Partnership Formed to Protect Iconic Rio Grande

Groups share vision for clean water and a healthy river

SANTA FE, N.M.—In an effort to revive the disappearing Rio Grande, two prominent forces have aligned to protect and restore clean water and dynamic flows in America’s Great River. WildEarth Guardians will join Waterkeeper Alliance’s global movement of over 300 member organizations fighting to protect rivers worldwide. Jen Pelz, river lover and activist who has been a voice for the Rio Grande for more than four years, as Guardian’s wild rivers program director, is the newly appointed Rio Grande Waterkeeper.

“Waterkeeper Alliance is excited to partner with WildEarth Guardians to preserve this vital artery of life in the desert southwest,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President of Waterkeeper Alliance. “The Rio Grande nourishes landscapes, ecosystems and human communities in three states and two countries and we believe WildEarth Guardians is the right leader to fight for restored flows and clean water in the basin.”

Guardians has worked for more than two decades to protect flows in the Rio Grande to ensure the survival of one of its last endemic species, the Rio Grande silvery minnow. Rio Grande Waterkeeper will continue this work by leveraging the partnership’s collective expertise to build a grassroots movement to restore the Rio Grande’s right to its own water and ensure its waters are swimmable, drinkable and fishable from the Rio Grande’s headwaters in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado to the Chihuahuan desert of southern New Mexico.

“I am honored to join this powerful network of activists,” said Pelz. “The Rio Grande is the ecological, cultural and economic engine of the region and its pulse is fading. This partnership is vital to restore life to this great river and the communities it nourishes.”

To learn more about Rio Grande Waterkeeper, visit our website at www.riograndewaterkeeper.org.

# # # # #

About WildEarth Guardians: WildEarth Guardians is a non-profit organization working for over 25 years to protect and restore the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West. For more information please visit: www.wildearthguardians.org.

About Waterkeeper Alliance: Waterkeeper Alliance is a global movement uniting more than 300 Waterkeeper Organizations and Affiliates around the world, focusing citizen action on issues that affect our waterways, from pollution to climate change. Waterkeepers patrol and protect over 2.5 million square miles of rivers, lakes and coastlines in the Americas, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. For more information please visit: www.waterkeeper.org.


 

All active news articles