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WK Fall 05 Cover 09/13/2005 16:01 Page 1 << ASTRONAUT BUZZ ALDRIN >> WATERKEEPER WATERKEEPER Fall 2005 $5.95 Hawks &Doves Volume 2,Volume Number 2 2005 Fall Waterkeeper Founder Restoration Million Acres of Air Force Joe Payne Hardware Wilderness WK Fall 05 002-003 09/13/2005 15:40 Page 2 WK Fall 05 002-003 09/13/2005 15:41 Page 3 WK Fall 05 004-007 09/13/2005 15:37 Page 4 Letter From the President: ROBERT F. KENNEDY,JR. WATERKEEPER: Hawk and Dove There’s no one else in the world who has done more to advance the vision and accomplishments of the Waterkeeper movement than Rick Dove. Like the founders of the Waterkeeper movement Rick is a former Marine. He saw two tours in Vietnam and served as a military judge, Congressional Liaison and Provost-Marshal. This organization was started by Marines. It was a fish were covered with lesions. Fishermen con- group of 300 veterans, mostly Marines and their tracted debilitating respiratory infections and wives, who first met in an American Legion Hall skin eruptions that wouldn’t heal, and even brain in 1966. They came together because they saw the damage. Rick contracted the lesions himself. The Hudson River being stolen from them by industri- sickness, caused by exposure to Pfiesteria, was al polluters. They concluded that government killing fish by the millions and leaving people agencies were in cahoots with polluters and with brain damage. Rick helped trace the disease decided that the only way they could reclaim the to the untreated waste from hundreds of thou- river for themselves was to confront the polluters sands of hogs pouring into the river. In Rick’s directly. One of these Marines, a Sports Illustrated view, the billionaire hog barons were literally writer named Robert Boyle, discovered an ancient stealing the river from the people of North statute, the 1888 Rivers and Harbors Act, which Carolina. Rick was the first person to confront the allowed individuals to participate in the prosecu- hog industry in that state and anywhere else in tion of polluters with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the nation. In his soul he was still a Marine. He and collect bounties. The new group started going was still fighting for democracy. after polluters on the Hudson and the The best measure of how a democracy func- Waterkeeper movement was born. tions is how it distributes the goods of the land, The Marines who met that first night in the public trust assets, the commons, the air and Crotonville, New York were mainly recreational the water. These are things that by their nature and commercial fishermen and crab- cannot be reduced to private property. They are bers on the Hudson River. Similarly, owned by all the people and held in trust for This is, without any Rick Dove, after 26 years in the Marine future generations. They are community assets: doubt, a battle to Corps, retired to become a commercial part of our commonwealth. How are these fisherman and crabber on the Neuse resources distributed? Are they maintained in save American River. He also saw his fishery being the hands of the public or do we have a govern- destroyed. By 1994 most of the Neuse ment that allows them to be captured, privatized democracy. River’s fish stocks were collapsing. The and consolidated by large corporate entities? 4 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2005 www.waterkeeper.org WK Fall 05 004-007 09/13/2005 15:37 Page 5 airplanes that fly over the hog fields to document their practices. These companies get laws passed at the state level that take away the power of local towns and counties to regulate factory farms. They take away the ability of citizens to control the destiny of their own communities, or even to publicly crit- That’s the whole battle of Waterkeeper icize their practices. This is a war on free speech We are not here to Alliance and that’s why the whole and on our democracy. These companies have to protect the fishes environmental movement is really a crush local democracy and local control – they battle to save democracy. Rick Dove have to crush public officials – or they can’t com- and the birds saw this fight in these terms from day pete and can’t survive. one and he’s kept the movement on This is, without any doubt, a battle to save simply for their track by teaching people what it American democracy. And Rick pitched it as that own sake; means to be a Waterkeeper. to the public from the very outset. We are not here The hog industry is a paradigm for to protect the fishes and the birds simply for their Waterkeepers what happens to government when own sake; Waterkeepers recognize that nature is corporations take control. The Raleigh the infrastructure of our communities. If we want recognize that News & Observer won the Pulitzer Prize to meet our obligations to our children, we must nature is the for a five-part series on the hog industry provide them with the same opportunities for called “Boss Hog.” The story showed dignity, enrichment, safety and democracy as our