Thirty-five years ago this week, President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Water Act. It was, please excuse the pun, a watershed moment for environmental protection.

But, for 35 years, we’ve hemmed and hawed about how the act’s signature waterway, the Androscoggin River, is stubbornly noncompliant with its standards. We’ve spread blame among dams, ponds, oxygen, power companies, paper mills, riverside farms, outlets, inlets and treatment plants for it.

And we’ve investigated and pontificated about how to change it. We even dropped five goldfish into river water to test their mettle; four of six survived. (Swim in peace, Little Philip I and II) Now, we’re waiting on regulators to decide on the future of wastewater discharges from the upriver mills.

All of this attention focuses squarely on how far the river still must go. It misses how far the river has come, from its foul-smelling, paper-clogged days as one of America’s notorious natural drainpipes. This optimistic perspective on the river can be overlooked, but cannot be ignored.

Because, of all the various opinions about the Androscoggin, it’s shared by stakeholders; though the river remains far from perfect, it’s much, much better.

Schoolkids do science projects along its banks. Millworkers say they pull in more trout than they can carry from perches below the mills, while sportsmen above the mills are marking the return of the upper Androscoggin as one of Maine’s best recreational fisheries.

There’s health in, and along, the river; walkers stroll beside it, diners quaff adult beverages while overlooking it, and canoeists and kayakers ply its waters. Thirty-five years ago, before the attention the Clean Water Act focused onto the river’s woes, this wasn’t possible.

For a legacy, this isn’t bad.

That said, more needs to be done. Mills and environmental groups wouldn’t be quarreling about discharge permits if the Androscoggin didn’t need improvement. That its water quality fails to meet Clean Water Act standards is fact, and deeply regrettable after 35 years of trying.

But it’s not the complete reputation the Androscoggin deserves, or needs, today.

More progress can come from calling the Androscoggin what it is – a river that’s made great strides – rather than what it was – essentially, an open-air interstate industrial sewer. It earned that description decades ago, when waste paper clogged its estuaries and chemicals poured in, unabated.

Those days have departed, and so should these outdated perceptions. A clean river is possible if groups at odds over the river can work together; they should start from where they agree: that the river is better, but can still improve.

The Androscoggin is a different, healthier river than in 1972. If Sen. Ed Muskie, the act’s patron, were around today to evaluate its impact, he would decry the river’s noncompliance, but hail the progress that has been made.

He would, in short, say the river has come a long way.

So should we.