 Good morning. My mom decided to rewrite an old sea shanty, especially for today. It is called the Water Protector's Alphabet. It is for Pete and Toshi Seeger and water protectors everywhere. A is for action, which we must now take. B is for bravery, our earth is at stake. C is for clean air and water for all. D is for duty, to which we are called. E is for earth, our mother and friend. F's for our future, which we will defend. G is for greed, which shall not prevail. H is for hope, tis the wind in our sail. Merrily, cheerily, so merrily are we working together on land and sea. Keep away, all the way onward we'll steer, till it's justice for all and all waters run clear. I is for imagine, we all share a dream. J is for justice, tis a mighty stream. K is for keen, our vision is clear. L is for love, twill, win over fear. M is for many, all cultures all faith. N is for now, we've no time to waste. O's for our oceans, our rivers and lakes. P's for our promise to do what it takes. Merrily, cheerily, so merrily are we working together on land and sea. Keep away, all the way onward we'll steer, till it's justice for all and all waters run clear. Q's for the questions we all must now face. R's for our beautiful rainbow race. S's for struggle all under one sun. T's for together it's all or none. U is for up, let's rise like the tide. V is for victory, we're all on one side. W is for water, life giving and pure. And the last three letters won't rhyme, I'm sure. Merrily, cheerily, so merrily are we working together on land and sea. Keep away, all the way onward we'll steer, till it's justice for all and all waters run clear. Good morning, everyone. My name is Brent Bolen. I am the Chesapeake Regional Director and Political Director with Clean Water Action, a national non-profit based here in the nation's capital. I'm going to be hosting and moderating today's forum and I'm just going to give a few introductory remarks. So I want to thank Clear Water for putting this together for the opportunity to be a part of it. I'm very excited. I want to thank EESI for all the work that they did on the logistics and coordination. That was extremely helpful and we're extremely appreciative of that. If you look at the schedule of events, you can see that there are a lot of people speaking, so it's going to be a tight schedule. And as moderator, I'm going to hold people to it. So to my fellow speakers and panelists, don't be offended when I give you the hook. And just so you know that about halfway through after Erin Mayer speaks, we're going to take a brief break for Q&A. You can see the room is tight and there's not a lot of space up here. So we'll shuffle the first half of the speakers in and out, then provide an opportunity for Q&A and for media or anyone else to grab some folks to speak to them. Stephen Kent in the back of the room is coordinating all that. So if there's anybody in particular that you want to speak to, please check in with him. And then after that Q&A, we will pick up and continue with everything. So I just wanted to give some brief introductory remarks about sort of why we're here and what is at stake. So look over here at the images. So this is an image of Cleveland and the famous Cuyahoga River before the Clean Water Act passed. And so if you could flip to the next image, that's what it looks like now. Actually, that's a few years old. There's been a lot more development there in the East Bank. So you can see the back and forth. And the reason I bring that up is I'm actually from Cleveland. And so for years, I do this work in clean water and for years, every conference, they always start off talking about the Cuyahoga River and I'm just in the back. Come on, really, we got to talk about this again. But then when I thought about it today in light of everything that's at stake right now and what's going on, I mean, this is really important to look at this. The Clean Water Act was passed 45 short years ago, right? So I won't ask anyone older than 45 to raise their hands, but it's within the lifespan of many people in this room. So that's how short some people's memories are, right, that they forget what this looked like. And that's to say nothing of the air pollution that meant you couldn't see a couple hundred yards in some of these industrial cities in our country. So, you know, really, that is what at stake when we talk about federal clean water protections and why federal clean water protections are so important. And so I just want to run through a few things that we're up against right now. The proposed budget from the administration, as many of you have heard make, proposes severe cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency up to a third of the budget. Water programs are particularly hard hit. So I actually have a list here I'm going to read through because I couldn't remember it all. So these are programs that the President's budget has proposed to cut completely. Beach and Fish programs, beach protection, non-point source pollution, marine pollution, the National Estuary Program, the water quality research and support grants, the WaterSense program, which is like Energy Star for Water, critical infrastructure protection from Homeland Security, and Alaska Native villages in the Mexico border. And then these programs are proposed for significant cuts, safe and sustainable water resources, pollution control, public water system supervision, underground injection control. This is where they take pollution and pump it into the ground where our groundwater is. Drinking water programs, leaking underground storage tanks, wetlands program development, and inland oil spill programs. And they would also eliminate all of the EPA's geographic programs, including the Chesapeake Bay Program, the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Champlain, Long Island Sound, Puget Sound, San Francisco Bay, the Florida Evergades Keys and Coral Reefs, and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars. And I will tell you, as the Chesapeake Regional Director, I deal with clean water issues here in DC, Maryland, in Virginia, a big focus on the Chesapeake Bay Program. And let me tell you, the $73 million a year that is spent on the Chesapeake Bay Program is money well spent on scientists and policy people from all sorts of different institutions. They come together to map out how to reduce pollution in Chesapeake Bay. And you know what? It's working. The numbers show year over year the pollution reductions are happening. Water quality is improving in Chesapeake Bay. So that's making a big difference. Other things that are at stake right now include the Clean Water Rule. So the Clean Water Act, which is sort of why we're here, because of Pete Seager's trip on the clear water that helped get the Clean Water Act passed, there was a court ruling about 13 or 14 years ago that greatly confused what the Clean Water Act applied to. So for over a dozen years, nonprofits, government agencies worked to create a rule that would clarify that and make possible knowing what the Clean Water Act applied to. For many years, literally any building project had to have a wetland delineation to figure out whether the Clean Water Act applied or not. So this was a significant cost of doing business and a waste of resources. So the Clean Water Rule was proposed to clarify what counts as a waters of the United States. And what it does essentially is protect the upstream headwaters and small streams that feed the drinking water for one third of all Americans. So just yesterday, or was it Tuesday? Sorry, time's going fast these days. The administration proposed to repeal that rule. So there had been many years of comment on that. The Obama administration worked on that rule for years with the Army Corps of Engineers, industry, public, government stakeholders, an incredibly long process, six months of public comment. And so now the current administration has proposed to undo that rule with only a 30-day comment period to consider the implications of all of this. So it's a tremendous amount is at stake under these proposed cuts. And something even worse than the 30-day comment period is that there's actually, we're looking at a rider in a budget bill that actually proposes to waive the Administrative Procedures Act as it applies to the repeal of the Clean Water Rule. So actually that would undo the public notice and comment, you know, public engagement completely for the repeal of this rule. So they could just throw it out the window without telling anybody why and without receiving comments from the public. And that's not only terrible for the Clean Water Rule, that's an extremely dangerous precedent for everything anyone cares about. If changes can be made without the light of day on them, then I think that that's something that we all need to be concerned about. And I would just say the final thing that I will mention today, in the short amount of time I have to mention, things we should be concerned about, is the Power Plant Water Pollution Rule, which is another rule that the current administration is stopping. And that's a rule, it was updating something that hasn't been updated in decades, governing the pollution discharge from coal-fired power plants. So it's estimated that 23,000 miles of streams and rivers in this country have been polluted by heavy metals and other toxics from the waste from coal power plants. And the rule that came out to govern that pollution has also been proposed to be rolled back with a 30-day comment period. So there's an incredible amount at stake here. And we can see over the years how bad things used to be just 45 years ago and how much better things are now, and what's at stake if we let these changes come into effect. So that's essentially the extent of my remarks. Okay. So one of the things that we're going to do because of the tight schedule is basically not introduce the speakers. So you have, right? I mean, how many times you go to one of these things and you have a printed bio, and then the person doing what I'm doing just read you the bio. So read the bio of John Cronin, who is going to be up next to speak to you. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Oh, we're going to sing. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, John. Thank you very much. Thanks all for being here. So those who know me know that I'm a little bit of a contrarian. So I don't want to change that now. And what I want to talk to you about is also why the Clean Water Act is important. My view is a little bit different than a lot of my friends. The Clean Water Act is important, more important now than ever before because it stopped working so long ago. Because the stakes are so high right now, not because we've succeeded it so much, it's because we've failed it so much. That's why the Clean Water Act is important now. And for those of you who don't have the history, I'm going to give you a little bit of it. Let me start out by telling you what's going to happen on Saturday. Saturday is an inauspicious occasion. Saturday is July 1st. Saturday is the 34th anniversary of our failure to attain a level of water quality that supports the propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife. We were supposed to attain that by July 1st, 1983. Matter of fact, one of the number one goals of the Clean Water Act today is to restore water quality to support fish, shellfish, and wildlife 34 years ago. That's one of our number one policy objectives right now. To attain that 34 years ago. And to eliminate the discharge of pollutants by 1985. That's actually our priority right now. So our priority water policy in the United States in 2017 is to eliminate the discharge of pollutants 32 years ago. That's our number one water policy. Congress never changed it. The date stands today. If it was a library book, it would be due today. But it's not due today. And the history is not good. And our EPA administrators, believe it or not, have been screaming it at us for decades. April 20th, 1994, Carol Browner. Today, EPA is releasing a report that shows 40% of our nation's rivers, lakes, and streams are polluted. March 27th, 2001, Christine Todd Whitman. Despite past progress in reducing water pollution, 40% of the nation's waters assessed by the states did not meet water quality standards. January 12th, 2010, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. America's water bodies are imperiled as never before. September 9th, 2013, Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator under Barack Obama, progress in advancing clean water and safe drinking water goals in the United States is stalled. We've been being told this for decades by our own EPA administrators. Congress has not responded. Our presidents have not responded. What does it mean in numbers? What does it mean in reality? 28% of the nation's river and streams in the United States are in good condition. 28% are in good condition. Human health screening values for Mercury and fish are exceeded in 13,144 miles of river. Approximately 17.7 million acres of lakes and 1.3 million miles of river are the subject of fish health advisories in the United States. Over 40% of our waters are the subject of fish health advisories in the United States. That number is over five years old, and according to people inside the EPA, it has only increased. 