When it comes to caring about its environment, Maine people deserve a high mark for their efforts - and accomplishments - in recent years. The latest news story about plans to restore Atlantic salmon is one more example of this success story.

Gone are the days (at least, for the most part) when any abandoned car engine, empty oil cans, left-over wrappers from lunch, soda bottles and cans, or anything else that seemed to be in the way either on land or on a boat, was thrown into the water. It wasn't just the ocean that withstood this abuse, either. Streams, lakes, ponds and even gutters were filled with stuff we didn't want.

The Mill Pond, in the center of East Boothbay village, which bordered the back yard where we grew up, filled on the tide with water from the Damariscotta River, and with the incoming tide came just about everything. Bags of garbage were common, and once my parents discovered a bag filled with newborn dead kittens.

Most Maine folks now take great pride in living in a state that has clean ocean water, rivers, streams, lakes and ponds. We may not be perfect way when it comes to caring for our environment, but we're come a long way over the past thirty or forty years. It's taken a long time for many of us to realize that what we have is really special, and we're now teaching our young people this lesson from an early age, which should make a big difference in the years to come.

It amazes us every time we see any statistics about the number of folks who utilize our parks and preserves locally. The Land Trust oversees a wide variety of hiking and walking trails throughout our peninsula, and they're very heavily used. We're fortunate in that many of them are along our waterways and inlets, providing visitors with a great combination of both woods and water.

While many early environmentalists quickly earned a bad name as being a bit overzealous and not interested in any compromise, today it's encouraging that most of the time, those on opposing sides on any issue try to work together for a better community, state, and nation. As the saying goes, "We've come a long way, baby."