Center for Justice wins approval to head up Spokane Riverkeeper.
In a dramatic development this weekend, the Center for Justice learned that the international Waterkeeper Alliance has approved the law firm’s recent application to head up a waterkeeper program for the Spokane River. The news highlights efforts that have been underway for months as the Center has looked for new and more effective ways to save a river that, in recent years, has been ranked as among the most endangered waterways in America.
The Waterkeeper Alliance is the fastest growing grassroots environmental 
movement in the world. The Alliance’s new President, former Santa Monica Baykeeper Steve Fleischli, was a keynote speaker this winter at a major conference organized by Andy Dunau and the Spokane River Forum.
Founded a decade ago, the Alliance is closely identified with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the organization’s former president and now chairman of its board of directors. Kennedy’s involvement goes back to 1984 when he enlisted as the chief prosecuting attorney for the nation’s first full-time Riverkeeper, John Cronin an activist and former commercial fisherman. Cronin had been hired the year before by New York state citizens fed up with Hudson River pollution and determined to clean up the waterway. The remarkable success on the Hudson has been a model for the Waterkeeper concept, a carefully licensed brand that is now formally represented on more than 180 waterways world-wide.
With this weekend’s approval by the Alliance board, the Spokane River will be next.
“It’s really exciting,” said an elated Rick Eichstaedt, the Center’s lead river attorney and the person who will head up the new program. “Even when I was in law school at Lewis and Clark in Portland, Bobby Kennedy Junior came to speak and I’d read his book. He’s always been one of my legal heroes, with the Keeper program and some of his other work. So, to be part of this program, that even in the infancy of my legal career I’d become an admirer of, is really special.”
Eichstaedt says CFJ’s leadership role on the Spokane Riverkeeper program will take the law firm’s involvement “to a whole new level.”
“We’re not only going to be the lawyers for the river but we’re also going to be the advocates,” he said. “This means we’ll have a more direct say on how we advocate for the river and the issues we work on.”
Most importantly, he said, it means having an active, inquisitive presence on the river.
“Because the Waterkeeper Alliance requires that we have an on the water presence,” Eichstaedt said, “it means that they’ll be some eyes that will be looking for things that aren’t right on the river. Are there unpermitted discharges, is there development that is occurring that hasn’t gotten the proper approval or not gone through the environmental protection process? Are there other things that regulators should be aware of or that we should be aware of as advocates for the river about which we should take action. It’s almost like we’ll have a neighborhood watch for the river, first with the people at the Center and then, as we develop the program, engaging the citizens and helping them to understand what to look for and what to do if they see something that’s not quite right. That’s how people have cleaned up their neighborhoods and I think it’s a good strategy that’s developed through the keeper program for cleaning up the river.”
So what does he do now?
“Well,” Eichstaedt said with a hearty laugh, “the first thing we’ll have to do is get a boat, you know. It’s a required part of the program and then pretty quickly making the statement that we’re on the water. Because it’s one thing to be a keeper on paper, but we actually have to follow through.”
And we will. Stay tuned for more news in the coming days and weeks including what looks to be a pretty good line on the boat….
To learn more about the Waterkeeper Alliance and its mission, click here.
