All these things, then, are a part of what the Potomac Basin has to offer in the way of environmental blessings. They form an endowment of national value and importance, and a detailed examination of them would take up more space than we can give them here, though some will come in for more discussion later in this report and others are examined in the corollary report of the Recreation and Landscape Sub-Task Force. Some of them are in trouble now, and nearly all are faced with trouble as bad or worse if the forces of change are allowed to move as blindly and hoggishly forward as they have been moving during the decades behind us, ever faster and on ever wider fronts. The role of Jeremiah is not an agreeable one in a traditionally optimistic and forward-thrusting society, but those of us who care about the health of the world around us seem to be forced into it often in these times. Therefore let us look at somber matters. We have catalogued the pollution of the river system and the ways in which it diminishes this most fundamental and valuable resource. We have seen how it varies through the Basin's streams according to the concentrations of people and the kinds of activities they engage in, and have noted that it is truly bad--deep-rooted, past a point of easy return--on the North Branch where coal and industry prevail, and in the upper estuary where the population is heaviest, with localized serious conditions on the Shenandoah, the Monocacy, and a number of smaller streams. And because land and water depend on each other and reflect each other's condition, these tend to be the places where the general environment is having the most trouble too. The metropolis Washington and its environs have always been a cynosure for American eyes, a place people have wanted to be proud of and have fought to keep "right." Many of its defenders have been powers in the land, and for a long time in the past the battle was generally a winning one. Even aside from the city's planned monumental Federal center with its government buildings, memorials, formal parks, malls and avenues--largely traceable to the ideas of Pierre L'Enfant and the sporadic respect paid them by the founding fathers--it has amenities undreamed of in and around most American cities: things like the Potomac Great Falls and gorge with the C. & O. Canal alongside, Arlington Cemetery, Mount Vernon, the Georgetown neighborhood where private taste and determination have brought a near-slum back to 18th-century grace and function, Roosevelt Island, several fine local and regional parks, the George Washington Memorial Parkway along the Potomac, and incredible Rock Creek winding down its natural valley through the Maryland suburbs and the District to the river. [Illustration]