Thanks for the article, “Digging In,” in the March 20 Current. I did not realize that the Nonesuch River is so polluted that it was shut down indefinitely about a year ago. I also didn’t know that Jones Brook, Mill Brook and the upper Scarborough and upper Spurwink rivers are all restricted areas and that clams taken from them have to be purified before they can be sold or that nearly 3,000 acres of water and shoreline is polluted enough to be restricted or seasonally closed.

You pointed out in the article that the watershed for these rivers runs far inland, but these rivers are also a part of the Scarborough Marsh watershed and the Gulf of Maine watershed. The pollution of these rivers affects all of us who live in this area, not just the clam diggers, although, to their credit, they seem to be the ones interested in doing something about it.

The clam diggers should be commended for their plan to paddle up river to test the waters and find out where the pollution originates. I hope you can arrange for some of your reporters to go along on this journey, and that you will report what is learned.

These rivers are important to all of us and to the living creatures that once lived in and around them. As they go, so goes our own quality of life.

Lorrie Greenlaw

Scarborough