WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE 2018 ANNUAL REPORT OUR REACH 1 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 < WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE WATERKEEPER ORGANIZATIONS AND AFFILIATES PATROL AND PROTECT WE ADDED EIGHT COUNTRIES: MILLION BELIZE, IRELAND, MALI, NIGERIA, TANZANIA, UGANDA, THAILAND, AND JORDAN. SQUARE THERE ARE MOVEMENT-WIDE WE HAVE OVER 1,020 STAFF, MILES VOLUNTEERS 340 & SUPPORTERS, WATERKEEPER 471,290 2.69OF WATERSHEDS THAT PROVIDE MORE THAN AND A COLLECTIVE BUDGET OF APPROXIMATELY ORGANIZATIONS 690 MILLION PEOPLE AND AFFILIATES IN $73 MILLION. WITH WATER FOR DRINKING, FISHING, AND SWIMMING. 44 COUNTRIES. WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE IS A TOP-RANKED 501(C)(3) CHARITY, THROUGH OUR WEBSITE, EMAIL, SOCIAL MEDIA, WATERKEEPER MAGAZINE REACHED AND NEWS MEDIA OUTREACH, WE REACH WITH TOP-RATED STATUS FROM CHARITY WATCH, 4 STARS FROM 50,000 NEW READERS IN FY18. 2 CHARITY NAVIGATOR, AND PLATINUM STATUS FROM GUIDESTAR. 1.43 MILLION PEOPLE PER MONTH. 3 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 < WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE **AS OF JUNE 30, 2018 ABOUT WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE Waterkeeper Alliance holds polluters accountable. We’re the largest and fastest growing nonprofit solely focused on clean water. We preserve and protect water by STRENGTHENS AND connecting local Waterkeeper groups worldwide. Our goal is drinkable, fishable, swimmable water everywhere. Every day around the world, polluters are poisoning Today, Waterkeeper Alliance unites more than 300 our waterways, and people everywhere are Waterkeeper Organizations and Affiliates that are on GROWS A GLOBAL suffering the consequences. When a coal company the frontlines of the global water crisis, patrolling and discharges millions of gallons of toxic coal ash into protecting more than 2.5 million square miles of rivers, a river, families who depend on that waterway as lakes and coastal waterways on 6 continents. a drinking water source are the innocent victims. From Alaska to the Himalayas, the Great Lakes When a developer demolishes a forest of mangroves, to Australia, the Waterkeeper movement defends it destroys fisheries and devastates the local the fundamental human right to drinkable, fishable NETWORK OF economy. When hog farms dump untreated waste into and swimmable waters, and combines firsthand a waterway, people and marine life get sick. These are knowledge of their local waterways with an unwavering just a few examples of the battles that Waterkeeper commitment to the rights of their communities. Alliance fights every day around the world on behalf Whether they’re on the water tracking down of the common good and to protect everyone’s right polluters, in courtrooms enforcing environmental GRASSROOTS to clean water. laws, advocating in town meetings or teaching in The Waterkeeper movement was started by classrooms, the Waterkeeper movement speaks a band of blue-collar fishermen on New York’s for the waters it defends – with the collective Hudson River in 1966 because industrial polluters strength of Waterkeeper Alliance and the backing were destroying their way of life. Their tough, of local communities. grassroots brand of environmental activism Waterkeeper Alliance ensures that the world’s LEADERS PROTECTING Waterkeeper groups are as connected to each other sparked the Hudson’s miraculous recovery and inspired others to launch Waterkeeper groups around as they are to their local waters, organizing the fight the world. for clean water into a coordinated global movement. EVERYONE’S RIGHT TO CLEAN WATER. 4 5 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 < WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CLIMATE CHANGE IS ALTERING THE CHEMISTRY OF OUR perhaps they drank water poisoned by fossil fuels, or kilometers of the Sundarbans UNESCO World Heritage To do this, we plan to scale our organization to have a OCEANS they didn’t have enough water to drink because they site. If constructed, these plants will cause significant trained, effective local Waterkeeper on every habitable live in an area suffering from drought exacerbated by harm to the world’s largest mangrove forest, home to watershed on the planet—protecting more than 20 climate change. Every year, 3.2 million children under the endangered Bengal tiger and Irrawaddy dolphin. million square miles. the age of five die as a result of unsafe drinking water Huong River Waterkeeper in Vietnam is using Waterkeepers are the boots on the ground on the and poor sanitation. What is truly shocking is that more ecosystem-based adaptation to enhance flood frontlines of climate change. They use citizen action people die from unsafe water annually than from all resilience in urban and coastal areas. The project and science to enforce the law and to urge political forms of violence, including war. also focuses on gender issues in relation to disaster leaders to take action to save our communities and Climate change is altering the chemistry of our Despite the magnitude and gravity of these risk management and climate change adaptation by waterways from the cataclysmic ravages of climate oceans, the character of our coastlines, and the timing challenges, we know that humans