Readers who believe strongly one way or the other about the issue know they will encounter a referendum on Pennsylvania's environment in the voting booth Tuesday. Others might have heard about the question but are unsure what it entails. These voters will need to decide "Yes" or "No" between now and when they draw the curtain behind them.

At stake is Growing Greener II, which, after much wrangling in Harrisburg, was put before the voters by the state legislature. The question will be worded this way: "Do you favor authorizing the Commonwealth to borrow up to $625,000,000, for the maintenance and protection of the environment, open space and farmland preservation, watershed protection, abandoned mine reclamation, acid mine drainage re-mediation and other environmental initiatives?"

If voters give the nod, legislators would then pass legislation detailing how the plan would be financed and the money spent. Hopefully, voters will approve.

Detractors point to the debt incurred as a reason to vote "No." But Pennsylvania already is paying the price for past environmental abuse. Acid pollution from abandoned mines costs our state millions for water treatment and in lost tourism. And acid-mine drainage renders rural regions less attractive to the new business they need to recover their vitality. Environmental degradation continues to exact its price and never will be less expensive to remedy than right now. Environmental ills are the best example of "pay me now or pay me later."

Reams of urgent statistics justify a "Yes" vote for Growing Greener II, all of it put forward by supporters in the past few weeks. The numbers and trends are important, but their impact flags after so many repetitions. As an alternative to more statistics at this late date, I will offer instead a more personal perspective.

I have had the privilege of being a member of a local Trout Unlimited chapter, which moved quickly to gain funding through Growing Greener I, an initiative of former governor Tom Ridge's administration. The chapter's target was Glade Run, a mountain stream of heartbreaking beauty, remote, open to public access throughout its length, but essentially dead. Acid drainage from abandoned coal mines had killed off its insect life and trout more than four decades earlier.

Downstream, it joined its poison with Dunbar Creek, a marginal trout stream, teetering on the brink. Further down, Dunbar Creek joins the Youghiogheny River, this entire region's icon of environmental quality and tourist appeal.

This small chapter of local people refused to accept the status quo, the conventional belief that acid drainage could not be undone. They won $300,000 in Growing Greener grants, teamed that cash with in-kind donations of sweat, equipment, materials and expertise and set about changing their corner of the world.

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy's Watershed Assistance Center, the Game Commission (some of the treatment sites, but not the mines, are on state game lands), the DEP, local municipalities and private contractors all worked together, contributing what they could. California University of Pa., did the scientific baseline and monitoring work. Faculty and students documented that as recently as 1998, Glade Run was lifeless.

The partnership added a thousand tons of alkaline sand to the headwaters to jump-start the water quality and test the biological response to better conditions. Insects began to appear, and trout survived in cages placed in the water. Encouraged, the chapter installed permanent acid-treatment systems, engineered to fit the difficult site. California University continued its analysis. Water quality improved even more and California's Dr. William Kimmel found more insects of diverse species.

Using a scientific collector's permit, the team collected wild brook trout from a nearby stream, placed them in watertight backpacks and carried them deep into Glade Run's gorge. They released them there in the quieter pools. Two years later, on a hot August afternoon, Dr. Kimmel and his students electro-shocked the stream for evidence of surviving fish. They found sculpins, broad-headed bottom-dwellers that shun pollution, and they found tiny, stream-spawned trout, hatched in a stream that had not harbored their kind for a half-century.

Now the stream continues to improve, Dunbar Creek flows sweeter, and the Youghiogheny watershed is a little better off. Visitors are beginning to come from far away to fish. From the beginning the chapter had the passion and commitment to make things better. The township had a backhoe and a truck, the Game Commission had authority to permit the work on its land and California University knew how to test the water. What the entire cooperative effort lacked was dollars. Those dollars eventually came from Growing Greener I and the investment is paying off through deeper local pride and a more livable Pennsylvania.

Stories like this won't happen without Growing Greener II. It's not a debt; it's an investment. Vote "Yes" this Tuesday.