It doesn't matter if it's warm or cold.

Bill Ray's been fishing since he was a boy and at the marina on Lake Erie at least 20 years. On Tuesday, the near freezing temperature was no concern to Ray and a handful of other anglers.

"It's hard to explain," he said. "I could see why some people wouldn't understand it. It's just fun catching fish."

Over the decades the fisherman's seen the lake literally change.

"The fishing's changed because the water's clearer now," he said.

And cleaner too.

"There's more walleye in the lake now," Ray said.

Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, said things are different because the federal government took major steps both to rehabilitate and regulate the waters in Western New York.

"Consuming the fish that were caught in the Buffalo River was once thought to be something that would never occur again," Higgins said.

The concern now though, he said, is the Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of rolling back more than 90 regulations. The administration said it’s restoring rights for farmers, developers, and rural landowners, but the congressman in a letter to the EPA this week urged the agency to heed its own advisory board's concerns.

"These rollbacks will have an egregious impact and a direct hit on places like Buffalo and other northeastern cities that have gone through similar industrial histories," he said.

As for Ray, of course he wants clean water. He doesn't only fish in it, he drinks it. But he hasn't formed an opinion on what the feds should do.

"I really don't know much about that to be honest," he said. "I have no control over it."

Advocates said that can be a dangerous stance in itself.

"The new threats to our environment are not smoke stacks and discharged pipes anymore," Jill Jedlicka, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper executive director, said. "They're actually public apathy and willful ignorance."