19.5 million Americans are made ill by drinking water annually. According to the University of Arizona. These are health issues. These are economic issues. These are environmental justice issues. There is no commissioner of water in any state in the United States that will tell you that their state has a plan for clean water. There is no state in the United States that will tell you that their state has a plan to eliminate the discharge of pollutants. Our state, New York State, which is fairly progressive, has no plan to restore water quality to a level that supports the propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife. Environmentalists like to call this the fishable and swimmable standard. It is not a fishable and swimmable standard. This standard was not created for us to fish and swim. Read the law. This standard was created to support the propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and recreation in and on the waters. That ecological integrity, which is one of the number one reasons for the Clean Water Act, to restore and maintain this chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters has never been achieved even though the law will be 35 years old, 45 years old this year. That's why the Clean Water Act is most important because we have not achieved its goals. Not because we have achieved them and we're going backwards because we're not even 50% of the way there. Congress, a bipartisan Congress, created the Clean Water Act. A bipartisan Congress can protect the Clean Water Act and reform the Clean Water Act. On January 22nd, January 23rd, 1970, top of the front page of the New York Times, Richard Nixon proposes a largest water pollution program in the nation's history. Did it in his State of the Union address. The Congress passed the Clean Water Act two years later, spending more money than he asked for, so he vetoed it. And Congress trounced the veto. Ten to one in the House of Representatives. Howard Baker, Republican Conservatives, and Senator from Tennessee said, this is the most important piece of environmental legislation in the United States history. That bipartisan voice can still be there, but we have to understand the history. We have to do a reality check on where we really stand and we have to understand what's at stake here. What's at stake here is more than half of the nation's water are still unfit. That's one of the reasons we have to protect this law. It's the main reason we have to protect this law. So those of you who are staffers, those of you who are part of the NGO community, ask the question, what is the new date to eliminate the discharge of pollutants? What is the new date to restore water quality to support shellfish and wildlife in the United States? We want the new dates. We want a plan to get there. Okay, thank you very much. All right, thank you very much. And while he was speaking, I was tapped on the shoulder and told that there weren't enough copies of the bios to go around, so I will be briefly reading the bios. So among many other things, currently, John Cronin is a senior fellow in the Dyson College Institute for Sustainability in the Environment at Pace University and among many other things in his career, he served for 17 years as the Hudson Riverkeeper. So right now, it's my great pleasure to introduce our keynote speaker. He had spent 24 years at the Environmental Protection Agency. Most recently is the Assistant Associate Administrator for Environmental Justice and Senior Advisor to the EPA Administrator. Mustafa Ali is currently the Senior Vice President of Climate Environmental Justice and Community Revitalization for the Hip Hop Caucus. Thank you for joining us today. Good morning, everyone. Oh, my goodness gracious. No orange juice, no crispy creams. What's going on? Good morning, everyone. We should be excited. You know, there are challenging times that are going on, but there's also a huge amount of opportunity for us to continue to push forward and make change and help to create a healthier and more sustainable and more equitable country. And of course, by doing that, also helping the world. I am Mustafa Santiago Ali. I will be brief this morning. I should warn everyone that I was raised in a family of Baptist and Pentecostal ministers. So if you hear that coming out, you will know where it comes from. Real blessings in that space. My mother and my grandmother, huge influences on my life, along with my father, of course, gave me the foundation for the work that I have done for the past couple of decades, focusing on our most vulnerable communities. And I've given thousands of presentations and each one of them, actually my mom follows me. I don't know how she follows me sometimes, but she knows when I don't do something and I've done this every time, thousands of times and I do this every day. By show of hands, how many folks have ever had a tough day? Everybody look around the room. There's only one person. You should run over and touch him real quick. Maybe we can win a powerball number or something like that. But in the work that we do around social justice and environmental justice, climate justice issues, there are some tough moments, but there are also a number of beautiful moments that exist in that space as we protect our air and our water. And my mother and my grandmother said, son, you're going to have some tough times. I had no idea how Alperpro that actually was, but they were correct. Every day when I wake up, I use these words of empowerment. I say, I'm blessed and highly favored. Y'all try it. I'm blessed and highly favored. Not one of y'all believe that, do you? Let's try it again. I'm blessed and highly favored. We are because the issues that we focus on, the things that we care about are crucial to the health of our country, to the economic support of our country, and helping to make real change happen. Often when I'm traveling around the country talking about environmental issues, I'm in some spaces and places that everyone may not consider themselves to be an environmentalist. By a show of hands, how many folks would label yourself as an environmentalist? So we have a few folks, and we have a couple of folks who need to be convinced. So by, I'm going to just ask a couple of quick questions for folks. By a show of hands, I want everybody to look around. In the last 60 seconds, how many folks have taken a breath of air? Raise your hand if you've taken a breath of air. Okay. I saw almost everybody. We had one non-air breather. We may have to have the Senate do an investigation on that. But sometimes in the work that I've done over the past couple of decades, we have, and I've worked with some of the top scientists around the country. And, you know, they have some fantastic information, but that information does not resonate with Mrs. Ramirez. It does not resonate with Mr. Johnson. Because it is not connected to what they have going on in their life. I can talk about parts per million and parts per billion, but that's not going to matter to most of America. But when we start to talk about the impacts that asthma has, that gets people's attention. We understand that there's something that's not right in that space, and especially for our most vulnerable communities, and we have to address that. We address that because it improves the health of our country. It improves the economic standing of our country, so forth, and so on. One additional question for everyone. By a show of hands in the last 24 hours, and Aaron's not allowed to answer this question, how many folks have taken a drink of water? Anybody who has not, I know some people are at the bar, that can count as liquid. But again, we sometimes take for granted the opportunity that we have, the blessing that we have in many parts of our country to be able to take a drink of fresh water. But I don't have to say anything more than Flint for you to understand the disproportionate impacts that happen in communities of color and low-income communities and indigenous populations in a number of places. East Chicago is another example of the impacts that can happen from lead and the associations that can happen in water also in that space, and why it is so important that we are laser-focused on addressing these disparities that exist in relationship to water in our country. Also, many of our indigenous brothers and sisters, if I say standing rock, you understand sort of what has happened in that space. You understand how diligent folks have been in trying not to just stop oil from flowing across pipelines, but to go deeper into that conversation and understanding the cultural aspects that exist in that space. And folks tied to the water and how it is a part of life for many communities, not just indigenous communities. Also folks along the Gulf Coast and why we have to protect our water. I worked on the BP oil spill and I saw firsthand the impacts that happen to new residents to our country who are fishermen and shrimpers and their connection to the water and to the land and why we have to be able to protect that. And sometimes we forget about the cultural connection that exists to water and why it is so important to protect that. So we have to make sure that men and women of good conscience here in the Senate and on the House side are thinking critically about communities across our country and the real impacts that are happening. I used to share for the five administrations that I work for, if you really want to create policy, then you need to actually go outside of the Beltway and spend time with real folks. Go spend time with Mr. Johnson on his back porch and hear the stories that he shares about how over the last 30 years the impacts that have happened inside of his community and also what his community is looking for. Go to places like Perry County, Alabama where Senator Booker and I just came back from and you see the landfill that's there and that folks no longer can turn on their taps because their groundwater has been impacted and for decades they've been fighting for that change. Or go to Tulasi, Alabama where they also have very similar issues going on where their water quality has been damaged and they also have something that I've never seen in the two plus decades of working on these issues where we stopped on the side of the road and because of the lack of water infrastructure inside of this community, they literally had human waste that was being sprayed on the fields. Never saw that in the entire time that I've been doing this work. I've seen it in relationship to CAFOs and animal waste and those types of things but that impacts our water quality and that also impacts our most vulnerable communities who in many instances don't have the infrastructure that's in place and that's why our new administration needs to be laser focused on helping to protect groundwater and helping to protect water infrastructure that needs to be in place because these are real people dealing with real issues but we have the opportunity to make change but we have to be extremely focused in that space. With that being said I don't want to take up too much time this morning because I can talk for a little bit of time but I want you guys to just do one thing with me. I want you to realize and this is something that I was taught as a young boy that the only way that you lose power is if you give it away. Each and every one of us has a responsibility as a citizen of this country to engage in the process to continue to push forward to try to make things better and sometimes we forget that we actually have power. Y'all do me a favor. Everybody stand up. I know I'm a little different than most of folks who are going to stand here in front of you today. I want you guys to do me a favor. Look to the person to your right. Don't stare that we're in D.C. I don't want you to catch a case. Take the person to your right's hand. Uh-huh. You're not used to that, are you? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Take the person. I know some people are trying to write notes. Take the person to your left's hand if you can. Now, here's the dynamic that exists inside of our country. There are two things that actually move things. One is money. We all are aware of that. We live in a society that is capitalistic and there's some beauty that exists in that and some challenges that exist in that space. The other thing is the power of people. If you look at the women's suffrage movement, it was men and women of good conscience coming together and saying that the inequities that exist in relationship to women need to be addressed and that together we can make change. If you look at the civil rights movement, the exact same thing, men and women of good conscience, black, white, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, all these various folks coming together to say that we can make change, that we do have power. And now we are focusing on environmental and climate related issues. And once again, people are being called. You are being called to help to make change in small ways and large ways. Everyone say power. Say power. This last time we're going to say it like we mean it. We'll see if the guards will come in and take us all out. Say power. Don't forget that you have that. We can protect our water. We can protect our air and we can protect our land. I'm Mustafa Santiago Ali. Thank you for a couple minutes of your time. Okay. Up next is Jeffrey Leventon, a distinguished professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University. And he has worked for many years on problems in marine biology and particularly the ecology of the Hudson River Estuary. It's getting old to hear this, but good morning everybody. So when I was a teenager, I had a girlfriend and we used to hang out at the Hudson River in Northern Manhattan. And it didn't exactly look like that. I can't control the slides, so I just have to say next. But this is the beautiful rivers that we are blessed with all over the world, but certainly in our country. And this is the Hudson. It's hard to believe that the Hudson a river in the northeast can be so dramatically