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, candidates for directorship will be presented for election by the members. Any candidate receiving a plurality of the member votes will be elected for a term of three years (unless modified according to article iii, section 3), or until such director's death, resignation, or removal. Candidates for election as directors will be nominated by the nominating committee, as specified in article iii, section 14(a)(c). Members of the corporation who desire to nominate a member to the board, 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 per 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 numbers of signatures, the petition first submitted will be accepted.”

“Complete form 990 was reviewed by robin meadows, chief financial and operating officer; tracy brown, president and riverkeeper; and board of directors treasurer, martin hampel. Subsequently, form 990 (excluding schedule b) was reviewed and approved by riverkeeper board of directors' audit and finance committee and was then provided to the full board of directors for review and questions at least one week prior to filing. The exclusion of schedule b is to protect the identity of anonymous donors, in line with riverkeeper's donor privacy policy.”

“On a yearly basis, each member of the board of directors completes a "conflict of interest" acknowledgement which documents and certifies that no conflict of interest exists between the board member and any activity of riverkeeper.”

“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's mission is to protect and restore the hudson river from source to sea and safeguard drinking water supplies, through advocacy rooted in community partnerships, science, and law. We envision a future in which the hudson river and its tributaries from brooklyn to the adirondacks, as well as new york city's drinking watershed, are restored to ecological health and balance; free-flowing, resilient, and teeming with life; reliable sources of safe, clean drinking water; recovered from historic and inequitable environmental harms; safe and accessible for swimming, fishing, boating and other recreational activities; and valued and stewarded by all. Working with hundreds of partners at all levels, riverkeeper has achieved remarkable successes over the years including securing a ban on fracking in new york, removing more than 401 tons of trash from our waterfront and shorelines, closing the indian point nuclear plant, to launching a water quality program that tests thousands of water samples annually for harmful bacteria. When riverkeeper started our work in 1966, the hudson was an industrial sewer, polluted and contaminated almost beyond recognition. People had turned away from the river and our drinking water was threatened. Today, the hudson and its tributaries are increasingly important to new yorkers for recreation and enjoyment. People swim in the length of the river, new waterfront parks and marine sanctuaries have been created and are thriving, bringing whales, seals, and dolphins back to the new york harbor. And the new york drinking water system is still the envy of the world.”

“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 monitoring and 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 drinking water at its source through effective watershed management. This past fiscal year, we planted native trees and shrubs at sites across the hudson valley to help stabilize streambanks and provide habitat for aquatic and terrestrial species. Our team conducted sediment sampling at multiple dams targeted for removal. Biological surveys of fish communities upstream and downstream of dams of interest will be conducted in the following year as well. 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 a number of public outreach events on this issue, including but not limited to creek tours, a community kayak event, as well as tree planting and maintenance days. Hundreds of people were directly served by our habitat restoration outreach over the course of the year. Habitat restoration progress continues as we have both shovel-ready projects, and barriers in the design and permitting phase, as well as multiple 'right to remove agreements' with property owners for future dam removals. On the water quality side, through our community science program we collected and analyzed samples from over 247 hudson river and tributary sites, in collaboration with academic partners and riverkeeper volunteers. This work allows us to build a holistic picture of the health of our watershed, and spot trends and points of vulnerability. All of the data we collect is publicly available via our water quality portal. We also worked with our hudson river water quality monitoring collaborative to carry out several special projects related to water quality with the help of partner groups. We are building on the success of the source to estuary program, a field trip based curriculum where youth are able to learn about their drinking water sources, where they come from, where they go, and what happens to them along their route. We now run this course in conjunction with our lab based job training program for youth in troy, ny, and brought the course to kingston with the kingston ymca farm project. Students can also now receive college credit for participating in the course. In addition, we sampled in the esopus creek watershed to assist with reopening a beach and shaping the lower esopus creek stream management plan to include a septic system assessment to address water quality concerns related to our sampling results. Building on our work in the mohawk river watershed with our academic partners we partnered with dec for a joint sampling program for fecal indicator bacteria to have tributaries to the mohawk river listed for any impairments that are found. To conduct the sampling we hired an intern out of union college who worked with our academic partners at union college and suny cobleskill, providing valuable job training and experience. We also worked with the hudson 7 to develop source water monitoring programs and with the city of peekskill to better understand impairments to the drinking water supply.”

