Recalling The ‘Clean Waters League’

To the Editor:

The front page story (Bee, April 22, 2005) regarding protecting the Pootatuck watershed brought back memories of another group of “environmentalists” whose concern was also the Pootatuck.

Older residents may recall a group of Newtown citizens calling themselves the “Clean Waters League.” Active in he late 1940s and into the 1950s, men like my Dad, Horton Saunders, Dr Waldo Desmond, Dr George Kyle, Emil Seifert, and others, tackled a near monumental problem — the pollution in the Pootatuck River.

Back then the businesses in Sandy Hook center and some homes along the river dumped their waste and flushed their sewage directly into the river. The two factories did the same, and using the river as a household dumping ground was common.

Betty Guarino

167 Walnut Tree Hill Road, Sandy Hook                    April 25, 2005