Legal protection of the USA's water resources was reduced during the Bush‐Cheney Administration (2000–2008), facilitating coal, oil, and gas development at the expense of clean water. The “Halliburton Loophole” in the 2005 Energy Act exempted all oil and gas development activities, including fracking (hydraulic fracturing), from the Clean Water Act, Clean Drinking Water Act, and other federal statutes. Two U.S. Supreme Court rulings weakened the Clean Water Act's protections of headwaters, streams, wetlands, and other water bodies. In New York State, communities faced with the imminent prospect of fracking by energy companies organized. From 2008–2014, they prevented fracking in New York. Water protection played a major role in energizing community response, In 2015, a fragile, but resilient, ban was declared statewide. In Kentucky, 150 years of coal mining resulted in pollution of many waterways, with hundreds of stream miles buried beneath mountaintop removal debris. Kentuckians have been pushing back since the 1930s to protect communities, farms, and water quality. They remain hopeful in the face of great odds. Urban populations making daily use of cheap, clean water and fossil‐fuel‐powered energy sources have little knowledge of these struggles. In rural America, the fight to protect communities, lands, and waters from energy exploitation is lifelong.