“We’re trying to move a society”: Speaking Up For the Rights of Rivers in the North Country

Panelists at the April 22 Rivers Have Rights event. 

“Rivers keep us alive and keep so many other living beings alive.” With those words, Blake Lavia, the President of Talking Rivers, welcomed more than 30 North Country community members to a wide-ranging discussion on a revolutionary idea: the Rights of Rivers. Held at Clarkson University on Earth Day (April 22), the event showcased the local and global momentum behind the idea as well as some of the key challenges facing those who would like the Rights of Rivers to become law across the St. Lawrence River / Kaniatarowanénhne and Adirondack Watersheds. 

A global movement with local implications

Talking Rivers, a nonprofit that uses “science, art, and storytelling” to educate communities about the Rights of Rivers, organized the April 22 gathering in order to broaden the conversation about advocating for North Country rivers.  

Tzintzun Aguilar Izzo, a member of the Talking Rivers board, provided an overview of the broader Rights of Nature movement. They noted that while the concept is gaining attention in the world of Western/colonial law, it has its roots in the philosophies of original peoples around the globe. In many Indigenous cosmologies, they observed, the idea of valuing human relationships with the natural world and emphasizing our responsibilities to the ecosystems we call home has been a focus “since time immemorial.” 

Aguilar Izzo pointed to a number of recent cases demonstrating that the Rights of Nature can indeed be enshrined in local and even national law (as in Ecuador, which recognized the Rights of Nature in its 2008 constitution). The city of Pittsburgh, for example, codified in 2010 the idea that rivers “possess inalienable and fundamental rights to live and flourish.” More recently, other cases involving wild rice and salmon as plaintiffs have shown the power of the Rights of Nature as a framework for opening new avenues of legal protection. 

Diverse perspectives

Cathy Shrady, the chair of the Canton (NY) Sustainability Committee, spoke about some of the current political barriers affecting environmental protection under the current system. The hollowing out of the public sector in the form of austerity cuts has left many federal and state agencies understaffed and underfunded, leaving the system woefully unable to deal with problems such as widespread water pollution and the ubiquitous presence of so-called “forever chemicals.” For Shrady, the Rights of Nature is a “paradigm shift” that is supported by scientific research. She described it as “citizen-driven environmental law tailored to local communities.” 

Cathy Shrady of the Canton Sustainability Committee speaks at the “Rivers Have Rights” event. (Photo courtesy of Talking Rivers)

Lynn Hall, a member of the Potsdam Town Council who helped pass a Rights of the Raquette River resolution in November 2022, echoed this message, encouraging attendees to talk with their local elected officials and push them to consider similar legislation. In New York State, local municipalities have significant latitude to do so even when progress is lagging at the state and/or federal levels. 

Abraham Francis, a PhD Candidate at Clarkson University and former Program Manager for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Environment Program, spoke passionately about the Rights of Rivers, including the right to community, the right “to be cared for,” and the right “to be seen and heard.” For Francis, it’s all about our responsibilities to the river and vice-versa; through embracing that, we can come to understand ourselves in a new way. 

Francis also acknowledged the complexity of working on the issue as a member of the Mohawk community concerned with decolonization and sovereignty. “I don’t owe the Western colonial system anything,” he said, while also insisting that there is value in working collaboratively with others who care about the Rights of Rivers - as long as the goal is to build relationships that are not based on extraction. 

Audience members at the event listen to Abraham Francis. (Photo courtesy of Talking Rivers)

For Emmett Smith, engaging with the idea of the Rights of Rivers has meant rethinking his own role as an energy provider with Northern Power & Light, the owner-operators of a hydro dam in St. Regis Falls, NY. His company has recently shifted to an approach of selling energy directly to local consumers rather than to the grid, and he said this has helped him understand the value of broad-based dialogue about the present and future of the region’s waterways. 