beautiful, and yet it is. But there's something behind this river in America that we worry about. Next, please. There's a tremendous amount of toxicity. And I want to talk about a case study today in the next few minutes. Next, please. The EPA still has a tremendous amount of information that you all can get access to online. This is called EnviroMapper. If you look for toxic waste sites and areas of concern in the Hudson Valley, this is what you see. Lots of ugly dots. It's amazing how bad it is. And many of these places, most of them have not been cleaned up. And as John Cronin said, there is no plan to clean most of them up. There's no plan to make our rivers clean even though New York has such a good attitude. But let's, I want to have the glass half full a little bit for the next few minutes. So let's talk about a specific place, and I want to talk about a success story. There is another view of the Hudson, very beautiful of a marsh, and in the lower right-hand corner you see labeled Foundry Cove. Next, please. This was a Cove about a mile in length that in 1817 had a foundry, and it must have looked like the Gates of Hell. Because this is a painting of this foundry. The first steam engine was built in 1820 there, and then the Civil War, just about all of the ordinance for the North, sorry, Southerners, was built there, including the parrot god, which helped win the Civil War. Next, but the real thing that made Foundry Cove famous as a place for toxicity was the Cold War, and people who have his white hair like mine remember a missile called the Nike Missile, and the bell would ring in my elementary school and I'd hide under the desk. But I knew, and others knew, that the Nike Missiles were in place all over the United States to shoot down those Soviet bombers when they came. That was before ICBMs. That's how old I am. And next, the Foundry Cove was a place where there was a battery factory. And it was a very innovative thing. They designed Nikad batteries to put in these missiles, because you couldn't have a wire with an extension cord in those missiles. You had to have a guidance system, and these were innovative and this particular bay had a tremendous amount of cadmium waste sent into there and also into the Hudson River. So this was a, although the place probably wasn't so polluted from this Foundry for many years, really 100 years, this was particularly a very bad place. And you could see pictures in the lower right of a core with 25% cadmium, 25%. And typically in this Cove in the adjacent Hudson River, the sediment, the bottom mud was 1% cadmium. The most toxic place on the planet with regard to cadmium. A really terrible situation. Next, please. And I won't explain that graph, I'll just tell you that our group measured that about a metric ton of cadmium was exported by the tide, the Hudson does have a tide, into the Hudson River every single year. A metric ton of cadmium throughout the entire river. So this was something to be concerned about. Next, please. And local activists, here's an example. Jim Rodd, somebody that undoubtedly almost none of you has ever heard of, unless you work in the Hudson River, he and many local groups agitated. But the important thing was, was that in 1980 there was a superfund law. You all know what the superfund law is. It was used effectively to declare this a superfund site. And not only that, local concern and local activism agitated to make a plan to clean up Foundry Cove. And it was dredged out. So all the details don't matter. The point is that you could dredge it. Next, you could put a bladder around this Cove. It was possible to isolate it. Next, you could dredge on all the cadmium and next you could cart it away. This was done physically, but it was the people that mattered. It was the people that protested that matter. And it was the law that was in place that mattered. The superfund law. So it was the policies we enacted as law, plus the people watching and guarding. Next. And what happened after that? 95% of the cadmium was removed and really very little cadmium was put into the river. Next. And 75% of the cadmium in organisms disappeared almost immediately. Next. And one particular organism had evolved by Darwinian selection to be tolerant to cadmium. There were animals that could live in this horrible place. They evolved. Evolution does happen and it happened in this Cove. These animals no longer had much cadmium anymore. Next. So that's what happened when people got together and there was a law and we still have that in place. Now, a number of years ago, at 15 years ago, I had a talk with Pete Seeger and he asked me to do something which was pretty weird. He said can you calculate for me how many grains of sand there are in the Astrodome? Now, some of you, if you knew Pete Seeger you'd know exactly why he asked me this. But the rest of you say, what? Well, every year there's a thing called the Hudson River Revival except last year and on the banks of the Hudson there was a pendulum and on one side there were boulders and those boulders were meant to represent the forces that we had to fight and on the other side there was an empty cauldron and there was a big pile of sand and you would walk and you would take a spoonful of sand and put it in the cauldron and by the end of the day the pendulum went like that. And that's what we have to do. Really it is the many of us that have to work together to watch what happens in America but we've already put in place a set of laws. Yes, they haven't been fulfilled but they're there. They're still there. They're not gone yet. So hopefully all of us working together with the laws that we have and keeping them from being rendered useless will make us have a cleaner environment. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. By the way, I want to thank all the panelists. Everyone has gone short and has made my job as moderator extremely easy so thank you. That's not an invitation that hasn't spoken yet to go long. By the way, so thank you. Up next I'd like to welcome Aaron Mayer who recently completed a two-year term as president of the Sierra Club's Board of Directors. I have only a minor correction to that introduction. I was the national president of the Sierra Club. I was the 57th John Muir. Folks when they think about titles and board of directors the staff know this is the organization. This is the foundational environmental organization in the United States but also the model in the world. And so to have been president of one of the oldest environmental organizations is a big deal. And it's a big deal for me and my journey is that you know we had Brother Mustafa up here talk a little bit about the EJ movement. Brother Cronin here talking not only about the law but he lost a little bit of hope because he's also a river rat like myself. He and I grew up and lived in Hudson River Valley. He is a descendant of subsistence fishermen and I too am a descendant of subsistence fishermen but not to the point that we had to sell them to the market because most of the African-Americans who served in World War II who sought to have a GI Bill home and a GI Bill property they were redlined out of places like New York City by guys like Fred Trump. My father ended up in Peekskill, New York because that was the only place where a veteran of color of World War II could find a place. And if you know anything about Peekskill, New York you heard about the Peekskill Rise. This is where Paul Robeson went. It's very significant because a lot of the activists that were there were a lot of these World War II events. A lot of them used to live in New Metro or Harlem etc and this is where they settled. So it's not an accident that Peekskill is a very unique and special place and a place that cared not only about labor but also about land and the environment. And why is that important? Because when you are a free person who is working in that environment and my daddy ended up working at General Motors in Territown, New York and he was a union shop, shop steward, a labor organizer. It's where I don't come from a preaching stock. I come from that radical labor organizing stock and that is my background because again it was about standing up and defending and coming together. Peekskill was not a black town but it was a working-class union town that everybody knew about solidarity and coming together and pulling together. And when the check didn't stretch that far we could get a poll and we could go down to the river and that's where you supplemented the protein for your diet. I had a family of nine. We had to compete amongst those who would get the biggest portion but basically what you caught was your portion on the plate and it was a big deal. And so when we talk about culture, custom and heritage it is always the people and their dependence upon that heritage resource and that natural resource. And this is my point I want to talk about perspectives because there is that noun perspective of place which includes culture, custom and heritage. And then there's the verbal sense of place which corporations like to use and they see it as a depletable usable resource, something that can be used to exhaustion and exploit it. And these cultures come into clash. It is that of our mutual dependency upon air, water and land and those who seek to make a profit and as we sort of have the sites and leave behind because that's part of they call the next turnality but there is a cost. We either pay the cost in terms of our health, our lives, the loss of that natural resource but also in the long term we end up paying as taxpayers to burden for the cleanup for these things. Very seldom do you see corporations held 100% liable and that, you know, when they talk about profits not really a profit, you know it's their profit but our particular loss. But again this was my Hudson River Valley. I learned to fish in the Hudson River. It was where my father exchanged values of what it was to be a man, to be sustainable, to support one's family in that river valley. It's also where I learned to swim. You can see by my gray beard and yes I was one of those duck and covers. I grew up in the shadow of Indian Point nuclear power plant. So duck and cover was a real thing because Indian power point was believed to be one of the targeted entities or infrastructures during that whole Cold War era. So we had not only worry about a nuclear strike but we had to deal with the discharges and what some of you don't know about the Hudson River, it is the river. I don't know the Native American word but it flows both ways. And so the cadmium is an issue not just for downstream but also upstream but the same thing with fugitive releases. I like that corporate term. That's one of the things that corporations that they do do is come up with nice euphemisms and terms to mask something that can be very devastating and deadly to the environment. So fugitive releases from Indian Point nuclear power plant was basically them releasing radioactive superheated water into the Hudson River. And if you're swimming in it, God help you if you ingest the particulate because then your risk for cancer would go up. You would hit that cancer a lot. And then we talk about the Clean Water Act and when we talk about standards that talk about not only just for fishing but even for safety and to talk about our waters and to talk about the Clean Water Act in this regard you know one has to look at that power of that particular law but not only of the law that we ask for a clean resource but the communities that depend upon these rivers, these waterways and these byways. And it's not just an issue of recreation. It is an issue that these waters are very much part of the very cultural and heritage as they say dependencies that most communities of color especially my community that I grew up in Native Americans and otherwise. And if you're from the deep south, if you come from the Caribbean a lot of these communities have what I call river or water cultures they're very much connected. So they're very uniquely sensitive and susceptible to any of the changes or mishaps that occurs within our water. That's why we need these strong protections. And so not only do I come from and I get along where I came from but I'm also one of the founders in the struggle that led to our environmental justice laws actually our environmental justice executive orders but also that very environmental justice movement that identified and as they say and recognized and did the first empirical study in fact Dr. Charles Lee hopefully they didn't get him yet was one of the pivotal scientists United Church of Christ study, toxic waste and race where they controlled for all variables but found that communities of color and First Nations are more likely than any other cohort and group to be bearing the burden as a result of our wasteful society whether it's the waste stream, toxic pollution toxic discharges the burden usually falls upon these communities. And so being one of the leaders within forming and getting that data and being one of the data points within that has been one of my life struggles. We talk about being in the trenches well I'm one of the people that dug those trenches and so we did not run around doing the fanciful lobbying to shape the laws but organizing and mobilizing our grassroots citizens democracy to resist the injustices that occur as a result of the laws not being followed of us not attaining just the basic mandates of these laws and why is that one issue of democrat or republican it's pollutocrats and the pollutocrats they are bipartisan they fund all sides the pollutocrats are those through their campaign donations that get a legislator on either side or either party to shift their position