Richard Masse

New Hampshire's lakes, rivers, and wetlands lie at the heart of the state's quality of life and its economy. Now the signs are abundantly clear that, like the proverbial frog in a heating pot of water, the state is experiencing a slow but significant degradation of its aquatic environments, evidenced most dramatically by the multiplying cyanobacteria blooms occurring reliably in the warm months every year. As with the frog, allowing New Hampshire to wait until conditions reach an environmental crisis is courting irreversible, and likely fatal, harm to the way of life that brings and keeps people in the state. Allowing the continued introduction of neonicotinoids into the environment via agricultural practices adds one more stressor to New Hampshire's surface and ground waters. Most affected will be those aquatic life forms whose balance ensures clear waters alive with fish, amphibians, and other higher-level life forms. When these forms of aquatic life, which lie at the base of the aquatic food web, are thrown out of balance, all the uses valued by state residents and visitors alike are threatened. Cyanobacteria blooms, fish die-offs, and public health warnings centered on the condition of the state's lakes and streams will inevitably take a toll both in quality of life and economic vitality -- a toll that, once paid, no amount of effort may be able to reclaim. Approval of this bill is a significant way that the state can turn off the heat before the water in the pot boils.