Alex Matthiessen (born July 3, 1964) is an environmentalist and lives in New York City. He is the son of author and naturalist Peter Matthiessen.
Mr. Matthiessen graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1988 with a BA in Biology and Environmental Studies, and earned his Masters of Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1995. [1]
Matthiessen began his activist career in 1990 as the grassroots program director for the Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco. In this capacity, he organized and managed an international network of affiliate activist groups. During the summer of 1994, he interned at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. From 1995 to 1996, Matthiessen worked for the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) as a macroeconomic policy analyst in the Indonesian Ministry of Finance. [1]
In 1997, Matthiessen was appointed as a special assistant to the U.S. Department of the Interior, where he worked on matters of special importance for Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. He managed a multi-agency task force charged with reforming the hydropower licensing process of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He was also co-creator and head of the Green Energy Parks initiative, a joint program between the Department of the Interior's National Park Service and the Department of Energy, which promotes renewable and energy efficient technology throughout the national park system. Matthiessen received a Presidential Award from the White House for his work on this project. [2]
Matthiessen was Riverkeeper’s chief executive from 2000 to 2010 and served on the organization's board of directors during that time. Under his direction, Riverkeeper—an environmental non-profit that protects and defends the Hudson River and the New York City watershed—maintained a full-time patrol boat enforcement presence up and down the Hudson River and its tributaries, and extended its principal jurisdiction from north of Albany to New York Harbor. In addition to strengthening the group's traditional enforcement role, Matthiessen pushed the organization to develop long-term, preventative strategies designed to strengthen the deterrents and incentives necessary to avoid pollution. [3]
Under Matthiessen's leadership, Riverkeeper joined forces with institutions such as Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University School of Law, and Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, to enhance scientific understanding of the Hudson River, as well as stop what it views as ill-conceived development projects along the waterfront. [1]
In 2006, Matthiessen served on New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer’s transition team as an advisor on the new administration's goals for energy and environmental policy. He also served as chair of the energy committee for Westchester County’s Climate Change Task Force as well as chair of the MTA Blue Ribbon Commission on Sustainability's water committee. [1] Matthiessen also served on the boards of directors of the Hudson River Improvement Fund, Governor's Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC), and Waterkeeper Alliance—the umbrella organization for over 190 Waterkeeper programs around the world dedicated to protecting local water resources. [4] He currently serves on the board of the Catskill Mountainkeeper.
In July, 2010, Matthiessen started an environmental consulting firm, Matthiessen Strategies, based in New York City, with clients in New York, Massachusetts, and Vancouver.
The Hudson River is a 315-mile (507 km) river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York, United States. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York at Henderson Lake in the town of Newcomb, and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New York City and Jersey City, eventually draining into the Atlantic Ocean at Upper New York Bay. The river serves as a physical boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end. Farther north, it marks local boundaries between several New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet that formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Even as far north as the city of Troy, the flow of the river changes direction with the tides.
Waterkeeper Alliance is a worldwide network of environmental organizations founded in 1999 that work to protect bodies of water around the United States and the world. By December 2019, the group said it had grown to 350 members in 46 countries, with half the membership outside the U.S.; the alliance had added 200 groups in the last five years.
Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., also known by his initials RFK Jr., is an American politician, environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, and conspiracy theorist who will be nominated to serve as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy is the chairman and founder of Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group and proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. He was on the ballot in some states as an independent candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election. A member of the Kennedy family, he is a son of United States Attorney General and senator Robert F. Kennedy, and a nephew of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and senator Ted Kennedy.
Riverkeeper is a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the protection of the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as the watersheds that provide New York City with its drinking water. It started out as the Hudson River Fisherman's Association (HRFA) in 1966. In 1986, the group merged with the Hudson Riverkeeper Fund it established in 1983 and took on the name Riverkeeper. In 1999, the Waterkeeper Alliance was created as an umbrella organization to unite and support "keeper" organizations.
United States environmental law concerns legal standards to protect human health and improve the natural environment of the United States.
David Sive was an American attorney, environmentalist, and professor of environmental law, who has been recognized as a pioneer in the field of United States environmental law.
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (CRK) -- formerly known as Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (UCR) -- is an environmental advocacy organization with 10,000 members dedicated solely to protecting and restoring the Chattahoochee River Basin. CRK was modeled after New York’s Hudson Riverkeeper and was the 11th licensed program in the international Waterkeeper Alliance. In 2012, the organization officially changed its name to simply Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (CRK), dropping the "Upper" to better reflect its stewardship over the entire river basin.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is a department of New York state government. The department guides and regulates the conservation, improvement, and protection of New York's natural resources; manages Forest Preserve lands in the Adirondack and Catskill parks, state forest lands, and wildlife management areas; regulates sport fishing, hunting and trapping; and enforces the state's environmental laws and regulations. Its regulations are compiled in Title 6 of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. It was founded in 1970, replacing the Conservation Department, and is headed by Basil Seggos.