to compromise a law to provide an exemption that is good for their bottom line good for their shareholders but deadly for us Americans case in point, Flint, Michigan the pollutocrats under their theory of change that one party was a failing was failing civil society that it got a city into receivership that another party should take over basically wipe out the democracy of that civil society, the city of Flint and then the pollutocrats then decided that the way that they would make up the cost of that as they say failing society was to sell off critical infrastructure and assets of municipality of over 100,000 people and they sell it to entities that as they say once they took it over their job goes to make a profit so whether you invest in the critical infrastructure as they say a viable potable water system or municipal water system or cut corners we clearly know what happened the long and short of it is nowhere in America have we seen a modern city a modern city in its entire population as they say put in harm's way for the sake of them saving about 20 dollars per ton for these treatments that would basically allow the Flint water supply to be safe and potable it was cheaper to go to the Flint river and again depending upon the toxicity and the level and load and contamination within that river it will react with metals one of the things about we talk about acidification in water it dissolves metals this is one of the reasons why when we talk about climate change not just the climate but air acidification when it mixes with water and goes into soil it dissolves the metals and the minerals and these things flow right into our waterways Adirondacks and the mountains we have acidified lakes the lakes are dead they can no longer carry trout so people who for generations first nations the aquasocene can no longer fish in lake beds for thousands of years thousands of years and that same acidification is poisoning the lakes from the climate deposition but in this case the profit deposition in this case the cheapest fastest the best and here's the thing when they realize that there was something happening that the people were being poisoned here's the thing did the bureaucrats did the politician did the representatives step forward to take immediate corrective action to protect human health the first thing when they realize that there was a crisis it was how do we protect the GM parts facility whose parts were rusting as a result of the acidification of the river and they were given a new water supply first first automobile parts over humanity and these are the things or the false choices that the polluter crats invested now we can absolutely beat up on republicans because the hour at this current moment we are at a threat and a risk because our democracy is failing and this goes back to that grains of sand where corporate dollars and wealth and the media structure where how people are structured and receiving their information are enabling the average American to make bad choices and so the question is how do we take back our democracy and how do we strengthen our democracy and this is going back to an earlier slide that had Dr. King up it this is one of the things that Dr. King recognized not too many people realize we all know that he died in Memphis and he went out to speak and he gave up his life and here's another thing about Memphis that you did not know then and to this day it's some of the toxic most toxic communities that these sanitation workers were working in and he saw that full complete cycle that full 360 of the environment income labor conditions and he went out to speak and he gave up his life for sanitation workers were working in the Dow petrochemical industry and the various other farm farm industry petrochemical industries and insecticides and pesticides they ring Memphis and they ring predominantly communities of color so not only was he fighting for the first step which was a wage but also a step toward elevating and moving these communities from the toxic existence and he was cut short and his role and that awareness of trying to fight for our democracy and fight to elevate the work condition and here's the thing it's just not the right to vote but the right to choose and our democracy true representatives it is our battle as citizens of America in this democracy of the people versus the pollutocrats we don't want a pollutocracy where people like the current EPA administrator not only are we worrying about just the enforcement of this law but think about what just happened this past week they fired the scientific board that oversees the quality of the science remember there was an EPA Region 5 I believe administrator that did not catch or as they say and this is under Obama's watch but try to be corporate friendly or as they say bipartisan fast enough but it was that scientific board that corrected her now that board that emergency break that emergency thing that stops us from he's got the hook for me has been broken off and now our environmental protection for air, water and soil is in a runaway car in the race to the bottom not only are we worrying about under this current society of labor's race to the bottom we are now actually in an environmental race to the bottom and the only way to defeat and push back on this pollutocracy is as brother Mustafa Ali said we the grains of sand must stand up we must fill that we must recognize that a healthy democracy is a democracy at which we all stand together for the voting rights act a healthy democracy is where we talk about living wage union jobs a healthy democracy is when we start talking about swapping out offshore drilling with offshore wind and that you can employ in fact if they did a one for one investment okay for drilling platforms and wind platforms we can guarantee union workers for the next 150 years of living high wage jobs and more importantly reducing our dependence upon dirty fuels and nuclear fuels but again it depends upon what kind of democracy do we want is it the people that are going to stand up or will we let the pollutocracy and the plutocrats take over our system of government people the power is with us I urge us to come together and stand together thank you thank you so much and now we're lucky to be joined by Congressman and he presents New York's 18th district in the House of Representatives so welcome thank you for joining us my pleasure hey welcome to Washington everybody nice to see you here it's kind of ironic that we have to meet in DC when I'm about five miles down the road in cold spring it's great to see you all here and I am delighted that you are here on the morning after so I want you to know I want you to know that the response to that is what enabled those of us who were banging on the coast guard to win there's no substitute right for having somebody in my job bringing the coast guard in questioning my committee proposing legislation I mean we were all over them but what allowed me to get it done was the fact that I could say 1,000 people from the Hudson valley took the time to write comments and 95% of them were negative do you know that's a real number that's not something like 95% literally were negative and that was so powerful and so what you're doing here today the individual individual citizen action of people getting involved and saying this is important is still really such a critical part of this process I know it can seem like it's all about money and it can seem like it's all about all these sort of sophisticated independent expenditure groups or shadowy agendas but really at the end of the day if you want to know why we beat the health care bill in the senate this week it's because thousands of ordinary citizens in my district and in every district around the country came out, got in the street said this is going to be terrible for our health care and we are going to win that fight we are going to win the health care fight if people stay engaged and it's the same thing with clean water so we've won this anchorages proposal it's not completely dead but I'm going to kill it you can hold me accountable for this I said this a year ago by the way to the press I'm going to kill this proposal hold me accountable because I want to burn the bridges I want to tie myself to the mast I don't want to give myself or anybody else to be the member of congress who presided over an archipelago of oil barges from Kingston down to Yonkers wasn't going to do it because you realize why they want to do that they want to just store the oil on the river to be able to access the market more easily has nothing to do with safety has nothing to do with a hurricane coming or any other nonsense you heard them put forward and the Coast Guard knew it and in the end the Coast Guard did the right thing and they deserved credit for listening to the community but I'll tell you what I gave them credit for changing course but of course the fight for clean water doesn't start and stop there I represent the city of Newburg where we have a terrible issue of POFOA and POFOS contamination in Washington Lake we were successful in getting clean water immediately to the residents from the New York City aqueduct and having the state pay for it that's good but I have legislation right now that would require testing for these contaminants and others in every municipal drinking water supply in the country because right now we only test communities over 10,000 people my legislation would require universal testing of municipal drinking supplies so that we find out like we did in Newburg that the supplies contaminated in time to do with some good that's a difference by the way between Husik Falls and Newburg and most of the communities I represent are under 10,000 people and we also need to have better science and we need to believe in science the fact is that we don't know the safe level in human blood of POFOAs and POFOS because there's no federal research on it and we know it's better than it used to be when these were more widely used in consumer products and that's good but we can't tell you that if you have like I do six parts per billion in your blood because I got tested because I work in the city of Newburg we can't tell you where that's too much or too little and so there ought to be a full federal study that I have legislation that would create to tell us what the safe level of these contaminants are if there is one in human drinking water so that we can follow the science so that we can have fact-based policy approaches we're also working on making sure they don't have these terrible cuts to the EPA we need to stand up for the EPA now this is the critical moment you know think about this Hopewell Junction anybody from Hopewell Junction the fact of the matter is Hopewell Junction suffered for more than a decade with one of the worst superfund sites in the northeast but it was so small that it called it an orphan site but it's not small if you're one of the 300 families that has filters for your air and your water your kids have suffered terrible health effects when I ran for congress Nan Hayworth had been giving him for two years in congress and they made me promise that we would do something about that and I am very proud to tell you that we have secured despite it being an orphan site we got it put before the national priorities list and we have a fully funded federal solution for Hopewell Junction they are going to have clean water shovels are going in the ground in a couple of months on a full plan to have 300 homes hooked up to a local clean source fully paid for by the federal government without the EPA being funded those kind of projects are not going to be possible we could not have gotten that done if the cuts that the Trump administration wants to do were in effect and we are still working like lunatics to make sure we get in under the wire and we don't have that clean up effected and I think we're going to be successful in that in fact I don't know how much of the money has been released but I think it's something like half or two thirds of it now so I think we're out of the woods on Hopewell Junction but there's a lot of Hopewell Junctions we have a bunch of places around and around the country that need that kind of attention so now is the critical time so I'm so glad to see you here in Washington and I got to tell you as somebody who had the opportunity to meet Pete Seeger when I was running for office I think you'd be very proud to know that you were 45 years later resurrecting the tradition of clear water sloop and of speaking up for the environment and for clean water we've made a lot of progress in the last 45 years in environmental priorities and a hundred other things and if there's one message I hope you carry with you today or that you go home believing it's that Donald Trump is not bigger than that Donald Trump is not bigger than the environmentalist movement Donald Trump is not bigger than the progress we've made in protecting our air and our water and our natural resources Donald Trump is not bigger than all of the progressive change we've achieved and benefited from in everything from women's equality to racial justice in America and all the work that is undone but is further along because of the efforts of so many people like you who've taken the time and stood up and made a decision to speak for justice to speak for a clean environment to speak for equality and he's not bigger than that and you're seeing right now the congress and the courts and the press spring into action in a way that I don't think we have seen in a long time so I don't want you to be relaxed about it and I don't want you to stop being concerned about it, I certainly want you to be fully engaged but I don't