Given his familiarity with the multi-level regulatory system that includes the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Smith also emphasized a critical point: the function of this system is to make sure energy providers are “regulated into complicity” with a model that prioritizes human needs and rights (especially property rights) over the needs and rights of the waterways themselves. Such a warped prioritization, he noted, has deep historical roots in English Common Law and its influence on the settler colonial legal structures found in the US and elsewhere. 

Legal complexities

The last speaker, lawyer Lee Willbanks, picked up on this theme, noting that in the US, regulation of waterways generally means, in effect, “regulation to pollute.” By helping corporations figure out exactly how much pollution they can get away with, he argued, this “top-down” regulatory system has failed to protect waterways. 

This is where the idea of Rights of Rivers has so much potential, said Willbanks, who is also a board member at Talking Rivers. Enshrining the Rights of Rivers in local law provides a foundation for real enforcement and accountability, opening up the possibility that a local municipality (or a coalition of several municipalities) could sue a polluter on behalf of a river whose rights are being violated. On this point, Aguilar Izzo noted that many communities are now looking into creating “guardianship bodies” that would take on this kind of responsibility, adding solidarity and mutual obligation as counterweights to a legal environment based on property. 

“We can if we organize”

Following the presentations, there was a lively discussion among the attendees, many of whom had questions about the Rights of Rivers and its potential implementation as a legal concept. Some audience members seemed skeptical that local communities would be able to overcome the weight of existing models of governance and enforcement. “The challenge,” observed one, “is to enroll people in the idea of river protection” rather than seeing protection solely as the responsibility of elected officials and unelected bureaucrats. 

In response to some of these questions and concerns, another attendee pointed out that we have been conditioned by the existing system not to trust one another. What is needed, they said, is a recognition that the law - in the form of Rights of Rivers legislation - can be a starting point for helping us think about common interests and commitments rather than competition and suspicion. 

Willbanks concurred and briefly presented a draft River Bill of Rights that could serve as a model for local efforts to codify the Rights of Rivers. “We’re trying to move a society,” he said, acknowledging the enormity of the challenge facing Rights of Rivers campaigners. But the law, he insisted, can be a powerful educational tool. To those who worried that individuals and local communities couldn’t possibly challenge the power of big polluters and other corporations, Willbanks had a similar response: “we can if we organize” and if we use the opportunity that something like the River Bill of Rights could provide. 

Potsdam Town Board member Lynn Hall speaks about her support for the Rights of the Raquette River Resolution. (Photo courtesy of Talking Rivers)

Both Hall and Willbanks also argued that no matter how hard it is to imagine a world where the Rights of Rivers exist in harmony with the rights of humans, continuing on our current path is a recipe for disaster - literally. Hall referenced the recent chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, as an example of an environmental nightmare that only belatedly woke up the public to the dangers of pollution. “Do we need a massive oil spill in the St. Lawrence [River],” asked Willbanks, “to focus our minds?” 

“We are being ignored”

Faced with such scenarios, which are the stuff of daily headlines, the discussion was a welcome dose of both reality and the determination to find solutions. The Rights of Nature movement, of which Rights of Rivers is an important part, has established a presence in the North Country and has inspired the involvement of young people in the area. The passage of the Rights of the Raquette River resolution in Potsdam represents an important victory in this ongoing local dialogue and struggle. 

Given the vast implications - for the waterways, the legal system, the private sector, and future generations - of the idea of the Rights of Rivers, one would think that well-established local media outlets would be paying significant and sustained attention. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case - at least not yet. Regarding local media in the North Country in recent months, Lavia had a blunt assessment: “we’re being ignored.” 

As Hall pointed out during the discussion, media outlets often share with politicians a reluctance to pay attention to long-term problems; after all, it is immediate issues and crises that tend to produce votes - and media ratings. (Compare, for example, the regular coverage given to the Potsdam “toilet garden” story.) 

Yet the urgency of the issues raised by Talking Rivers in their work in the North County is undeniable. Hopefully the local media will meet that urgency with more consistent and detailed coverage. After all, as Shrady emphasized, “we’re all citizens of the same global ecosystem” - and we all have a responsibility to the waterways that give us life.