She might not have known it if a friend hadn’t told her, but Maya van Rossum is the longest-serving riverkeeper in the world.
van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper and fierce environmental activist, will speak at 12:15 p.m. today in Smith Wilkes Hall for the Bird, Tree & Garden Club. She will discuss her experience working as the Delaware Riverkeeper and her advocacy for the passage of Green Amendments in all 50 states.
In 2012, Pennsylvania passed a law widely known as Act 13. This law, crafted in large part from lobbying by natural gas fracking companies, removed fracking restrictions previously in place for many of Pennsylvania’s rivers, forests and other natural areas.
“I knew when that law was passed, we had to challenge it,” van Rossum said. “As we were thinking through our legal strategy, I and my team recognized that, actually, in Pennsylvania’s constitution, there was this long-ignored constitutional right of the people to pure water, clean air and a healthy environment, and a duty on all government officials to protect the natural resources of the state for present and future generations.”
The Delaware Riverkeeper Network, led by van Rossum, challenged Act 13 in the Pennsylvania court system, eventually taking the case all the way to the state’s supreme court — and they won. In a 4-2 decision, the justices agreed that Act 13 violated the amendment van Rossum and her team uncovered in the commonwealth’s constitution, overturning some of the key provisions of the law and once again restricting much of Pennsylvania’s land from fracking.
The Green Amendment movement was born.
“It was in that victory that I had what I now call my ‘Green Amendment epiphany,’ ” van Rossum said. “I recognize that we would not have had this victory if we did not have a constitutional right of the people to a clean, safe and healthy environment. … As a lawyer and an advocate who’s experienced all the ways our laws fundamentally fail to protect us, I recognized we needed this kind of protection across the nation, in every single state, and ultimately we’re going to need it at the federal level.”
Factors like the climate crisis, destruction of ecosystems, and the extinction of more and more species make the passage of Green Amendments more important now than ever, van Rossum said. Currently, three states — Pennsylvania, New York and Montana — have passed Green Amendments; 17 states have proposed the legislation in their state legislatures; and six states have kickstarted their Green Amendment movements.
van Rossum hopes she’ll leave Chautauquans with a newfound desire to bring the Green Amendment movement back to their own homes, and see just how impactful the passage of a Green Amendment can be.
“There’s a place and a space for everyone who wants to be involved in the movement,” she said. “Some of the most powerful Green Amendment efforts that are going right now started because one person cared enough to call me, and we started to work together to make it happen.”
