Riverkeeper was founded in 1966 by a group of concerned Hudson River fishermen whose daily catches were covered in oil and other pollution created by companies dumping their waste into the river. More than 50 years later, Riverkeeper has emerged as the leading nonprofit organization devoted to protecting New York’s most famous river. Today, the organization accomplishes these goals through community activism, legal strategies, advocacy, and research.
True to its origins, Riverkeeper maintains a primary focus on stopping corporate and municipal polluters from destroying the Hudson. Though the New York Department of Conservation is nominally charged with this task, the agency is underfunded and understaffed, which means companies and municipalities can dump pollutants into the river without fear of getting caught.
To remedy this, Riverkeeper maintains its own patrol boat program to monitor activity on the river and relies on a network of community watchdogs that report illegal dumping. The organization then turns to its partnerships with legal organizations and policy experts to craft legislative and regulatory solutions to stop the pollution