White-water knight

Leaders of the Spokane and Pend Oreille Riverkeeper/Waterkeeper affiliates hope a visit here this month by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will raise awareness about the need for protecting our waterways and inspire citizens to take ownership. Kennedy, recently named a hero of the planet by Time magazine, is vice chairman and chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper, and chairman of the Waterkeeper Alliance, New York-based organizations dedicated to keeping water bodies around the world clean. He’ll discuss water quality issues at a public gathering at Gonzaga University and a private reception in Spokane May 20 and a gathering in Sandpoint May 21. “The environment is the most important, the most fundamental, civil-rights issue,” Kennedy said in a 2007 interview in “Grist” magazine. “In the word ecology, the root ‘eco’ is the Greek word for home. It’s really about how we manage our home.” The Spokane Riverkeeper, as well as Gonzaga University School of Law’s Environmental Law Clinic and the college’s undergraduate program will present the Gonzaga event at 7:30 p.m. at Martin Centre. Avista Corp. is a major sponsor of the event. There will also be a private fund-raising reception earlier that evening at the home of Don Barbieri and Sharon Smith. Kennedy is also a clinical professor and supervising attorney at Pace University School of Law’s Environmental Litigation Clinic, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and co-host of “Ring of Fire” on Air America Radio. “He’s just an incredible, amazing speaker,” said Rick Eichstaedt, Spokane’s Riverkeeper and an attorney at the Center for Justice. “I hope folks are just inspired by hearing him speak. I hope they have a better idea why it’s important for citizens to play a role in protecting their water body, and a better understanding of the Spokane Waterkeeper and Pend Oreille Waterkeeper and the work that we do.” Eichstaedt, who has met Kennedy and heard him speak several times, expects the environmental advocate to draw a crowd large enough to fill the 1,500-seat Martin Centre at Gonzaga University. Funds raised at the reception and public event will benefit the Spokane Riverkeeper, a program of the Center for Justice, and Gonzaga’s law clinic. “The clinic will directly benefit from the visit, because we represent both the Keepers that are the recipients of the funds raised during Mr. Kennedy’s visit. Those funds will go to not only improve the overall Keeper programs, but may be used to help fund the cases that we do with the Keepers,” says Michael J. Chappell, director of the environmental law clinic at Gonzaga. Chappell expects Kennedy to talk about work the Spokane and Pend Oreille programs are doing, such as public outreach and education, patrolling their respective water bodies, and enforcing environmental laws. “Other general themes that I’ve heard Mr. Kennedy discuss in his speeches include how our democracy is inexplicably tied to the use and management of our natural resources, particularly water, because the public owns the resources being exploited for profit,” he says. “He often discusses (along the same lines as the democracy theme), that the ‘commons’ must be protected for the good of the people and that often the regulatory agencies tasked with that protection have been captured by the industry’s and dischargers that they regulate. Further, he may go into the junk science funded by polluters that is really nothing more than position papers drafted by polluters and put forth by ‘scientists’ that are bought and paid for by polluters.” The Center for Justice has been working on river issues for the past seven years, and Eichstaedt was named a Riverkeeper in 2009. “Before that, we had provided representation to other groups working on river issues,” he says. “Now we’re own program and we’re our own client.” Designated Riverkeepers and Waterkeepers are advocates for a specific body of water. “Unlike some environmental movements, everybody wants clean water,” Eichstaedt says. “We all drink water. We all play in water. Protecting our local water bodies is not something fringy; it’s very mainstream.” Riverkeepers watch for shoreline development that shouldn’t be occurring, illegal dumping, unhealthy fish or water quality, or other indications of pollution that could impact the health of the river, Eichstaedt says. Eventually, the Spokane program hopes to have enough volunteers to be able to monitor the entire stretch of the river. “We get calls from people who are out there. … People who live on it and fish on it are the best sources of information,” Eichstaedt says. Recently a boat was donated to the organization here, so it can better patrol the Spokane River to look for people or companies that are in violation of the Water Quality Act. If a company or person is breaking the law, and the state department of ecology or EPA won’t enforce it, citizens may, Eichstaedt says. “If your use of enjoying that water body is hampered by pollution, you can go to court and take action against them,” he says. “We see ourselves as the Neighborhood Watch for the Spokane River. That’s the model that the Keepers have. I’m sure that model will be spoken about by Kennedy during his visit.” On Friday, Kennedy will speak at Trinity at City Beach restaurant in Sandpoint, from 8:30 to 10 a.m., and seating is limited to 80 people, says Jennifer Ekstrom, who became the Pend Oreille Waterkeeper last year. “With many water bodies in the Pend Oreille Basin listed as impaired under the Clean Water Act, it is critical to monitor potential pollution and ensure polluters are held accountable to the rules and laws that are in place to protect and restore water quality,” Ekstrom says. “Water is vital to all life and the Waterkeeper’s job is to protect it for the common good.” She adds, “I hope that Mr. Kennedy’s visit will bring greater awareness to our community about the importance of protecting water quality in Lake Pend Oreille and inspire people to get involved. The lake is vast and beautiful but is compromised by pollution we often can’t see. Protecting water quality is something that every person can help with.” The Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Riverkeeper organization began in the 1966 after a group of fishermen, upset that fish in the Hudson River had become too contaminated, banded together to protect the watershed they used. “They decided they needed to do something,” Eichstaedt says. “Rather than taking direct action, they thought, ‘Wait, we as citizens can enforce some of these laws.’” That group grew into a national and international movement. Since becoming the Spokane Riverkeeper, Eichstaedt has sent Clean Water Act notice letters to the City of Spokane for illegal discharges of PCBs to the River from their storm sewer system and to the Washington State Department of Transportation for alleged stormwater violations of Washington’s Storm Water Construction Permit, Chappell says. Eichstaedt “is also conducting storm water investigations, in partnership with my clinic, throughout Spokane to target industrial facilities or construction projects that are discharging storm water to area storm drains that lead to the River,” he adds. Ekstrom has been tracking the use of pesticides and herbicides to control milfoil weeds in Lake Pend Oreille. She also has been pushing the use of more eco-friendly methods of milfoil eradication and conducting storm-water investigations with Gonzaga’s clinic to target dischargers to Lake Pend Oreille or the Pend Oreille River. “Jennifer is also working with the Clinic to determine whether the State of Idaho is in violation of the Clean Water Act for ceasing all funding for all water quality monitoring by Idaho Dept. of Environmental Quality throughout the state,” Chappell says. Being active in the political process is one of the most important things a citizen of the U.S. can do, Kennedy told “Grist” magazine. “Support the environmental groups that wage legal action and lobby for these bills. Get rid of the politicians who are whoring for industry. It’s more important than recycling. It’s more important than anything you can do.”