want you to be afraid of Donald Trump I'm not afraid of Donald Trump don't proceed from fear be determined, be engaged be up to speed, speak to your neighbors keep doing what you're doing because I think the last six months are a pretty good indication that when we stand together we can stop the effort to bring us back the fight for the Hudson River the fight for clean water in Hudson Valley and throughout America I'm proud to stand with you on that I'm happy to see here in Washington my office is always available to any of you at any time, my staff is here feel free to come and see us here in the district thank you for what you're doing it's an honor to represent the Hudson Valley thanks a lot Congressman Maloney we'd like to take a moment to present you with Clearwater's cargo it includes 30 municipal resolutions bipartisan municipalities in the Hudson Valley saying strengthen and enforce the Clean Water Act and all environmental protections and over 6,000 signatures that we collected in one weekend at the Great Hudson River Revival in Croton on June 17th and 18th so lots of other gifts and symbols that represent the Hudson River which in some ways is the birth of the environmental movement and we thank you so much for your support and good work my pleasure can I deliver to somebody who doesn't already agree with you can I maybe a town hall meeting thank you so much Congressman and now we're going to proceed into the Q&A period so anybody has a question for any of the panelists who have spoken so far please shoot your hand up my name is Ronald Thompson I work here in the district I'm a district resident family our roots are here I work with the Anacostia Waterfront Trust and in my time working with them I've realized that there is there's a lot of attention at rivers here in the district we have many folks call the Forgotten River the Anacostia and we were working to bring attention to the fact the city dedicated funding to study the toxics that exist in the Anacostia and throughout my reading and throughout my study and I've realized that while there's a lot of attention to large rivers the Hudson River the Mississippi large regions in all the communities there isn't a presence among environmental groups environmental activists and to be quite blunt about it people that look like myself average everyday Americans people of color people from the environmental movement that look like myself to come out to communities and explain to them that we aren't just a bunch of hippies playing banjo talking about kumbaya to connect and get you to understand that these small rivers your streams you know creeks they do matter and we do care about you hopefully all of you all can speak to this what are you all doing to connect to disenfranchised underserved communities nineteen thousand seventeen sixteen thousand about the time I grew up it's a small community it was an upper portion of a river that was very polluted I did not know how polluted it was you just knew carcasses and things floated by and there were days when the Indian Point nuclear reactor acted up that you had an unusual amount of dead fish that we just cleaned out of the way so we can have access to the beach what we call black sand beach was actually waste spoils from a gypsum sandpaper company so we know about polluted waterways and biways and my family on my maternal side since I was a child go down to the segregated south from travelers rest South Carolina the creek that runs right behind our churches where my mother and grandparents for generations since slavery were baptized in that creek many of the creeks in the southern waterways are near cottongens that may be upstream dumping toxins and pollutants with increase that people are being baptized our community stand up and so taking action is more than just waiting for allies and assistants to come in no matter where you are who you are, what you are just like you see standing rock you stand up as they say for your land and your people make your voice heard, number one amplify that my first foray and why I became a member of the Sierra Club was when I came there about the pollution in my community they turned me away but it was at least one white person within that organization that actually passed the hat and came back and gave us our first donation and our organizing name which is really what we needed and from that I made a promise to then help them to end some of the racism that's where we begin that journey but the point of the matter is two things it's not that people are against you it's that corporate culture a lot of folks feel that with their scarce resources they're there and we got to bring that part of America collectivism back this is why that organized labor background in me blacks and whites standing in solidarity together is one of the healing points that was part of civil rights movement the environmental rights there was a band of veterans black and white standing up to protect the concert goers and Paul Robeson that were assaulted these are old values that are in the air in the soil that unite us because the environment does not know race it does not know gender it does not know party but there is a vibrant E.J. movement in fact one of the things that they did with brother Mustafa to stop even dealing with our special cases they're axing the environmental justice program so right now getting people to stand up in solidarity to that the cargo of concerns that we've brought up here that like a green tea party you know it's healthy antioxidants it's actually going to stimulate your system of action which is the opposite of the tea party which is throwing stuff in the water right? throwing stuff in our political waters, throwing stuff in our cultural waters and dividing us the green tea party should be pulling and pulling us together so my thing is my brother is that you're not forgotten because those of us who dug trenches are still drilling trenches the issues how do we build those connections whereby we can come together and collaborate you got my card when we're done with this panel so I can make sure that you hook up with my brothers and sisters in the Sierra Club and other organizations the hip-hop caucus is also on the E.J. front we've been doing solidarity work from day one at Hurricane Katrina and have not left so it's about people of color recognizing the environment also as part of it because a lot of folks say well it's you know the civil rights I've dealt with the black churches he was one of the first entities I went to they go well you know we ain't got time for the environment we're worrying about this but it's the laws is what we vote for so I'm sorry for being a little bit too long with it I was just going to bring it local for you so there's organizations like the Earth Conservation Corps ECC is right here who's been doing incredible work along the which is going to be defunded but we'll figure out a way to keep it moving but those are young brothers and sisters from Ward 7 and 8 and other places who understand their connection to the land and to the water when you look at the river walk that was brothers and sisters at the ECC who actually were the ones who put that together the Matthew Henson Center is a training center that exists there the Pump House is there also as a community resource then you have ground works, Anacostia also young brothers and sisters who are helping to make change inside of their community and along the Anacostia so I say that so that you understand and everybody else in the room that there are local citizens who are getting engaged and helping to make positive change inside of their communities and then I'll move back just a little bit and build on something Aaron said and be very very brief with the hip hop caucus you have individuals like Raheem Devon the R&B singer who is very connected to the environment and what's going on then moving back even further and if you guys have been paying attention recently you have folks like Jay-Z and Beyonce and Chance the Rapper and Wiz Khalifa and some folks will be like who are those folks but many folks who are younger will know who those individuals are and their commitment to social justice and civil rights and climate justice and environmental justice and that's a part of culture and honoring that culture and connecting that is what the hip hop caucus is all about moving culture with policy and the civic process so there are individuals who are focused Brenda Richardson has been and a super champion for a number of years and if y'all could do me a favor because I'd like to honor my heroes why they are still here with us could y'all give her a round of applause but make sure you see her before you leave and Brenda's going to speak later me too yeah Brenda's one of my heroes also so lovely to see you again I was raised a city kid and for kids like me who grew up on the east side of the Hudson the only reason the Hudson was there the reason God created it was to separate New York and New Jersey we we we actually saw no purpose in the river in my generation and to answer your question what's being done let me speak for the environmental movement at large not near enough not near enough and I'm going to be a little caustic about this there are too many people in the environmental movement we think that environmental justice is making the world safe for poor people it's not what environmental justice is the environmental justice is to eliminate poverty and put us all on an equal playing ground so when you hear people say we got to make the world safe for everybody but poverty is a problem it's an environmental problem and I grew up with it all around me in the city of Yonkers I'm a former congressional aide and I'm a former commercial fisherman and none of my commercial fisherman friends are working anymore on the Hudson river that used to be a big economic safety net the man I learned all my fishing skills from Henry Gordine and us in New York was an African-American I had the biggest fishing operation on the Hudson river and he lived to see his occupation killed by pollution and then if you go down to the city of New York make no mistake the minority communities and the economically deprived communities in the city of New York do not have just access to their water the illusion that the big rivers and the big waterways are taking care of their problems they might be gobbling up and the Hudson gobbles up a lot too much oxygen in the room up in New York State but they may be gobbling up a lot of the attention but they're not taking care of all of their problems and when a group like the Earth Conservation Corps comes along I'll be honest with you and I'll say something Brenda won't say they're successful in spite of the large environmental groups they make it happen themselves in their own community and that's what's really meaningful when you make it happen for yourself in your own community and you got to fight for it and one of the things you have to fight is not just the EPA trying to stop federal funding to groups like ECC and it's not just what seems like an intransige in Congress you've got to fight the big environmental groups at the same time because it's not how they're disposed they're not disposed to city kids and I'll say one last thing this is just a personal thing the next time you hear an environmental group say what we've got to do is get city kids out into the woods tell them to go to hell no no that's not what you do we don't need the kids from Yonkers where I grew up to go out into the woods what we need is healthy Yonkers what we need is a healthy Hudson River in Yonkers what we need is full public access youth access and youth education on the Hudson River in Yonkers you're taking us up to the Adirondacks that's what you have to fight for and I'm not going to tell you it's not uphill it is uphill and I'm blessed because I'm surrounded here by three of my heroes in the environmental justice movement but you asked a really good question and I'm ashamed to say that all these years later the answer to your question is not enough is being done yeah thank you everybody for those great answers and I think the one thing I would say I couldn't agree more with everything everybody said and I think that this is the biggest challenge that we face like as a country as a movement is coming together I'm a white environmentalist most of my work over the years has impacted communities of color and I think figuring out how to like work across those boundaries and work together is important as you know one of the things we're doing here in DC is the Anacostia Parking Community Collaborative where we're trying a new kind of a relationship between community groups and there mostly aren't environmental groups in that organization it's mostly community groups, social service groups and trying to find just new ways of bringing people together and I think that there is a million miles to go on this front but my sense is most of these folks have been in the fight longer than I have this is a conversation that comes around every so often what are we up to green 2.0 now or this is the third wave of EJ or whatever people say about it and in the time I've been doing it I think we've gone from lip service to people being actually genuinely concerned nobody has still figured out how to do it the right way but I think there is genuine concern and a lot of people trying and a lot of interesting things are happening and I think we're seeing solidarity across all kinds of different social movements that makes me really hopeful at this moment right now and the one thing I always say the reason I like working at Clean Water Action is because we work directly with the grassroots and we work with