Waterkeepers are known for taking legal actions against polluters and regulators to enforce laws and to ensure cleanup of pollution. But not all pollution issues call for a legal remedy. Sometimes the issues are complicated and we need to employ several different strategies under a campaign. We often have to enlist the community to stop pollution or demand better laws. Sometimes we need a legislative solution or regulatory reform which means we lobby for better laws and comment to improve regulations and permits. We enlist the media’s help to shine a spotlight on an issue. We send out calls for action when we need your voice and need you to show up at public meetings and rallies. Check out our current campaigns and see how you can become involved.
Projects
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Big Springs Filtration Plant & Firefighting Chemical Contamination
EPA issued a lifetime health advisory (LHA) in 2016 that gave a limit of 70 parts per trillion for PFOS and PFOAs, two chemicals commonly used in firefighting foam and sometimes found in drinking water. While this advisory does not set legally enforceable standards, it is typically used by public
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Toxic Wastewater Discharges from Coal Power Plants
EPA’s 2015 “Effluent Limitation Guideline” Rule was developed to deal with the discharge of toxic metals and other pollutants removed from coal plants’ air emissions in response to more protective air pollution standards issued over a decade ago. The same metals that were being “scrubbed” from coal plant smokestacks were
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RiverPalooza 2017
RiverPalooza 2017 was a season-long annual event providing a wide range of on-the-water and paddling events with our Riverkeepers and in partnership with the region’s best outfitters. RiverPalooza 2017 kicked off on June 3rd with our Make a SPLASH for Clean Water Day at Harpers Ferry — including paddling, rafting, tubing
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Clean Water is Under Attack
The Administration has directed the EPA to take sweeping measures to undo clean water protections under the Clean Water Rule intended to safeguard the health of our rivers, streams and wetlands. The announcement to repeal the Clean Water Rule represents one of the most serious assaults on our water resources
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Atlantic Coast Pipeline Threatens Shenandoah River Campaign
The proposed construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would impact the headwaters of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. This is a transmission line to get fracked gas out of Pennsylvania and West Virginia and ship it down to North Carolina and Portsmouth, Virginia. If constructed, this pipeline will traverse
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Safe Disposal of Coal Ash at Possum Point Campaign
PRKN is using litigation and grassroots political outreach to push for a full cleanup of Possum Point’s coal ash pollution, investigation of Dominion’s handling of coal ash, and the excavation and removal of all coal ash at the site to a lined landfill away from the Potomac River. Our goal
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No Potomac Pipeline Campaign
In 2016, behind the scenes, without public input, a West Virginia gas company called Mountaineer Gas quietly laid the groundwork for a fracked gas pipeline that would threaten the Potomac River and the National Park Service’s C&O Canal, one of the most visited national parks. Residents in Morgan County, WV
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Stopping Alexandria Sewage Overflow Campaign
Like Washington D.C., the historic downtown section of Alexandria uses a combined sewer system that dumps untreated sewage and stormwater into Hunting Creek and the Potomac River nearly every time it rains, resulting in millions of gallons of sewage containing E.coli and other pathogens flowing into our waterways every year.
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Hog Factory Farm on Big Cove Creek
A small community is fighting against a large hog Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) or factory farm in Fulton County, PA. This factory-like facility would be the largest in the county and would house close to 9,000 hogs, while confining sows to production of 9,600 piglets each month – or
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Don’t Frack Maryland Campaign
The far western panhandle of Maryland is beautiful country, graced by deep lakes, wild forests and of course the Upper Potomac River. Unfortunately it also contains a slice of the Marcellus Shale, the geologic basin that has been the target of the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” industry in neighboring Pennsylvania and