WEBVTT

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Hackensack Riverkeeper was formed because

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in the early 90s,

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I started doing volunteer work for New York,

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New Jersey Baykeeper.

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And

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while I was doing that volunteer work,

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I realized that the river that

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flowed through my hometown

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needed a full-time advocate.

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And so I spent several years

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more or less learning the ropes

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and

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in 1997,

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I got permission to use

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the registered trademark,

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which is

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the word,

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you know,

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Riverkeeper is a registered trademark.

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And so I got permission to use that and then I incorporated the organization

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and

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set out on the

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road to recovery for the river.

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We are not shy about anything that we do.

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And whenever,

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you know,

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whenever there's

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a victory,

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if we're fighting a project or if we're working on a project that shouldn't happen

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really the way it was and we get it to happen the right way,

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we,

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we let people know that Riverkeeper was involved.

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The Riverkeeper is involved.

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And,

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you know,

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that's why we have a staff attorney.

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That's why,

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you know,

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like

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we're a full-blown Waterkeeper program

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and

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the Waterkeepers

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started

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in 1999

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because we were,

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we were growing new programs

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pretty quickly

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and we wanted to be able to organize them

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into an international organization called

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the International Waterkeeper Alliance.

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And

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when we started,

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there was about

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25 of us.

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And now we have

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about

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well over 200.

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At one point,

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it was up to about 250,

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but there was some

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Corrections and

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I think we're,

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we're,

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we're easily close to 225,

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230,

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240 programs,

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and we're on 6 continents,

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and we're in 39 different countries.

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All over the world there are water keepers.

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Everybody has a right to clean water.

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Everybody has a right to

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enjoy the water.

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Whether it's recreationally

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or even commercially,

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you know,

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like,

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people have a right to use the rivers,

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use,

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use the bays,

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and use the streams,

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and the state

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should just be making sure

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that those rivers and streams and bays and everything else

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are healthy enough that people can

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coexist with them and not get sick.