For August, we shine our water-proof light on environmental activist (and green favorite) Wu Lihong, who is currently serving a three-year prison sentence in China for seeking to prevent chemical companies from dumping untreated waste in Lake Tai, China’s third-largest freshwater lake. August marks the one year anniversary of Wu’s imprisonment.

Wu Lihong, named one of China’s top 10 environmentalists in 2005, has been collecting water samples from Lake Tai in eastern China for more than 15 years and submitting reports on its worsening condition. Wu’s arrest came as he was planning to travel to Beijing to present evidence of pollution to the central government. One week before he was to present his case in Beijing, 50+ officers raided his home, arresting him and confiscating his computers and files. Wu’s claims that the government and big business were polluting and endangering the ecology of a water system that provides water for over 2 million people were not popular with authorities.