By Brett VandenHeuvel, Executive Director
I keep two news clippings on the wall above my desk. One is a Wall Street Journal article describing Riverkeeper’s “groundbreaking” legal action to stop pollution from dams. The other is the front page of Vernonia’s Voice, which features a Riverkeeper presentation at a town meeting right next to “Lady Loggers Take 4th at State Tournament.” I love that a Venn diagram of Wall Street Journal and Vernonia’s Voice would contain Columbia Riverkeeper.
This is how we work: cutting edge legal work and community organizing. Alone, each strategy has limits. Together is where the magic happens.
We enforce environmental laws to stop illegal pollution, protect salmon habitat, or challenge harmful fossil fuel terminals. Legal work makes a difference. But lawsuits alone do not create the change we need. Change comes when people organize and stand together for something they believe in. Lasting change comes when conversations around kitchen tables grow into successful campaigns.
On the Columbia, we work with people in dozens of communities—from rural to urban—with the same goals: protecting the health of their families and the places they love. We listen and learn. And if we can be helpful, we provide organizing tools, strategies, and legal resources to achieve these goals.
For example, when a coal export terminal threatened Longview, we partnered with Longview residents to challenge Big Coal. Our in-house attorneys identified flaws in applications, submitted countless public records requests, challenged permits, and helped develop long-term strategy. Longview residents provided critical local knowledge, relentlessly read every document and shared key facts, and organized neighbors to achieve record-breaking turnout at public meetings. The legal work and the community organizing reinforced each other, like a symbiotic relationship in nature. We enjoy similar relationships in Astoria, Cathlamet, Vancouver, and Portland.
While this concept is not new, this symbiotic relationship is surprisingly rare in environmental advocacy. Legal work is hard. Organizing is harder. Merging the two is tricky. We have committed to this merger. Not because we enjoy difficulty, but because it works.
