Hudson Riverkeeper
Ossining and Kingston, NY
Director, Community Partnership Program (2020–2023)
Campaign Manager, Water Quality Program (2017–2020)

Highlights

• Built and led a geographic, grassroots organizing program to support communities throughout 13,400 square miles of the Hudson River Watershed.
• Organized the “Stop the mud” campaign that generated webinars, actions and thousands of comments. The effort led to New York State announcing that New York City must expand its study of alternatives to dumping muddy water from the Ashokan Reservoir into the Lower Esopus Creek. New York State specified there must be further scrutiny on how climate change will affect the proposed reservoir operations, and an ongoing analysis of the impacts of muddy releases to the Hudson River drinking water supplies downstream.
• Organized an advocacy campaign to expose the detrimental effects of the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE), which proposed the burial of massive electric cables in the beds of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River. The CHPE project would bring Canadian hydropower in exchange for billions of dollars in state subsidies and hundreds of millions in tax credits. With key partners, Rebecca led educational webinars to highlight the facts and concerns of the CHPE project, including organizing members of the Five First Nations to speak directly to both the NYS Governor’s office and the press.
  
• Organized with upriver community members living along the Hudson River shoreline on several major polluting Construction and Demolition (C&D) projects in Catskill and Athens New York that led to the withdrawal of those applications.
• Coordinated Riverkeeper’s first initiative using their Drinking Source Water Protection Scorecard tool. This project focused on seven municipalities, known as the Hudson 7, and helped to protect the Hudson River as a primary drinking water supply for more than 100,000 people in the Hudson River Estuary.
• Developed Riverkeeper’s statewide lobbying system to strengthen the organization’s lobbying efforts in Albany, that led to Riverkeeper succeeding in its efforts to support the passage of the $2 billion dollar Clean Water Infrastructure Act of 2017.
• Co-creator of the Water Justice Lab, a collaboration between Riverkeeper and Media Sanctuary. This effort continues to educate diverse communities about water justice and how to make a difference; develops the advocacy capacity of the North Troy, NY area; and strengthens a network of environmental justice advocates focused on water issues in the Hudson River Watershed.