The Riverkeeper
Meredith Brown does what the bureaucrats and politicians can’t: she speaks up on behalf of the Ottawa River
Cool, clean, fresh water has flows through Meredith Brown’s life. She remembers spending her childhood summers splashing in spring-fed Trout Lake near her North Bay home. One of her first jobs out of university was helping to restore rivers and watersheds damaged by clear-cut logging in British Columbia. From the windows of her home in Wakefield, Brown can see the Gatineau River where she takes her two children to swim in the summer.
But it’s in her role as the Ottawa Riverkeeper that Brown has – as athletes like to say –raised the level of her game considerably, turning a lifetime passion into full-time-plus commitment that has put her in the public eye.
“I think I always had this connection with natural processes,” explains Brown as she takes a break from the computer in her cramped corner office to sit in a nearby conference room, a map of the entire Ottawa watershed behind her. “I saw what was being done to rivers and I thought there had to be a better way.”
Brown has led the Ottawa Riverkeeper organization since 2003, taking over the then two-year-old, somewhat shaky organization. Under her guidance the licensed member of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance – a grassroots organization that advocates for the world’s waterways – has grown from one employee to a staff of five. The publication of their River Report in 2006, which Brown wrote while on maternity leave and Earthlore Communications designed free of charge as a public service, marked the first comprehensive independent assessment of the ecological status of Eastern Canada’s second largest river (after the St. Lawrence). A registered charity, the organization has seen donations grow from a trickle to about a quarter-million dollars a year.
When she isn’t working on the next state-of-the-river report, talking to community groups concerned about the river or visiting members of the RiverWatch network scattered along the Ottawa and its tributaries, Brown is responding to media requests for expert independent commentary on the latest sewage spill or E. coli counts.
“At times I struggle with my schedule and I wonder, ‘What am I doing?’ But I love my job and I love the challenge. I’m very passionate about it. I see the potential. I see what could happen and I want to make it happen faster. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t have a family and kids, I’d be working all the time.”
The Waterkeeper Alliance concept is simple: someone – independent of different levels of government, politicians and private industry – needs to speak for the ecological health of our streams, rivers and lakes. That need is particularly acute for the Ottawa River, whose watershed includes two provinces, multiple municipalities and federally owned land.
“It’s a jurisdictional mess,” says Brown. “Nobody’s looking at the bigger picture. Our organization keeps top of what’s happening on both sides of the river, regardless of political boundaries. That’s really important.”
Dan Brunton, an environmental consultant, says Brown brings “credibility” to her job by taking a science-based approach to issues that can get emotional.
“She’s solid,” says Brunton. “An organization like Riverkeeper is nothing if it’s not credible. There is lots of emotion out there. A lot of people who haven’t done their homework purport to speak on behalf of large numbers of people on important issues. Meredith never does that. She knows the area she’s discussing. She doesn’t throw around ideas until she’s worked it out, until she knows what she’s dealing with. And then she gives a good summary based on that knowledge.”
Brown’s background helps her to be heard. An environmental engineer with a post-grad degree in resource management, her approach is aimed more at finding solutions than pointing fingers.
“It’s been an advantage for me that people don’t see me as a tree-hugger. That engineering degree has really come in handy. I can sit in at a meeting and I can talk the talk. People realize that I understand what’s going on, that I’m asking the right questions.”
Brown is also a very practical person. She thinks the City of Ottawa – recipient of more than $30 million in funds to fix its sewage system – has spent enough time and money to studying the problem.
“Ottawa is really big on reports. And while it’s important that you have all the information, the public is growing tired of reports. Do a project. Just pick one of the troublesome sewage pipes and clean it up. Start somewhere and do something. You can’t fix it all overnight, but can start chipping away at the problem, one pipe at a time.”
The plain-spoken Brown also believes “it’s crazy” for the City of Ottawa to be working in isolation from Gatineau, right across the river. “I’ve been trying really hard to get the two provinces together with the two cities and the feds to say, ‘You know what? Let’s decide altogether what’s important and do it.”
While the task of protecting the river is a daunting one, Brown is encouraged by the response she and her organization are getting from ordinary people across Western Quebec and Eastern Ontario. They, in turn, are heartened to know they aren’t the only ones concerned with the health of the river they love.
“One woman told me, ‘Meredith, I can’t tell you how great it is. I used to think I was the only, lone crazy person who wanted to do the right things for the river.’ Now she’s in a group of about seven or eight RiverWatchers that meets regularly, and talks regularly with their local councillors. It’s really satisfying to see that happen.”
It’s vital, says Brown, that people stay connected to their waterways, that they view them with a sense of ownership and take personal pride and pleasure in them.
“It’s really important that people keep swimming and kayaking and fishing in the river because once we stop that activity, it’s really easy for governments to justify pouring sewage into the river. It’s important to use the river and embrace it.”
And despite reports of tonnes of raw sewage accidentally dumped into the Ottawa River over the past two years, she remains optimistic.
“This is a fixable situation. Definitely. It just takes money. A lot of money and political will. When people find out how much sewage is going into the river they are typically disgusted and upset because we can fix it. And in this day and age, we should be doing exactly that.”
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