communities and that means we are more concerned about social justice than some other environmental organizations are but what I've taken to saying is that I don't really believe in environmental justice anymore I just believe in justice and I think that that's something that we need to work to achieve in a lot of different facets of our society and economy OK, any other questions? We still have some time, yeah Hi, I'm Jacob Salazar I'm unaffiliated with any organization but I'm here because environmental justice is something I'm interested in so I totally agree with pretty much everything everyone has said here however I know that most people least of all legislators don't believe that there's enough money to go around so when we talk about not only maintaining existing programs but expanding programs and adding new ones how would you propose ways to pay for that? Some people would say higher corporate taxes are a way to go some people would say investing in clean energy so I was wondering if you had any thoughts over how we could sort of immediately cover this Very simple, polluter pays you know, we have this nice definition that allows corporations in the free markets as they say to maximize as much profits and then they push off things that they call externalities and the externalities are the destruction to the environments, to communities and the labor forces that are used to produce their profits Workers, I think they've been talking about a labor theory of value since the 1840s with some theorists but the point of the matter is is that our laws have been basically tilted toward the polluter crats and maximizing their profits at the expense of our civil society and I think that people like Senator Bernie Sanders is right on the mark and calling out a means by which the corporations and folks who are right now for the past 150 plus years or more if you want to go to the age of this country have been getting a free ride I fundamentally disagree with some of the Democrats who I again I added in that pollute, the pollute talk because they want a status quo no justice in that and by justice is equal protection under the law it's not no separate protection of one cohort or another it is equal protection under the law equal sharing of the burdens as well as an equal sharing of the benefits so when we talk about a justice lens we don't shift all of the injustices on those who are poor and disorganized we don't shift all the injustice on those who are First Nations or the injustice upon those who are of a certain color I know that a lot of folks in the polluter crack speak they like to tell one group that they're getting less than another group so as folks cannot come together or they like to talk about in terms of cost well the fact of the matter is one meant they were telling us that when power is not sustainable viable but happy but now when we see clean energy outstripping and being more profitable than dirty fossil fuel energy and reducing the burden of cost on families they're saying okay well now we got to find other ways to destroy this energy sector which also has jobs so the issue at the end of the day is how do we pay for it is that we have a proper scaling systems in the case of carbon and the carbon economy that's destroying our planet and destroying as I say with regards to economy there needs to be a serious carbon tax America has pushed it off the table because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pretty much controls it domestically they're denying climate change but it was interesting when I was over in Paris at COP 21 the very same chamber of commerce was saying that they recognize the anthropogenic climate change but they feel that the private sector should drive it so they were having their cake and eating it too and that's that double speak what they said the global level versus what they said the domestic level and they play our civil system in structures so they can still get away by polluting without paying the cost so the issue is not what can't be afforded the issue is how we are investing and American government the reason why Mr. Trump he wasn't a billionaire I don't believe going in but he's definitely going to be a billionaire coming out the reason why they want that White House because they set the regulatory framework laws and rules and they actually decide who are the economic winners and losers and right now they're doing it in any means necessary but we the people need to come together and take back our democracy and enforce those laws as they say and balance that system get that equilibrium and as the words of Senator Sanders I think that we have an opportunity to revisit this but I think that it's not an issue of you know a stepwise but I think it's a full on press the same way they went gangbusters and hit every system to tear it down to distract us and have us all freaking out and being overwhelmed there's a method to their madness because even though there is no such thing as a deep state when they're done there will be one I mean right now they're wiping out the scientists they're wiping out the experts they're wiping out the funding and what are they replacing with they're placing it with corporate lobbyists and experts who are now being hired in and brought in to further put in new regulations laws so we got a hell of a lot of work to do but the issue is taking it back so we're playing about externalities and I wasn't going to get into that into my presentation but what is externality it's a free rider and I mentioned that so when GE was around polluting the Hudson 30, 40 years ago 50 years ago do you know how much they paid for dumping waste in the Hudson good answer zero instead of them paying zero they pay they either don't pollute in the Hudson that would be regulations just saying prohibited they say unfettered pollution which had happened in the past or there's a price to their pollution or there is a cap on how much pollution they have in the Hudson so that's what he meant by externalities and free rider the other point is on environmental cost a lot of these and I'm going to get into that into my discussion about wind a lot of the environmental plans that companies have car companies, other companies have it is actually cheaper to changing a light bulb it actually costs $10 to change a light bulb but once that light bulb is in place it will be more energy efficient and less costly in the long term briefly one thing I suggest to everybody is look at the environment and health through the same lens which is that there's a return on investment and that's what externalities are all about the other side of externalities is to invest now you prevent the really burdensome costs later the really burdensome costs of toxic contamination as Dr. Levinson talked about the loss of commercial fishing on the Hudson River is another example the loss of the oyster industry in New York Harbor is another example the fact that so many recreational waters unfit for fishing and swimming right now there's an economic cost just like there's a return on investment in preventative health care there's a return on investment preventative environmental care as well and if that requires deficit spending in the interim but with proper regulation now and proper cleanup programs we will be ahead of the curve in the decades ahead decades ahead so I think the way you look at it is you look at it as a return on investment well I'm a country boy might have fooled some of y'all so we like to keep things real simple I'm from the hills of West Virginia and I always call that out so folks understand that there are all kinds of different folks who live in different places so we keep things real simple so we have some choices we can either build up walls which cost a lot of money or we can build up communities we have an infrastructure bill that will be coming down the pike here soon some say maybe trillions of dollars some say hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars so we can utilize those dollars to help to build the infrastructure inside of communities and help them to be more protected and to make the change that are necessary or we can redirect those resources in other places getting engaged with your congressman and your senators based upon what you see as a value I never tell people how to think or how to vote each of us have to kind of figure that out for ourselves and the places and spaces that we come from but there are opportunities that exist and we should make sure that folks know what our expectations are in that space so resources exist when I worked on Capitol Hill for a couple of years I handled appropriations so that means that I got to see the real deal of budgets and where resources went the money is there yes it's about priorities and if we are going to prioritize the communities that unfortunately have had a lack of infrastructure where there's been disinvestment and those communities are both in the urban and the rural context from the hills of West Virginia to our urban centers we have to make decisions about what we want the future to look like that's our initial question the resources do exist it's about prioritizing how we're going to utilize those it's really that simple all right thank you so I want to thank again this first group of panelists offer them an opportunity to if they'd like to shuffle out and we can shuffle in the second group of presenters I mean maybe I'll like being stared at in the front of the room frankly I find it unnerving even though I'm moderating this panel feel free to shuffle while I speak my name is Maya, I'm the education director with Clearwater and we've been gathering petitions and this cargo of concern over the past few months 1970 Pete Seeger brought the Clearwater crew down here to Washington to deliver a similar message so I'd like to begin the second panel with Pete's words and I'll back up a little bit so I don't blast you all so now I'm pleased to welcome Les Jakobowitz and a partner at Aaron Fox who has deep experience in the renewables and environmental areas thanks everybody so my background is in renewables and I've done resource recovery facilities a lot of them throughout New York State I worked on a large solar plant in Washington State the largest one in the state and most importantly I work on wind so just look at that graphic those are the three or five highest percentage states that generate power so you can see one they're colored red rather than green because they're red states and it's Iowa at 37 Kansas at 31 South Dakota at 29 anyhow etc you can see that more than 25% of the wind of their power in that state is generated by wind so you can see that there is a fair amount of consensus in the middle of the country for wind power my background also relates to my wife she used to be head of lead poisoning prevention for New York City and I also and she did as well worked on issues environmental and other issues relating to 9-11 which I'll get into later so there's some critical environmental legislation some of which you heard about of course there's the Clean Water Act which was in 1972 and John talked about that that was bipartisan although as he mentioned by Nixon Vito and President Nixon as I don't know if anyone mentioned it before had created the EPA back in that period of time I almost wore a Nixon button I had it was all psychedelic but I figured maybe that's not the right crowd for this Clean Air Act there were significant amendments in 1970 it was originally done in 1963 significant amendments and became the Clean Air Act in 1970 bipartisan another Richard Nixon Toxic Substance Control Act which we talked about PCBs asbestos etc etc that was bipartisan that was President Ford Superfund 1980 bipartisan President Carter and then the Emergency Planning and Community Right to No Act and that was 1986 bipartisan Ronald Reagan so I am because a lot of speakers weren't talking about water obviously and not about climate change so I'm focusing a bit on climate change relates to the wind and I think there's no scientific dispute really that climate change is occurring at least the temperatures are warming throughout the world so in fact 16 of the last 17 highest temperatures recorded annually have happened in the last 20 years since 2000 so this has been an an ordinent amount of warming throughout there we go so here there are maps global warming maps for the globe done by NASA done by OECD but not of the United States so this is extrapolated from OECD data and NASA data that I kind of made up and I think there's a reason there are maps of the United States so here's the United States as you guys can recognize based even though Florida is green and I couldn't extrapolate Hawaii I couldn't figure out what because it was too small on the global map so Florida is expected in the next 30 years because this is from 1990 to 2050 this is baseline if nothing changes Florida is expected to go up 1.8 to 2.7 that's the lowest we get to the red states which generally are red states Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana Utah, Wyoming are going to have the highest projected according to OECD increase in temperature from 4.5 to 5.4 degrees and in that concentration of red states there are two blue states and Nevada depending on how things are in Nevada but generally those are blue states we did talk a bit and as you can see look at that we were talking about the Hudson all day most of those higher temperature states are west of the Mississippi and so the west between temperature change etc etc everything you've been hearing about reading about is expected to if nothing is done increase over time so we talked a little about before all of us about externality so I won't