On March 6th, I had a phone call with Jen Benson who is the education and outreach coordinator for Riverkeeper. Riverkeeper has been educating and protecting the Hudson River for over 50 years. They protect our drinking water and anywhere you can go in the Hudson River with a boat is protected by them. They annually protect 4 thousand miles. One form of pollution in the water is seagull poop. They do lots of tests and things to make sure that our drinking water is safe from toxins. They’ve tried to stop bills regarding the pipeline, make sure our drinking water is drinkable and they work on plastic bag bans. When I asked if they thought that were making an impact, they said yes. They working with people who were associated with the fracking ban and they’ve seen lots of improvement. With their help, the quality of our water has gone up. They’ve also won lawsuits against major companies, and they say that Indian point will be closed by 2021. My second question that I asked her was how humans are mainly affecting our natural ecosystem. She said that storm water combined with wastewater is a big issue. Water systems also overflow and raw sewage gets in New York City’s waterways. They also defend and protect the laws that we do have, and they work with EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). Just like so many environmental protection agencies, Riverkeeper is trying it’s best to preserve what Trump is trying to take away. Their main goal is to help us have clean drinking water. Jen also sent me lots of different links regarding water pollution, especially in the Hudson River and they have been really helpful in learning more about water pollution on a local scale.
