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Riverkeeper

Riverkeeper
Logo of Riverkeeper
Motto NY's clean water advocate
Formation 1966 (Hudson River Fishermen’s Association)
Headquarters Ossining, New York
Hudson Riverkeeper
Paul Gallay
Website riverkeeper.org

Riverkeeper is an environmental non-profit membership organization dedicated to the protection of the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as the watersheds that provide New York City with its drinking water. It was the first "keeper" to be founded; today, there are over 150 "keepers" around the globe, all members of the Waterkeeper Alliance umbrella organization. Paul Gallay is the President.

The Hudson Valley has long been considered the birthplace of the modern American environmental movement. In the 1960s a small group of scientists, fishermen and concerned citizens led by Robert H. Boyle, author of The Hudson River, A Natural and Unnatural History and a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, were determined to reverse the decline of the then-polluted Hudson River by confronting the polluters through advocacy and citizen law enforcement.

Riverkeeper grew out of "a blue-collar coalition of commercial and recreational fishermen" who organized to reclaim the Hudson River from polluters. While Riverkeeper aids national and international networks guard local waterways, their grassroots actions are unique. Where many local efforts use protests and high-risk defiance of authority, Riverkeeper seeks citizen empowerment in environmental law. After filing claims with government agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers, this mobilized body politic saw how business interests clouded government actions. They believe ordinary people should be able to defend public resources from abuse and it was by such actions to protect communal watershed quality that legal standing was given to United States' citizens in environmental disputes.

Prior to Riverkeeper's predecessor organization, the Hudson River Fishermen's Association (HRFA), a few activists strove to mobilize the Hudson Valley politic. Of note was Robert H. Boyle, a fisherman and a sportswriter for Sports Illustrated. Boyle moved to the area in the 1960s and, upon fishing the Hudson and its tributaries, grew fond of the region. He became familiar with residents that he found knew most about the river, the fishermen. Soon after, he began to research the river and published articles rebuking wild land conservation as ignorant of community environmental issues.


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