get into them but there's either a regulatory framework where environmentalists say every old stuff that you put in the rivers or air is bad so that's blanket prohibitions one sided isle does not like that the other side is unregulated you throw everything in the Hudson the air then there is what's known as a cost benefit analysis and that's kind of what's been the standard for years and that's what the EPA does when they determine whether a regulation is proper or not so here are kind of current challenges relating to that cost benefit analysis so one and everyone said there's proposed cuts in Trump's budget to generally eliminate all programs environmental by 25 to 30% over the next few years then eliminate programs specifically 100% related to climate change what is the implication and I'll get to that later the implication is that ultimately will be the gentleman asked about cost will ultimately be an issue about costs which who will bear that cost I think the people bearing the cost will be us the taxpayers as evidenced love canal love canal was the first super fund love canal the company that polluted it was about a million dollars that their liability was limited to ultimately the federal government had to pay 500 million dollars so one of the biggest issues is Michigan vs. the EPA It's a Supreme Court case that was decided and they said EPA, you need to do a cost-benefit analysis. So what has happened now? Trump, a few months ago, in an executive order, March 28th, said we're going to review all the estimates of cost and benefit with respect to carbon and everything else, but with respect to carbon emissions and regulatory. It's possible it's rumored that the cost for putting carbon in the air is going to be zero. That doesn't work well in a cost-benefit analysis. If that's zero, it goes back to GE throwing stuff in the river for zero. So in a few, in two months is when these final reports are supposed to be implemented. So oh, there's a cost analysis too. It's anticipated that this global warming will actually decrease GDP by 0.2% to 2%. Country's GDP last year was plus 2%. So basically with global warming, it's a potential that there will be no growth in the country. So I'm going to give one little anecdote of what I worked on. I worked on 9-11. It's a long story. I won't get into it. But there was, and it's a perfect case study when there's no regulations. So everyone knows about 9-11. All environmental regulations were suspended during the emergency. Makes sense, certainly during the first couple of weeks while they were dealing with everything that happened with respect to 9-11. But ultimately, all protections, nobody had to wear masks, all regulations including asbestos and other things that happened because of the incident. So what was the upshot? The upshot was a few years later, Congress had to pass the World Trade Center Health Program cost $4.2 billion. If there were, I'm not saying that there wouldn't have been health costs associated because there were environmental things that people didn't know about at that time. But because they loosened, they didn't enforce the regulations that were on the books at that point, we, meaning the federal government, meaning you, had to come up with $4.2 billion. Perfect example when there's zero regulation, when there actually is a need for environmental regulation and the cost is borne by us. So let me end with this quote. If we've learned any lessons during the past few decades, perhaps the most important is that preservation of our environment is not a partisan challenge, it's common sense. Our physical health, our social happiness, and our economic well-being will be sustained only by all of us working in partnership as thoughtful, effective stewards of our natural resources. That was said by Ronald Reagan in 1984. All right, thank you so much. And just quickly, Brenda just found out that she's going to be called away. So I just wanted to change up the order for a minute. So my apologies to let Brenda speak for a minute. So you already heard a better introduction for Brenda Richardson that I think I could ever hope to give. But she's somebody that's been a friend and a colleague for a long time. We have both had many different roles over the years. A common theme for both of us has been the Anacastia River and work in the communities around it. And now Brenda is leading the Earth Conservation Corps and she's going to talk about their work and what some of these things we're talking about today mean at the local level. So. Thank you, everybody. I'm going to make this short and sweet. But I'd like to ask you a question too. Do you see us? Do you understand us? And will you remember us? Now who is us? Us is all of us because we're connected to each other. We're connected to the environment and we're connected to our rivers. I am a passionate eco-feminist and my responsibility is to protect our environment. And as I look at that, Brenda asked the question when we first, when he first started, what is at stake? Well, what's at stake is the health of our rivers, our communities, and our nation. While some of you are walking the halls of Congress to deal with policy, people like me and Nate back there, we're working on the ground in the river. So I don't know if many of you know the Anacastia River is not very far from here and it was once on the list of the American rivers, ten most polluted rivers in this country. Well, it is not anymore. And why is that? Because of our partnerships not only with the community and the young people, but with wonderful people that are like you that are sitting in this room. So I think that I'm trying to be quick so I can get out of here. Will you bear with me? So our river is no longer on life support. It is on the road to recovery. It is not swimmable though. So I'll tell you a quick story. I've been working on the Anacastia River for 30 years. So that must give you some idea of how old I really am. And 30 years ago when these gentlemen were talking about subsistence fishing, you guys, we used to see people fishing in the river who would get fish that actually had boils on them because the fish were contaminated. But the frightening thing was when we talked to these fishermen, they thought that they could fry out the pollution, or they thought that if they cut the boils out that they would be okay. So when you don't have meat to eat, this is where they went to get their fish. So I am happy to say that the river is a lot healthier, but it does not necessarily mean that you should consume fish from the Anacastia River. However, the eagles do. Have you guys seen the eagles? Well, I kind of like to take responsibility for that with the Earth Conservation Corps because we went to Wisconsin many years ago and got these four baby eagles and brought them back to our nation's capital and we built a hack box for them in the National Arboretum. And here they are. But it's the most fascinating thing, you guys, to see them scoop fish out of the Anacastia River. So why are they thriving? Because our river is much healthier than it used to be. And to that young man who's not here anymore, I just want to say is we work in our community with urban young people. We plant trees to have cleaner air. We plant pollinator gardens to have the return of the monarch butterfly. We do water quality monitoring. And EPA, I just, God, I don't know what to say about the EPA. Mustafa has been very, very instrumental in the work that we have done over the years. Brent, you've been very instrumental in the work that we have done. And we now have a scientist from the EPA that is working with us on water quality monitoring. And what we're doing is we're teaching young people that this is a career. And we're also teaching young people that they can be citizen scientists and care about our Anacastia River. So in closing, I strongly encourage you, if you've never been on the river, we will be happy to give you a river tour. Nate, my field director, is right there. And he'll be here because I have to go. But our rivers are so important to the life of us as a people, to our country, and to our environment. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Brenda. And it's true, if you look at a map of the Anacastia watershed, this building and the entire capital complex are actually in the Anacastia watershed. And there's actually a combined sewer overflow problem here in the district that they're almost done building the solution to. But what that meant was that for many years, if you flushed the toilets in the capital complex while it was raining, it would discharge directly into the Anacastia River. So make a metaphor that you will out of that. I'm sorry to stick you with that transition. Michael Frisk is the director of the Living Marine Resources Institute. So thank you. What I'd like to talk about today, I think, really highlights the need for science to answer really practical questions, questions that have to be solved. In this case, with the Atlantic sturgeon, it's an endangered species. And oftentimes, you see with endangered species, you sort of see broad closures of areas that really restrict human activities on the river. And of course, that can develop views of protecting the sturgeon that are unfavorable for those that work on the water. So today, I'm going to talk about a case study that really is a collaboration between the state of New York, academic agencies, as well as NOAA fisheries. And it is a case study, so I'm going to show a little bit more data than perhaps some of the previous speakers. So it'll be a little different. And plus, I'm talking about fish. So that makes the talk, I guess, unique from the previous presentations. But I think the message of funding science and using science to solve practical problems is very important. So the species I'm going to talk about today, again, is Atlantic sturgeon. And this is an anagymous species for anyone that doesn't know. It spawns in fresh water and it has a migratory phase in the marine environment. And Atlantic sturgeon really has a quite amazing migration cycle. As it leaves the Hudson River, it travels up and down the east coast on its annual migration, as far south as Florida and as far north as Canada. The species is quite large. It reaches 4.3 meters. And one of the largest ones I've ever caught was 14 feet. So this is really a large species. It's very long-lived. It can live at least 60 years. And it reaches maturity at a very late age, at 13 to 20 years. And so why am I telling you this information? Well, the reason I'm telling you this is that that's a pretty long life cycle for a fish, which means it has a very low rebound potential. So once the population is knocked down, it takes a very long time to recover. And in fact, that's the story of the Atlantic sturgeon on the east coast, as well as the Hudson River. It was fish for its caviar prior to 1900. The populations collapsed in 1900 and have not returned to what they were prior to that. So the species was given protection or fishing moratorium in the late 90s. And then in 2012, it's been fully protected under the Endangered Species Act. And the Hudson River is vital to this population because it has the largest remaining population in the US. And so the title's cut off there. But one of the things that's important to consider, both for the health of the Hudson as well as the species that live in it, including Atlantic sturgeon, is that these systems are connected. The Hudson River is, of course, connected to terrestrial environments in its watershed, freshwater environments, as well as the marine environment. And I think Atlantic sturgeon really represents its connectivity well because of its long migration. So what happens to Atlantic sturgeon in and out of the system is important to understanding how we're going to recover this species. And one of the questions that we wanted to answer is short-nosed sturgeon, its sister species that also occurs in the Hudson River and has been protected, has shown signs that the population has increased over the decades. Atlantic sturgeon have not seen similar trends. So what is the major difference between Atlantic and short-nosed sturgeon? Short-nosed sturgeon spend their life in the Hudson River. Short-nosed sturgeon, I mean, Atlantic sturgeon go through this long migration period. So to really get that question and try to rebound this population, you have to know where and when are sturgeon at risk and mortality. Both species are afforded relatively high levels of protection in the Hudson River. But sturgeon, when they enter the ocean, Atlantic sturgeon, have a whole other range of things they have to deal with. So really our mission here was to understand its temporal and spatial behavior so then we can form policies that protect sturgeon and really minimize impacts to other activities on the river. And just to give you an idea of what happens, potentially can happen, in the ocean, there's all kinds of things that can impact sturgeons such as ship strikes and bycatch and fisheries. But if you look at that figure on the left there, that shows aggregation areas at the mouth of the Hudson. This is something that we came across when we analyzed survey data that was collected over several decades. And they aggregate twice a year, spring and fall. And when they aggregate, they're in extremely high numbers there. So if some activity occurs in there, it could have a big impact on sturgeon because they're so concentrated. The figure to the right is the observations of bycatch. And you can see in the blue that it's relatively concentrated around those aggregation areas. Now of course fishing is certainly not the only thing that can impact the population. But we wanted to know