infrastructure of how public officials in North Carolina parents gave us. We must start by protecting our were corrupted by this industry. Meat environmental infrastructure by going to war our communities. factories cannot produce a pork chop or against the big corporations who want to plunder a pound of bacon cheaper than a tradi- our country. tional family farmer unless they break the law. I’ll say one more thing about this democracy. Their entire business plan is predicated on their Corporations, under our law, can’t practice true ability to corrupt public officials and make the philanthropy, or altruism. They do not take con- public pay for disposing their waste with poi- trol of government officials to protect our democ- soned water. racy. They don’t want democracy and they don’t Twenty years ago when Rick started doing this want free markets. They want profits. And the work, there were 27,500 independent hog farms best way for them to get profits is to use our cor- in the state of North Carolina. Today, rupt campaign finance system – which is essen- except for the Niman Ranch sustainable tially a system of legalized bribery – to get their farmers, there are none left. They have hooks into a public official and then use that pub- been replaced by 2,200 factories, 1,600 lic official to dismantle the market by giving them of them controlled by one corporation, competitive advantage and privatizing the com- Smithfield, which now dominates the mons. All they want is plunder, and under our landscapes of North Carolina. Corporate laws, that’s the only thing they are legally entitled agriculture is driving the final nail into to want, because if they want something else, the coffin of Thomas Jefferson’s their shareholders can sue them. American democracy, rooted in tens of Rick Dove saw this flaw and said this is an thousands of independent freeholds, enemy that I am very familiar with, because it is owned by family farmers, each with a an enemy of democracy. This is a man who gave stake in our system of government, 26 years of his life to protect our country. He Rick Dove retired from the each with a stake in our country. Now risked his life in Vietnam. He went because of his Waterkeeper Alliance Board of the landscapes of North Carolina are idealism, because he loved our country, because Directors in June to take on new challenges, including the role of photo controlled by huge corporate interests, he loved democracy. And when he retired, he editor of Waterkeeper magazine. who have no loyalty to our country, who came to work with us. If you know Rick, you are the first ones to move their head- know he uses military imagery all the time and I quarters to the Bahamas and their operations to deeply appreciate that. Waterkeeper is a band of Poland, Canada, Brazil or Mexico. They don’t care brothers and sisters, fellow warriors, and Rick about America. Dove is number one among us who is willing to Rick started the battle against these companies fight and has dedicated his life and enormous and executed it like a military operation. He energies to protect our shared environment. WK helped start 11 Riverkeeper programs on all the major rivers and estuaries on the east coast of North Carolina. He organized an air force of 22 www.waterkeeper.org Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2005 5 WK Fall 05 004-007 09/13/2005 15:38 Page 6 WATERKEEPER Volume 2 Number 2, Fall 2005 04 Letter from the President 09 Ripples 13 12 Joe Payne, Casco Baykeeper: Maine Way 18 Buzz Aldrin: From Earth to Moon to Earth 22 Waterkeeper Air Force 24 The Neuse River Air Force 29 Flight Sturgeon: 19 Waterkeepers Take to the Air 30 Alabama Air 34 New York by Chopper 37 Wave of the Present 38 Water Elementary 39 Harbor School 41 Leaf Pack 26 43 Pro-Bono Students Canada 44 Restoration Hardware 46 Kelp Help 49 Kaw Point, Kansas 50 Living Shoreline 52 Bringing Nature Back in Oregon 54 Incredible Oyster 42 59 California Village and Stream Restored 60 Looking Past to the Future on Wolfe Island 66 A Million Acres of Wilderness 68 Hackensack Riverkeeper Wins Chromium Cleanup 70 2005 Waterkeeper Conference 76 Best Movies by Farr 47 77 Subscribe to Waterkeeper Magazine, Ad Index 78 The Waterkeeper Archivist 80 On the Water with photographer Giles Ashford 82 Beating Around the Bush 73 CONTENTS 6 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2005 www.waterkeeper.org WK Fall 05 004-007 09/13/2005 15:38 Page 7 EVERYONE IS READING SHOWCIRCUIT THE MAGAZINE OF EQUESTRIAN LIFESTYLES FOR INFORMATION OR TO SUBSCRIBE, PLEASE CALL 1-800-201-7058 www.showcircuitmagazine.com WK Fall 05 008-011 09/13/2005 15:34 Page 8 WATERKEEPER On the Cover {{{ M A G A Z I N E 828 South Broadway Suite 100 Tarrytown, NY 10591 The official magazine of Waterkeeper Alliance Pilot Ron Smith, retired Marine Mission: Waterkeeper Alliance connects and supports Colonel and combat aviator, now local Waterkeeper programs to provide a voice for flies various aircraft for the Neuse waterways and communities worldwide.

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