Hi Kids! My name is Otter B. Goode, and I'm here to help you on this site. But first, I'd like to tell you a bit about my home — rivers. There's a good chance my aunts, uncles, cousins, or friends live behind your house, if you're lucky enough to live near a river.

Before you were born, we didn't always treat our rivers well. We dumped stuff in them, we sucked all the water out of them, and we put dams across them. In fact, one river was so polluted, the surface actually caught on fire!

But not everyone thought we should treat our rivers this way. Afterall, many of us get our drinking water from rivers, and many of the animals we like to see live there. So, in the 1960s and 70s, Congress began to better protect lands and waters through the Wilderness Act, the Clean Water Act, and other important laws. In 1968, Congress created a way to protect rivers in the National Wild & Scenic Rivers System.

Right now, there are 203 rivers, or parts of rivers, and their tributaries in this system. That's about 12,560 miles of rivers protected in the National Wild & Scenic Rivers System.

Otter B. Goode is vacationing here from
his home at the Otter Creek Campground
in Airville, Pennsylvania. We'd like to
thank the folks there for letting us put
him to work while he's here visting his
aunt and uncle, Ollie and Olivia.