have the ingenuity exploring and empowering women’s roles in disaster chaos. Their advocacy includes keeping fossil fuels and intensity of rain and snow, wreaking havoc all to rise to the occasion and solve these crises. We response and environmental protection. in the ground, stopping new fossil fuel plants and around the world. With increasingly strong storms understand that highly trained, effective local leaders— Miami Waterkeeper is promoting green retiring existing fossil fuel facilities, while advocating like Hurricanes Florence and Michael and Typhoon like Waterkeepers—are critical to solving these crises infrastructure and natural defenses such as coral reefs for a shift of financing from coal and other dirty fossil Mungkhat, and extended periods of drought in places because we know that change starts at the local level. and mangroves, educating the public about sea level fuel projects to clean energy like wind and solar. like Australia, Honduras, California, Iran, and Syria, Our Waterkeepers work on the front lines of their local rise science, and taking legal action to ensure proper Waterkeepers further advocate for climate adaptation many people are now realizing that climate change is a communities to address climate change through sea level rise planning. Miami Waterkeeper knows that and resiliency so their communities can thrive far into water issue. And water is our most precious resource. mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. Here are a few responding to sea level rise is an urgent matter, and the future. Needless to say, we have a global climate and water examples from this last year: is devoted to using the best available science and We are very grateful for your support and ask you to crisis. Our water supplies in many places are shrinking Columbia Riverkeeper has combined sophisticated management practices to be prepared and ready. please join us as we transform the local fight for clean and it is estimated that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will grassroots organizing with savvy legal strategies to Marañón Waterkeeper in Peru continues to fight water into a powerful, coordinated global movement to live in areas faced with water-scarcity, while about defeat proposed fossil fuel infrastructure in the Pacific the construction of more than 20 proposed dams solve the biggest challenge of our time. two-thirds of the world will live in water-stressed areas. Northwest. This includes two proposed coal export along one of South America’s last free-flowing rivers. As we face growing water-scarcity, we are poisoning terminals, two proposed liquefied natural gas export The dams’ reservoirs would not only become sources To clean water, what available water we have left. Every day, we dump terminals, and three proposed oil terminals. of greenhouse gases but displace communities that two million tons of sewage, industrial, and agricultural Waterkeepers Bangladesh is coordinating a depend on the Marañón for their livelihood. waste into the world’s waters. These issues are national campaign to prevent the construction of more Based on the great work of our Waterkeepers and deeply troubling and are manifesting in human health than 20 new coal-fired power plants across one of the our unwavering belief in local leadership, over the next impacts: Over half the hospital beds in the world are most climate vulnerable nations in the world. Several of 20 years, we are committing to significantly strengthen filled with people suffering from waterborne diseases; the proposed coal plants in Bangladesh are within 30 and grow our network of watershed advocates. MARC YAGGI Executive Director 6 7 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 < WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE ADVOCACY CLEAN AND SAFE ENERGY “THIS U.S. COAL Coal Ash Disposal 2017 that EPA was impermissibly ADMINISTRATION For decades, irresponsible disposal delaying the release of documents we of coal ash and inadequate regulation requested, and ordered EPA to provide of the wastewater released from coal the documents to us on a strict timeline. plants have polluted our water. Lax IS DOING regulations allowed toxic chemicals and Defending Public Reporting Requirements harmful heavy metals, including lead, Coal-fired power plants around mercury, and arsenic, to contaminate the nation in March 2018 posted EVERYTHING groundwater and waterways, making the results of their groundwater coal ash the largest source of toxic monitoring, confirming widespread water pollution, by volume, in the groundwater pollution. The day IT CAN United States. before these were released, EPA The U.S. Environmental Protection announced plans to weaken the Agency (EPA), under the Obama coal ash disposal rule requiring this administration, set minimum standards information to be collected and TO GIVE COAL for coal ash disposal that limit water made public. Waterkeeper Alliance pollution, but the Trump administration joined Mobile Baykeeper, Altamaha has made it a priority to roll back those Riverkeeper, Grand Riverkeeper, A FREE RIDE, regulations as it tries to revitalize the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper, dying coal industry. and Potomac Riverkeeper at a public Waterkeeper Alliance President hearing opposing this rollback.