed in many ways to hold
the line and even to improve things on the Potomac in a time when
conditions on many American rivers were growing drastically worse and
worse. Much credit accrues to some of the Basin States as well, but
without the continuing focus and hard work of the INCOPOT people,
dedicated to Basin thinking, it is doubtful that State efforts would
have added up to much help for the Potomac as a whole. Our present
strong hope of being able to clean up the river and its tributaries and
to make them what they ought to be is perhaps mainly due to this
organization's efforts.

[Illustration]

The scope of the job to be done is becoming clear. A far-reaching and
well-financed Federal pollution control program is getting under way,
even if some elements of policy and procedure need refinement and a
great deal of research toward the best answers to certain technical
problems remains to be done. The four Potomac Basin States and the
District of Columbia are poised for action at the level where it will
count the most, with new water quality standards to guide them and
Federal money and technical assistance for fuel. At the local level,
incentive to do things right has never been stronger than at present,
and it ought to grow still stronger as the sticks and carrots of the
Federal and State programs come into use and pressure from citizens
disgusted with dirty water builds up.

Things are moving. The chances are that they will move quite fast during
the next few years, as new technology and new understandings ease the
way toward solution of stubborn pollution problems. They are going to
have to move fast, for threats are proliferating fast as well. And if
things are going to move not only fast but right in the Potomac Basin,
they are going to need the guidance of a continuing and authoritative
body that concerns itself with them specifically like INCOPOT, focused
on Basin matters and dedicated to their study, but with a wider realm of
interest and stronger powers of coordination and enforcement to make
certain that the things that are done are the right things, in the right
order and the right places for the whole good of the Basin and the
river.

[Illustration]

IV A GOOD PLACE TO BE

Stream water comes from the surface of the land or out of its porous
underlayers, then flows seaward through its creases and folds, affecting
the land and the land's creatures along the wa