whether or not these aggregation areas and the industrial things that occur in there because it's right next to New York City and other activities possibly could be having an impact on sturgeon. So again, it's a little bit different talk. We're going through a case study of what we do here, but we put acoustic tags surgically inside fish. Those acoustic tags send out a unique identifier for that individual fish. And we've tagged over 600 fish and they get picked up by the acoustic receivers showing at the bottom. And then over on the right, we have a array of acoustic receivers throughout its migration corridor from Montauk in the top there to the Hudson down to Delaware Bay. And also the Hudson River is quite well covered as well through our receivers, state receivers as well as other academic institutions. So this gives us the ability to attract their movements through time. And it also gives us the ability, which I show in a minute, to estimate mortality in these different locations during their migration. So we can sort of pinpoint where potential risks are. So this figure is just a close up of Long Island. I know it's hard to see, but essentially those figures on the right correspond to the Hudson River and then Rockaways and then the green, purple and blue as you move east along the coast of Long Island. And you can't see this very well, but you see they're heavily concentrated in June to October in the Hudson River, where they are relatively protected and hit it again. They move out and move along the coast of Long Island in the spring and then move back. And really the only important thing here to remember is, well, one is very predictable. We pretty much know when they're gonna be passing through. But if you stand on the south shore of Long Island and look out at the ocean, it takes about four to five weeks or so for the majority of the migrating sturgeon to pass by you. That's a pretty small window. So just remember that small window for a moment. And then this figure shows, I know it's hard to see, but this shows for all of the coast of Long Island what the mortality is when the species moves across the coast of Long Island. And it ranges from about 6.4 to 2% with a long-term average around five, five or 6%. Well, that sounds low, right? It is relatively low, but the species can sustain only for recovery. The species really needs to be at about 6%. And right now, our estimates come out at 12%, about twice that level. And a large portion of that does occur along the coast of Long Island. Now, we don't know what is causing the mortality. You know, we can only make guesses, because our fish disappear. We can't tell what's actually causing the mortality. But we can combine that information that we've collected through our acoustic data to estimate weekly mortality. And so we can look at where is mortality occurring along their migrations and really pinpoint that. And it's not only important just for understanding the biology of the species, but one approach that often you see with a dangerous species is broad areas are closed to fishing and other activities. Our data shows that you can make much more limited, not closures, but restrictions of activities for a short amount of time that would have minimal impacts on the communities that rely on the water. And I think that's really the message I want to get across is that with science and with the support of science, you can come up with solutions that not only promote the recovery of a species, but have minimal impacts on the people that rely on the water for a living. And that's vital. You have to have buy-in to make these things work. And that's the message I wanted to leave with today. And just one more slide. I'll just leave this up just, this is a big project with lots of people and I just wanted to give some recognition to all the people that contribute to this work. Thank you. And now I'd like to welcome Joseph Warren, an associate professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. Like Mike, I'm gonna talk a little bit about fish, a little bit about whales, and a little bit about the need for science to help us understand the marine ecosystems. I all, hopefully the talk comes up here. I'll start off by thanking the Clearwater, which is not only an environmental organization, but their vessel is being used to conduct science on the Hudson River every time it leaves the dock. My lab, working with Clearwater Organization, has had a fisheries echo sounder, which is a scientific fish finder, on the boat since 2013. And every time it leaves the dock, it goes out and collects data on where fish and smaller animals called zooplankton are in the water column. What's exciting about this is there's really no other federal state or local agency that covers the entire Hudson. We get data from Manhattan up to Albany multiple times of the year. Next slide. So there's some pictures of the data. Those are individual fish, those little marks. The graph in the upper left hand corner shows our coverage for a given month. And then the data in the bottom left corner is from Maya's master's thesis, looking at changes from year to year in how many fish there are in the Hudson River ecosystem. So I just wanna acknowledge that that organization is doing science that nobody else is doing. And we're not the only group that's using that boat as a research platform. There are others as well. So I think they should be acknowledged for that. Next slide. In addition, they're doing outreach and education to the public, including New Jersey residents. Those are my niece and nephew. So I just had to give them a plug. Next slide. But what I'm gonna talk about is in the last few years, we have humpback whales visible from shore from essentially most of the boroughs of Manhattan. There's a group called Gotham Whale. Paul Seiswersda is the organization of that. And Artie Rasselich, who's their photographer, captured this photo of a whale lunge feeding at the surface in front of the Empire State Building a couple of years ago. Next slide. In November of last year, there was a whale that basically went sightseeing in New York. It went to all the bridges, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Next slide. One World Trade, the Guggenheim. I believe the only place it didn't go was Hamilton. I'm proud of it. Next slide. So why are these whales showing up off the coast of New York City? And the reason is a fish that's so considered so not valuable that we had towns in Long Island that were paying fishermen to catch these fish last year. So this is a fish called Atlantic Menhaden or sometimes called Bunker. It's been around for hundreds of years. The Native Americans on Long Island would harvest it. Humans have harvested it for its oil. But right now it's mostly caught as a bait or used as a fish meal or for fish oil. So some of your fish oil dietary supplements are from Bunker. Next slide. It's a small fish about a foot long and it moves in between the estuaries and the open ocean. Next slide. And I'm proud of ospreys rather than bald eagles, but this is an osprey that feeds on this fish. And it's a forage fish, which means it's the food for lots of other animals, things like striped bass, humpback whales, and several marine birds. Next slide. It's also big on Instagram. This was a waterfall of Bunker off Long Island. Next. And these form very large aggregations. This is in the Pecanic River out by Riverhead, New York. But you can go on YouTube and see amateur drone footage of schools of these fish off the coast of Long Island in New York City that are literally a kilometer long. So these are massively large schools. Next slide. We've done some scientific surveys of these and some of these schools can have about a half a million fish in them. And that's why whales are being seen in New York waters. You can go whale watching via the New York City subway. You can take the subway to Rockaway Queens and go out five days a week from the summer months on a commercial whale watch vessel. Next slide. Or you can be a recreational fisherman and have a humpback whale come up alongside of you gulping these animals. Next. So with the increase in whales in New York waters, we have risks for these whales. Whales often have negative human interactions. This is a humpback whale from two years ago that was entangled in some fishing gear. You can see that the head rope of the line actually ended up getting worked into the animal's mouth. And this animal died, most likely as a result of being negatively impacted by this. Next slide. We also had a fin whale, a 60 foot fin whale that washed up in 2015. What you're seeing on the right there is evidence of a bruise. So this animal was hit by a ship, most likely. It had about four meter bruise on its back. And about half the whales that strand on the beaches of New York show evidence of ship strike. And there's a lot of boat traffic in New York waters. And with the increase in fish that we're seeing in New York waters, we're probably gonna have more whales in the waters. And we may see an increase in some of these negative human interactions. Next slide. We also have fish kills that occur in our waters. And these are naturally occurring events. Bunker are not the smartest fish. They occur in dense schools. They'll swim into shallow estuaries and basically breathe out all the oxygen. And fish kills like that have been occurring for hundreds of years. This doesn't necessarily have any connection to human activities. Although there have been some fish kills that are probably related to things like harmful algal blooms and things like that. And what's cut off there is kind of my final point is unless we have long-term monitoring of key parts of the ecosystem like these forage fish, which currently no state, county, or federal agency is actually doing annual stock assessment surveys of these animals, we have no way of really understanding how the changes in these animals' populations from year to year are trending. Right now we have anecdotal observations that we see more fish on YouTube and on Instagram from fishermen. We see more whales. But what we'd like to have is kind of stock assessment surveys so we could see the bunker are increasing by a factor of two or three or four, which is gonna let us help implement conservation strategies to protect the other animals that most people care about that are coming into New York waters to feed on those things. So thank you for your time. All right, and to wrap us up today, I'm excited to welcome Tina Seeger, who's going to say a few words about her father's work. I feel honored to be here. I don't have a lot of scientific and political information to give you, but I hope that seeing things through my little window is interesting. My father came here in 1970 with two small vials of water. And today I think he would have sung a song and pulled out his banjo. So thank you, Maya, for filling that void. Here I am speaking to the government, the very same government that harassed my father in the 1950s. I don't know if you're aware, but the mentor to our president was the very same person that presided over the House of Un-American Activities and Mission Hearings back in, I think, 1955. So for me, coming to Washington DC is completing a full circle. My father loved circles, both visually and metaphorically. My mother teased that he built the clear water because he loved this loop's beautiful round shape. He saw the meaning, whether a song circle, a cycle of seasons, or a vicious cycle of hunger and war, and especially greed. I have a small wind-up alarm clock that I like. It has a tiny hammer that strikes a real metal bell and makes a loud sound, enough to awaken anyone. My father and Lee Haves wrote the hammer song with the words danger, warning, love between our brothers and sisters in it. We need to love our rivers. They feed our whole planet. We need every tool we have right now to keep the good cycles going and the bad, vicious cycles at bay. This is hardly the best time to drop the Clean Water Act and other laws. Here's one last story. When I was 20 years old, I volunteered on this loop clear water. One day, a crew member asked me to help him by holding a block intact. One end was attached high up on the mast and the boat's about 100 feet long. So imagine a 75-foot pendulum. After about 20 minutes, most of the people on the deck were gone, and I began to wonder if I was really needed to hold this block anymore. I put it down on the cabin top, but the piece of wood quickly slipped from my hand and swinging in a long arc from the stern to the bow and then back again. Someone grabbed it and ran up to me. He said, don't you ever let go of something until you know it's not needed. That could have killed someone. Of course, I did not really understand what I was holding or what would happen if I let go. I'm sure you're beginning to see the analogy I'm making. Do our leaders understand what they're holding? Do they understand the Hudson is now swimmable because of the Clean Water Act? I waded in the river when I was 10 years old. I saw small things floating past my knees that are not there now because we have sewage treatment plants, thanks to the Clean Water Act. Worse are the things we cannot see. Without monitoring, we will have more and more chemicals in our food chain. More cancer, more birth defects, more lost days at work, more anger, more violence, and more and more plants and animals going extinct every few minutes. Please listen. Please see that our leaders listen and do the right thing. I implore our leaders to protect our water by saving and improving and implementing our laws, which was just emphasized by John Cronin. Thank you for hearing me today. I'm closing song for y'all.