What is a Riverkeeper?
Waterkeeper Alliance is a worldwide organization that protects local waters by organizing the fight for clean water into a coordinated global movement.
Waterkeepers are on-the-ground advocates united in a shared mission to protect the right to clean water in our communities. A Riverkeeper protects a specific river.
Our Youghiogheny Riverkeeper patrols local waterways, organizes river clean-ups, educates the public, and takes on polluters in the courts of law and public opinion.
About the Waterkeeper Movement
Waterkeeper was started by a band of blue-collar fishermen on New York’s Hudson River in 1966. Industrial polluters were destroying their way of life, and they took action. Their tough, grassroots brand of environmental activism sparked the Hudson’s miraculous recovery and inspired others to launch Waterkeeper groups around the world.
Today, Waterkeeper Alliance unites more than 300 Waterkeeper groups that are on the front lines of the planetary environmental crisis. Together, they patrol and protect nearly six million square miles of rivers, lakes, and coastal waterways on six continents.
MWA has been the home of the Youghiogheny Riverkeeper since 2003. Find our Riverkeeper working at cleanups, patrolling the watershed, and paddling on the Yough!