I am a nature photographer that loves our river and valley. On a good day, the river can be crystal clear. On a bad day, you can't see anything due to stormwater pollution. I travel around photographing the river and valley and have seen many construction sites that seem not to care about our river, and our communities. There has not been one construction site that I have seen that has done everything they could to prevent stormwater pollution. I have seen muddy water flowing from these sites because of neglected or absent erosion controls. The slow in the housing market and economy has affected developers to the point where they have never finished developing. These sites are half filled with houses and the other half are lots of barren ground, collapsing silt fences and abandoned construction paraphanelia. Some of these sites have been like this for years. A lot of these developers are not from around here. They come in, try to make as much money as they can then leave these sites in deplorable conditions. I support the Shenandoah Riverkeeper and Potomac Riverkeeper in there efforts to keep our rivers clean. Bush, in his final days as President, wants coal companies to dump their waste in streams so that they can have bigger profits. I hope Virginia will not join Bush in his anti-environmental policies. We are better than that. We need to help protect and preserve what we have. Andrew Thayer PO Box 359 Woodstock, Virginia www.athayer.com