{"id":4711,"date":"2021-01-04T11:45:37","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T11:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=145878"},"modified":"2021-01-04T11:45:37","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T11:45:37","slug":"green-groups-have-a-racism-problem-waterkeepers-are-trying-to-solve-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/04\/green-groups-have-a-racism-problem-waterkeepers-are-trying-to-solve-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Green groups have a racism problem. Waterkeepers are trying to solve it."},"content":{"rendered":"
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In August, the Waterkeeper Alliance<\/a>, a global network of grassroots leaders dedicated to the preservation of local waterways, finalized the charter for its justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) committee. This step toward racial equity and representation, which took months of planning, is in line with the surge of anti-racism commitments<\/a> made over the summer by environmental nonprofits around the country.<\/p>\n

The Waterkeeper Alliance is set on doing more than paying lip service to diversity and inclusion. Instead, it wants to make them priority areas for waterkeepers worldwide.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever wondered who in your community works to ensure that the local river, lake, or coastal area that you and your family like to visit on the weekends remains pollution free and easily accessible, look no further than the Waterkeeper Alliance.<\/p>\n

A waterkeeper\u2019s job can include suing utilities or energy plants, interacting with governmental regulators and health departments, and, most importantly, fielding and investigating citizen complaints. Concerns from the public might include flooding, public health issues, dead fish, illegal discharges into waters from factories or industrial plants \u2014 the list goes on.<\/p>\n

The riverkeeper movement<\/a> sprouted from the Hudson River Fishermen\u2019s Association, a blue-collar coalition founded in 1966 that acted as an environmental watchdog and grassroots enforcement agency for the protection of the then-dying Hudson River in New York. In the years following, local protectors of waterways also began to don the title waterkeeper, riverkeeper, coastkeeper, or baykeeper, working with local communities to ensure they had a say in the way their waterways were treated.<\/p>\n

In 1999, the Waterkeeper Alliance formed in response to the growing number of waterkeepers nationwide. Waterkeepers still operated individually; they could focus on whatever issues they wanted in their area, and each organization in a watershed was registered as an independent 501(c)(3). But the new alliance established \u201cWaterkeeper\u201d as a trademarked title requiring permission and a license to use and instituted key standards that all waterkeepers had to follow in order to keep their title.<\/p>\n

It also turned the growing group of community advocates into an exclusive club.<\/p>\n

Each watershed is only allowed one waterkeeper, which means that should a waterkeeper in a region refuse to work with a nearby community, there\u2019s very little that community can do about it. That\u2019s why the Waterkeeper Alliance JEDI committee\u2019s first initiative is an attempt to add a JEDI requirement to the organization\u2019s 13 quality standards, the list of requirements each riverkeeper must follow in order to qualify as a riverkeeper. The new standard would require that waterkeepers \u201cdevelop, implement, and maintain a justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) plan for diversifying within their organization and grassroots representation.\u201d The committee hopes that this requirement will help waterkeepers prioritize community engagement in their work and prevent the exclusion of marginalized communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe often talk about issues that concern different waterkeepers in their watersheds, which end up being community concerns, but we haven\u2019t really been intentional about diversifying the movement and making sure that there was diversity both in the waterkeeper positions and on the council but also within the staff of the Waterkeeper Alliance,\u201d said Sejal Choksi, San Francisco Baykeeper and a representative for the Waterkeeper Council<\/a>, one of the Waterkeeper Alliance\u2019s leadership bodies, on the JEDI committee. Choksi has spent 18 years working full-time with the San Francisco Baykeeper organization, pushing California lawmakers to ban pesticides, implementing a mercury cleanup plan for the bay, and fighting oil pollution and refineries in the region.<\/p>\n

Of the hundreds of waterkeepers in the U.S., only one of them, Fred Tutman of the Patuxent River in Maryland, is African American. Tutman is the chair of the Waterkeeper Alliance\u2019s JEDI committee. (Full disclosure: Tutman is also my uncle.) Betsy Nicholas, the executive director of Waterkeepers Chesapeake, a coalition of the waterkeepers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and another JEDI committee member, said that fact stands out to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with each of the 17 Riverkeepers in the Chesapeake region; Fred is the only one of color,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have a very, very racially diverse region, and that is just an indication that our people are not representative of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

How the proposed JEDI standard plays out will likely look different depending on the community a waterkeeper serves. Nicholas pointed out that in communities like the ones around the Middle Susquehanna River Watershed, a 96 percent white rural area in Pennsylvania, diversity will mean something completely different than diversity in Baltimore or Washington, D.C. The same goes for those international waterkeepers in countries where racism or classism may look different from in the U.S.<\/p>\n

However, Nicholas believes that a requirement like this has been a long time coming in the United States and will ensure that communities of color are involved in the advocacy work taking place in their watershed.<\/p>\n

Kathy Phillips, coastkeeper for the Assateague coastal bays in Maryland and a member of Waterkeepers Chesapeake, points out that waterkeepers across the country need to make a concerted effort to reach out to communities that have traditionally been impacted by local pollutants and other injustices in their area.<\/p>\n

For instance, Phillips has worked closely with a predominantly Black community in Salisbury, a Maryland city located less than an hour from the Assateague Bay area. Over the years, this community has long contended with coastal and groundwater pollution from poultry litter operations. In 2012, Phillips helped residents sue<\/a> to prevent the placement of a large poultry feedlot<\/a> and 14 new chicken farms along the community\u2019s primary water source, on the grounds that the chicken waste has been linked to contamination of drinking water and public health concerns. (The lawsuit was unsuccessful.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s in a processing plant or out in the fields, you know, just being there and saying, \u2018I just want to hear your stories,\u2019 that\u2019s how you become a part of the community,\u201d said Phillips. \u201cAnd I think for some groups, I don\u2019t know that that\u2019s ever actually occurred to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicholas pointed out that some waterkeepers have a restoration background, with more of a focus on improving the watershed and protecting the environment, and not necessarily on community-oriented, environmental justice activism. She also said that some waterkeepers have concerns that \u201cspeak[ing] truth to power\u201d could jeopardize their funding sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard waterkeepers describe themselves as \u2018I\u2019m not that type of waterkeeper,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThat shouldn\u2019t ever happen,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re all fighting on the same side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Choksi highlighted that despite the on-the-ground nature of waterkeeper work, it\u2019s easy for waterkeepers to get lost in the hustle and bustle of litigation and policy advocacy in a way that inadvertently tunes communities out.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to the JEDI committee and the new proposed quality standard, Nicholas has found most of the waterkeepers to be receptive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m only aware of two that came out strongly against 350 organizations,\u201d said Nicholas, who declined to share the names of those who spoke out against the proposed standard.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, to my surprise, there has been a ton of support for this,\u201d Choksi said, noting that information sessions on JEDI work have seen \u201cskyrocket[ing] attendance.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve been pleasantly surprised that there have been fewer of those people who have been reluctant, and a lot of people have just really jumped in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The new proposed quality standard will be voted on by the Waterkeeper Alliance in June 2021 during the coalition\u2019s annual meeting. Until then, Nicholas hopes that the new JEDI committee can be a resource to waterkeepers looking for guidance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are growing and we are succeeding in such amazing ways,\u201d Choksi said. \u201cAnd I believe adding this new intentionality around more diverse grassroots and better inclusivity for all of our communities is going to make us all stronger and more powerful, so I\u2019m really excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n