Environmental Justice, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion

OUR VALUES: Our organizational philosophy is that a proportional movement to protect the water resource, must mobilize and engage the widest possible range of inclusion and participation and diversity.  That is the only movement likely to muster the inherent “capacity” to change the poor water quality history of the Patuxent that has persisted for the past few decades. Our movement is a progressive one in that it equates cleaning up and protecting the environment with the need for broader social equity and systemic change.  Our ethnically and culturally diverse Board, membership and support base reflects a watershed movement that is truly and literally representative of the diversity of the seven Patuxent Counties–new approaches, fresh faces are welcome!

Litigation: We research and identify (using government records) known discharge violators on the river and other types of willful, large scale pollution, and we push government regulators to enforce the laws. We sometimes file original citizen lawsuits or complaints in an effort to resolve these pollution and/or social justice problems that link inevitably to environmental inequities.

Advocacy: (identify and challenge the worst known polluters): Our work generally is to identify and resolve pollution issues that have fallen between “cracks” or that go unregulated by the governmental authorities.

Lobbying and policy change: We seek better and more stringent policies, new laws and refinements to existing laws in order to level the playing field of citizen activists and to make it more difficult for the polluting community to evade accountability and compliance.

Community empowerment: We help communities organize and strategize to raise their own power and improve the quality of life and the quality of the waterway they rely on for many fundamental uses and needs.