“Advocacy and patrols: riverkeeper's advocacy and patrols program advances our water, habitat and public health protection and restoration efforts through public engagement and policy making. Our presence as a 'watchdog on the water' provides a platform to investigate pollution concerns and give decisionmakers perspective from the water. Our advocacy efforts identify legislation, regulation, enforcement, budget allocations and programs that can address restoration and protection goals in the hudson river watershed and its communities. We advocate for priority policies through grassroots advocacy, collaboration with other organizations and governments at all levels, and lobbying. Our patrol boat, the r. Ian fletcher, was undergoing an engine rebuild and related maintenance and upgrades through most of fy25. Riverkeeper maintained its long standing presence on the hudson river, mohawk river and ny-nj harbor through scientific monitoring with the bob boyle, which was launched in may 2024, and sun hill, a smaller trailered vessel; partnership with other vessel owners; and shoreline-based observations. Riverkeeper's governmental affairs efforts included frequent meetings with state and federal legislators and their staff members, the staff of governor kathy hochul, ngos and others engaged in state legislative efforts. Riverkeeper organized one "advocacy day" for staff, board and partners to engage in lobbying, and a bipartisan lobbying trip to washington, d.c., where riverkeeper staff met with the offices of 11 u.s. Representatives. Riverkeeper's efforts supported the reauthorization of state clean water infrastructure funding and important watershed management programs, and an authorization for sewer consolidation for the new rochelle, ny sewer district. In addition, we secured bipartisan support in the state senate and assembly for further remediation of pcbs in the hudson river superfund site. Riverkeeper also launched a new york city policy agenda in fy25, focusing on actions city and state governments can take to promote recreational water quality, stormwater management, flood resilience and drinking water protections. Our grassroots advocacy campaigns influenced federal, state, regional and local decisions related to recreational water quality, drinking water source protections and wildlife and habitat management. These efforts included advocacy for reducing the impacts of road salt pollution; more protective regulations for pfas "forever chemicals; reducing sewage leaks and overflows especially in new york city and westchester county, ny; promoting restoration of american eels by improving management of hydroelectric facilities; promoting the creation of new swimming areas on the hudson river; stopping the migration of invasive species through the erie canal; advancing remediation at hazardous waste sites including newtown creek, gowanus canal and stewart air national guard base; drafting or implementing drinking water source protection plans for multiple communities, including the seven municipalities that rely on the hudson river, peekskill, newburgh and kingston; and influencing new or forthcoming governmental plans for managing the hudson river estuary and ny-nj harbor. Riverkeeper's watchdog effort responded to a range of pollution concerns from the public, leading to a number of successful investigations and/or responses by responsible agencies.”

“Legal and energy: riverkeeper's legal program advances the cause of clean water through pursuing litigation against polluters, helping to shape federal, state and local governmental 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. We pursue lawsuits against polluters for unlawful discharges of polluted industrial stormwater, along with other violations. We also have ongoing lawsuits against governments for failing to protect the health of people who swim, boat and fish in new york waters. Aside from these cases, our team of in-house lawyers works with others on our staff on many other far-reaching campaigns. We push for the full remediation of pcb contamination in the hudson river caused by general electric; watchdog the decommissioning of the indian point nuclear power facility through our seat on the state's decommissioning oversight board; fight for new sewer infrastructure to reduce pollution from stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows; prevent the siting of new, unsustainable polluting facilities that would discharge to the hudson or its tributaries; provide positive community technical support for communities to ensure thorough superfund cleanups, and help improve state and local programs for source water protection and adaption planning for drinking water supplies.”

“Other professional fees: program service expenses 325,403. Management and general expenses 90,302. Fundraising expenses 229,740. Total expenses 645,445.”