The Riverkeepers; Two Activists Fight to Reclaim Our Environment as a Basic Human Right

Cronin, John, and Kennedy, Robert F., Jr.

ISBN 10: 0684839083 / ISBN 13: 9780684839080

Published by Scribner, New York, 1997

About this Item

302, [2] pages. Appendix. Index. DJ slightly soiled. Foreword by Al Gore. Inscribed by the co-author (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.). Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954) is an American environmental lawyer, activist, and author. Kennedy is a son of Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former president John F. Kennedy. He is the president of the board of Waterkeeper Alliance, a non-profit environmental group that he helped found in 1999. From 1986 until 2017, Kennedy was a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-profit environmental organization. From 1984 until 2017, he was a board member and chief prosecuting attorney for Hudson Riverkeeper. For over thirty years, Kennedy has been an adjunct professor of Environmental law at Pace University School of Law. Until August 2017, he also held the post as supervising attorney and co-director of Pace Law School's Environmental Litigation Clinic, which he founded in 1987. He is currently professor emeritus at Pace. Kennedy co-hosts Ring of Fire, a nationally syndicated American radio program, and has written or edited ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers. Once an inspiration to writers and artists and a rich source of livelihood for fishermen, the Hudson River by the 1960's had been transformed by pollution from a national treasure into a national joke. Here two leaders of the successful Hudson Riverkeeper organization recount the investigations, the court battles, and the ultimate triumph in reclaiming the most basic human right of all--the right to a safe environment. A modern-day David and Goliath tale, The Riverkeepers is an impassioned firsthand account by two advocates who have taken on powerful corporate and government polluters to win back the Hudson River. John Cronin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., tell us how we too can fight for our fundamental right to enjoy our invaluable natural resources. Revealing shocking stories of commonplace environmental crime -- from drinking water tainted with hospital waste to fish populations contaminated by freely dumped PCBs -- Cronin and Kennedy describe their dramatic confrontations with more than ninety environmental lawbreakers. The Riverkeepers is a timely call to action that will resonate across America as the backlash spearheaded by congressional leaders and their major corporate allies threatens to reverse the hard-won victories in environmental law and policy. Derived from a Kirkus review: Two leaders of the Hudson Riverkeeper organization, a New York-based environmental advocacy group, recount their legal and public-relations battles against the polluters of one of America's famed waterways. Cronin, a former Hudson River commercial fisherman, and Kennedy, one of the new generation of that storied family, are, respectively, head and chief prosecuting attorney of the Hudson Riverkeeper group. The Hudson River, which had inspired artists and environmentalists such as Thomas Cole, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Burroughs, had become so polluted by the 1960s that swimming in its waters was forbidden. Cronin and Kennedy trace the grass-roots environmental activism that culminated in the formation of their organization in 1983. Since then, the group has filed close to 100 lawsuits, reportedly induced polluters to pay close to half a billion dollars to help restore the river, achieved a landmark agreement to protect New York City's water supply, and spawned a number of similar groups. The authors depict their enemies as numerous, well funded, and unscrupulous-including corporations such as Exxon and General Electric, as well as the `most antienvironmental Congress in the nation's history.' Despite their rhetoric, the authors outline three important ways to counter stereotypes about environmental elitism. First, they advocate acting locally. Second, they urge that environmentalism not be seen as anti-growth, but as a way to preserve a decades-old industry (fishing) and prevent long-term community. Seller Inventory # 51486

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Riverkeepers; Two Activists Fight to ...

Publisher: Scribner, New York

Publication Date: 1997

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very good

Edition: First Printing [Stated].

About this title

Synopsis:

The authors describe their confrontations and eventual triumphs over the electric power industry, Exxon, the Army Corps of Engineers, and other environmental lawbreakers

Review:

In the 1960s the Hudson River, under threat from polluters and energy concerns but beloved by its shoreline residents and local fishermen, became one of the United States' first major environmental battlegrounds. Out of those early legal wrangles emerged some important environmental legislation, and also the Soundkeeper organization, with a mandate to fight for the health of this historic New York river.

This book reveals something about the organization, and even more about the history of the Hudson and environmentalism in America, from John Winthrop to Newt Gingrich, and quite a bit, too, about the upbringings--glamorous (who'd have thought keeping a pet seal in your swimming pool would lead to activism?) and not-so-unusual--of its authors. Promising early chapters sketch out the exploitation of the river by industry and describe some of its colorful champions. (One of the most interesting here is Robert H. Boyle, the writer of a seminal account of the Hudson, The Hudson River: A Natural and Unnatural History, who comes off as a hero.) A terrific final section explains in accessible terms the basis for environmental law in the founding of our country. In between, this book sometimes falters under the weight of too much information. You can't fault these writers for the work they've done, or for the scattered gems of thoughtful information on the modern environmental movement, which make this book worth reading. Just be prepared to pick through some irrelevancies (did Bobby Shriver really bring a leopard tortoise home for Robert Kennedy Jr. from Kenya in a suitcase?) to get to the heart of this unusual book. --Maria Dolan