The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, also called the Harbor School, is a public high school located on Governors Island. This school is unique in New York City, which has 538 miles (866 km) of waterfront, in that it attempts to relate every aspect of its curriculum to the water. The school is part of the Urban Assembly network of 21 college-prep schools in New York City.
Terry Backer, born Terrance Eddy Backer, was an American politician who served in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1993 until his death in 2015.
The term Soundkeeper. was first used in the American lexicon by the Long Island Soundkeeper Fund, Inc. in 1987 upon the founding of an environmental protection organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of Long Island Sound. The name and the organization's principles were modeled after the Hudson Riverkeeper Fund. Later, both organizations independently changed their official names to Riverkeeper and Soundkeeper. Soundkeeper and Riverkeeper are founding members of the Waterkeeper Alliance. The term Soundkeeper is a registered trademark of Soundkeeper, Inc. However, it has also become common practice to refer to the lead person who is the water presence of the organization as the "Soundkeeper".
Coosa River Basin Initiative (CRBI) is a 501(c)(3) grassroots environmental organization based in Rome, Georgia, with the mission of informing and empowering citizens to protect, preserve and restore North America's most biologically diverse river basin, the Coosa. Since 1992, the staff, board and members have served as advocates for "the wise stewardship of the natural resources of the Upper Coosa River basin, or watershed, which stretches from southeastern Tennessee and north central Georgia to Weiss Dam in Northeast Alabama. This includes the Coosa River, the Etowah and Oostanaula rivers and the tributaries of these waterways as well as the land drained by these streams and the air that surrounds this land area."
Susan Elizabeth "Liz" Birnbaum served as Director of the Minerals Management Service in the United States from July 15, 2009, to May 27, 2010. Birnbaum was in charge of administering "programs that ensure the effective management of renewable energy [...] and traditional energy and mineral resources on the nation's Outer Continental Shelf, including the environmentally safe exploration, development, and production of oil and natural gas, as well as the collection and distribution of revenues for minerals developed on federal and American Indian lands."
Potomac Riverkeeper Network is an environmental, registered non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that is dedicated to protecting the Potomac River and its tributaries. As a "riverkeeper" organization, it is a member of the umbrella organization Waterkeeper Alliance.
Scenic Hudson is a non-profit environmental organization in New York that was founded in 1963 to oppose a hydro-electric power project in New York.
Between 1947 and 1977, General Electric polluted the Hudson River by discharging polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) causing a range of harmful effects to wildlife and people who eat fish from the river. Other kinds of pollution, including mercury contamination and cities discharging untreated sewage, have also caused problems in the river.
Willamette Riverkeeper is a non profit organization formed in 1996 in order to protect and restore the water quality and natural habitat of the Willamette River. WR was the 13th Riverkeeper organization formed after the original Hudson Riverkeeper. Today there are over 300 Riverkeeper, Baykeeper, and Coastkeeper organizations in the United States and internationally. Each organization is independent, but subscribes first and foremost to enforcing the Clean Water Act, or related international laws.
The Frasure Creek lawsuit was a legal action by environmental organizations Waterkeeper Alliance and Appalachian Voices against Frasure Creek Mining and International Coal Group (ICG) on grounds of falsifying pollution discharge in their reports. This violated many key components of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which controls and regulates many types of pollution entering into waterway. Individual citizens joined the environmental organizations to sue the coal mining companies under the CWA. The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet attempted to settle in Franklin Circuit Court in December, 2010 but was denied. The case moved forward to the Kentucky Supreme Court in April, 2012 who agreed with lower court rulings that Appalachian Voices and others were legally supported by the CWA to intervene in the lawsuit against Frasure Creek Mining and ICG.
Robert Hamilton Boyle Jr. was an environmental activist, conservationist, book author, journalist and former senior writer for Sports Illustrated. In 1966, Boyle founded the Hudson River Fishermen's Association (HRFA) with its members serving as sentries to protect the river and its inhabitants, help reverse the deterioration caused by river pollution, and bring polluters to justice. The organization grew over the years, and in 1986, was officially renamed Riverkeeper after being merged with HRFA's Riverkeeper program. It was the first "keeper" group in the global Waterkeeper Alliance movement.