Riverkeeper Inc.

“Members participate in organization's governance at the annual membership meeting in june. They elect members to the board of directors.”

“At each membership annual meeting thereafter, a number of directors equal to that of those who terms have expired will be elected by a plurality of the members for a term of three years and the earliest of the election or appointment and qualification of such director's successor or until such director's death, resignation, or removal. At the expiration of any term of three years, any director may be elected. Candidates for election as directors will be nominated by the nominating committee. Members of the corporation who desire to nominate a member to the board of directors, in addition to those candidates proposed by the nominating committee, may do so on a petition signed by not less than one hundred members and delivered to the secretary of the corporation not less than six months prior to the annual meeting of the members. No more than one petition for election shall be accepted and therefore, if more than one petition is submitted, the submission with the greatest number of signatures will apply; in the case of a more than one petition with equal number of signatures, the petition first submitted will be accepted.”

“Form 990 was reviewed by robin meadows, chief financial and operating officer, tracy brown, president and riverkeeper, and board of directors treasurer, martin hampel.”

“On a yearly basis, the board of directors meet to complete a "conflict of interest" acknowledgement which documents and signifies that no current conflict of interest exists between the board members and outside organizations. At each subsequent meeting, before any decisions are made, it is clarified that there is no conflict of interest for anyone in the room. If there is a conflict, that person will be excluded from the decision.”

“Prior external benchmarking conducted by external consultants was reviewed and used as input in determining staff salaries. Prior external benchmarking conducted by external consultants was reviewed and helped inform board leadership on organization's ceo's compensation.”

“Riverkeeper makes its governing documents, conflict of interest policy, and financial statements available to the public upon request.”

“Riverkeeper, inc ("riverkeeper") is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to protect and restore the hudson river from source to sea and safeguards drinking water supplies, through advocacy rooted in community partnerships, science and law. Riverkeeper is currently focused on the following goals: improve the water quality of the hudson river and its tributaries and protect drinking water supplies; restore wildlife and habitats in the hudson river and its tributaries; support communities seeking to envision and enact positive change in their relationships with the hudson river, its tributaries, and drinking water supplies; and address climate change's impacts on the hudson river, its tributaries, shoreline communities and drinking water supplies.”

“Habitat restoration and water quality riverkeeper's habitat restoration and water quality program focuses on restoring life and vitality to the hudson, and carefully monitoring the continued health of the river. We do this by coordinating community science efforts to gather environmental data from the hudson and its tributaries; engaging grassroots and community-level partners in the protection of water resources and aquatic species; advocating for pollution reduction and ecological improvement projects locally and statewide, especially the removal of obsolete dams; and advocating for protecting water (particularly drinking water) at its source through effective watershed management. This past fiscal year, we planted 60 trees at the site of a former dam, and conducted sediment sampling around 7 defunct dams we are targeting for removal. We also did biological surveys of fish communities both up- and downstream of 9 such dams. Through these efforts, we are beginning to build a comprehensive understanding of the toxic legacy left on our watershed by these outdated and ecologically damaging pieces of infrastructure and what will need to be done to restore the affected habitats to their prior natural state. In addition to scientific research, community participation and support is essential for habitat restoration work to move forward. This past year, we planned and executed over 25 public outreach events on this issue, including 18 screenings of our new film on dam removals, one dam at a time, produced by accomplished national geographic documentarian jon bowermaster. Approximately 2,500 people were directly served by our habitat restoration outreach actions over the course of the year. These efforts continued to bear fruit and garner critical support for this work, as we reached 5 new agreements with property owners for future dam removals. On the water quality side, through our community science program we collected samples from 75 hudson river sites and 225 other tributary and nyc sites, in collaboration with columbia university's lamont-doherty earth observatory and riverkeeper volunteers. These allowed us to publish a dozen new summary reports with analysis of water quality data. This work allows us to build a holistic picture of the health of our watershed, and spot trends and points of vulnerability. We also carried out several special projects related to water quality with the help of partner groups, which included: creating a hands-on water quality curriculum/job training program for youth in troy, ny; drafting a quality assurance project plan for building adaptive wetlands on flushing creek; and the publication of the 'building an equitably green new york city' report, which calls on the city to expand its green infrastructure program and focus more attention on environmental justice communities. Of course, water protection safeguards human health as well as environmental health. Taken as a whole, the hudson valley region provides drinking water for millions of new yorkers daily, and it's our goal to protect those drinking water supplies at the source. This past year, we supported the municipalities of peekskill and ossining in the development of drinking water source protection plans, each of which was approved by new york state. We also coordinated with the hudson 7, a groundbreaking coalition of towns and cities that get drinking water from the hudson, to protect and improve the drinking water for thousands of residents.”

