Living River Principles - a proclamation - a challenge to you

The gift of a relationship to water is a historic public good and a natural right that was compromised during the last century. The recovery of water quality, natural riverbanks, public access, and recreational ueses of our regional rivers and streams is good for the economy and our communities. It is an investment in the future. printable version

• All citizens should be able to have a direct relationship to water
  
• All rivers and streams should meet the water quality standard for swimming
  
• Rivers and streams should support an increasing diversity of plant and wildlife
  
• Each community should monitor and care for water quality in rivers and streams
  
• Upstream community water problems should not impact downstream communities
  
• Water problems should be solved at the source, addressing cause, not effect
  
• Public rights to waterways and wetlands should not be compromised by private interests
  
• Wetlands and streams should be treated as economic and ecological assets
  
• Wetlands and streams should not be lost, and should be restored where possible
  
• Public access to and from the water, and along the water's edge, should be restored
  
• Riverbanks should be preserved or restored to their natural form wherever possible
  
• Pre-industrial connections between water and communities should be restored
  
• Redevelopment should accommodate public access to water and riverbanks
  
• Redevelopment should restore community, culture, ecology and economy

We would like to see as many people as possible sign these principles in support. There is a pdf version of the principles that you can print out, sign if you agree, ammend if you don't, and mail it back to us. Once we get enough responses, we will post a map indicating where everyone originates. That map as well as many signed sheets will be used to indicate the concern of the global community in regards to water quality issues. So please, print out a proclamation and mail it to us:

Living River Principles
STUDIO for Creative Inquiry
College of Fine Arts, Room 111
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890