5 Hackensack Riverkeeper Staffers Join 200 Keepers At Waterkeeper® Conference

 

By Jared Eudell

 

What do you get when 200 Waterkeepers® from 130 Waterkeeper® programs from five continents get together for their annual four-day Waterkeeper® Alliance Conference? Inspired!

This conference, with 32 sessions, 18 meetings, 5 guest speakers, 2 plenaries and 4 social events, was masterminded by staff from the Waterkeeper Alliance and hosted by the Delaware Riverkeeper at Pennsylvania’s East Stroudsburg University in June. Because the conference was so close home this year, all five full-time Hackensack Riverkeeper® staffers, along with one of our Board members, attended and got to rub elbows with some of the most amazing individuals working in the environmental movement today.

During the day, we went to sessions dealing with such topics as law and litigation strategies, energy issues, toxins, ecological improvements and methods, community organizing and activation, and organizational development. In addition to attending these sessions, some HRI staffers presented several topics including: Captain Bill Sheehan on Wetlands; Lisa Kelly on Organizing Fundraising Events; and me on water quality monitoring. Captain Bill also did a pre-conference day-long orientation for new Keepers.

What makes the Waterkeeper Alliance so successful is that each of these 200 representatives from the 130 waterkeeper programs can meet for four days each year, trade war stories and winning strategies, and return home to their local watershed to fight a grassroots battle  It’s the reason why the Waterkeeper movement is the fastest growing environmental movement in the world today, and one of the most successful.