“Legal, climate and energy riverkeeper's legal program advances the cause of clean water through pursuing litigation, submitting comments on agency actions, and educating the public. Broadly speaking, our legal program is dedicated to remediating historic pollution and ensuring that new sources of pollution are prevented from further contaminating the hudson. And as climate change and renewable energy continues to come into ever-greater focus as a priority issue, much of the work of our staff attorneys as well as our other staff doing programmatic work involves weighing in on state efforts to mitigate climate change impacts, highlight climate-related risks, and help communities in our watershed adapt to a changing world. This year, we filed or continued to pursue a total of 16 pieces of litigation. These included suits against both the us environmental protection agency and the new york state department of environmental conservation for failing to protect the health of people who swim, boat and fish in new york city waters; a petition to compel new york city to follow the law and notify residents of sewage discharges into city waterways in a timely manner; and a lawsuit demanding a full alternatives analysis for the proposed laguardia airtrain. We also pursued 10 lawsuits against companies for unlawful discharges of polluted industrial stormwater, along with other pollution violations. Across these cases as a whole, we and our outside counsel partners secured a total of $244,000 in recovered fees and costs, as a result of legal settlements. Aside from these cases, our team of in-house lawyers works with others on our staff on many other campaigns. Of particular focus this past year, we pushed for the full remediation of pcb contamination in the hudson river, caused by general electric; watchdogged the decommissioning of the indian point nuclear power facility through our seat on the state's decommissioning oversight board; helped prevent the siting of new polluting facilities that would discharge to the hudson or its tributaries; and provided positive community visions for superfund cleanups. Our legal staff also focus heavily on fighting pollution from stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows (csos), which are exacerbated by climate change. In tandem with these legal efforts, this year we submitted comments on new york state's forthcoming climate impacts assessment, a foundational resource that will influence adaptation planning for years to come. We also began a project to highlight climate-related risks to drinking water, to improve state programs focused on source-water protection and climate adaptation planning.”

“Advocacy and patrols riverkeeper's advocacy and patrols program advances our clean-water protection efforts through public engagement and policy-making. Our presence as a 'watchdog on the water' acts as a deterrent to polluters, while our advocacy moves the needle on legislation, helps direct key government funding towards clean water initiatives, lifts up the voices of partner organizations, and builds strong communities up and down the watershed. Our patrol boat, the r. Ian fletcher, maintained a near-constant presence on the hudson and its tributaries this past fiscal year, in all seasons except winter. Every month, we ran a patrol in new york harbor, the hudson estuary, the mohawk river, and the upper hudson. Our patrols hosted several important decision-makers this year, including assemblymember patricia fahy, the lead sponsor of the successful effort to increase the state's funding for the hudson river estuary program by $1 million. And our watchdog team, which works in close coordination with our patrols, communicated with hundreds of members of the public, helping to report and resolve observed conditions affecting water quality in the hudson and its tributaries, while also playing a key role in the successful removal of 17 abandoned and derelict vessels from the river. On the advocacy front, this past year was a year of milestones and deepened partnerships with community groups. We shepherded several key bills and state funding commitments across the finish line this year, including $500 million for clean water infrastructure investments, a $400 million environmental protection fund, 265 new staff positions at the state department of environmental conservation, and a first-in-the-nation ban on fossil fuel appliances in new construction. We successfully advocated for legislation now signed by governor hochul with new requirements to protect environmental justice communities during permit-review processes, and we advanced the living shorelines act to the governor's desk, to better protect our shorelines from sea-level rise and flooding. In congress, we played a foundational role in getting the ny-nj watershed protection act re-introduced, which would establish a federal funding program for restoration throughout the hudson, mohawk and new york harbor watersheds. We supported 3 local water protection groups through leadership changes, and helped one such group the wallkill river watershed alliance stage its first in-person summit since 2020, which brought the issue of harmful algal blooms to the forefront of agency decision-makers' attention. Communities in coeymans, newburgh, and the 7 municipalities that are part of the hudson 7 coalition worked with us on advocacy around issues ranging from drinking water protection to cleaning up toxic pfas chemicals to resisting the industrialization of the river's shoreline. In response to community concerns, we engaged in a multifaceted campaign including passing legislation and getting 138 organizations to sign a letter to the governor to prevent the dumping of radioactive wastewater into the hudson from the site of the now-offline indian point nuclear plant. And we launched an online educational map with pratt institute, on recreational water use in new york city, to inform state decision-making about water quality standards.”

“Other professional fees: program service expenses 554,819. Management and general expenses 23,225. Fundraising expenses 53,796. Total expenses 631,840.”