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The local Riverkeeper is set to receive roughly $12,500 in donations immediately, with another $10,000 expected to be donated by the end of the year, representatives with Keeper Springs said. The Waterkeeper Alliance, which includes Hudson Riverkeeper, comprises 17 organizations that “fight water pollution and the polluters themselves,” Keeper Springs representatives said in a press release. The money is set to go toward funding local cleanups along the Hudson River for the next year.
“It means a lot to us, it really does,” said Hudson Riverkeeper President Paul Gallay in a phone interview. “Keeper Springs has been wonderful in helping our grassroots efforts, including our shoreline cleanups, and they help us get people out into the environment to clean it up, and without them we would not have been able to do everything we’ve done for the river.”
Keeper Springs was founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, who praised the Waterkeepers.
“We are proud of the tireless work of the Waterkeepers, and are thrilled to support them with additional resources to help protect our waterways,” he said in a press release. “The donations from Keeper Springs are vital to the individual Waterkeepers who protect and restore their watersheds every day.”
Chris Bartle, the second co-founder of the group, said he believes Hudson Riverkeeper was Kennedy’s most “sentimental” of all of the organizations.
“It was Bobby’s original affiliation, and his sentimental favorite, so we give as much as we can to that group,” Bartle said in a phone interview. “To me, Hudson Riverkeeper is the exemplary fighter for clean water in the United States. They’ve done more for the Hudson River than any other organization has done for any body of water. They represent everything that is good about the environmental movement so we’re glad to help them in any way we can.”
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