‘TRUTH’ with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Featuring Nelson Brooke — Season 3 Episode 10

The following is a transcript of this video. Also see related article.

– I’m really happy that my guest today is Nelson Brooke who is the Black Warrior Riverkeeper in Northern Alabama. It’s the water supply for Birmingham, and I think Tuscaloosa. Nelson has been Riverkeeper there, I think for now, something like 17 years, right?

– Yes, sir.

– Well, tell us about what you do.

– Well, I’m really lucky to count myself as a waterkeeper, as a riverkeeper. It’s something that I’ve really grown to love, it’s a dream job. Like you said, I’ve been doing it for about 17 years. Your godson wrote me into the movement when he founded Black Warrior Riverkeeper, and was looking to finish his degree in college. It’s something that I just kind of happened upon through David. And it’s been an amazing job being a waterkeeper. My job entails being the spokesman and the patrolman for the Black Warrior River watershed in Alabama. Essentially to boil it down, we stand up to major polluters who are polluting the river and its tributaries. And we stand strong to hold them accountable where our state and federal agencies aren’t willing to do so. One of the key things that we utilize is the Clean Water Act, but there are a number of other environmental statutes that we can stand with to hold polluters accountable. And hopefully, leave a better state for future generations.

– Nelson, you’re not what a lot of Americans would think of as the prototypical environmentalist. You come, as many of the waterkeepers do, on this kind of hook and bullet direction that is very, very strong in the Southern waterkeepers. And a lot of people are surprised about how strong the movement is in the Southern states. And also, how combative and aggressive it is. How do you explain that?

– Well, yeah, I grew up fishing, and grew up hunting, grew up spending a lot of time outdoors, hiking, camping and backpacking. It just comes naturally. I think I can say that for a lot of other Southerners. There’s just a lot of people that enjoy spending time outside. Most of them do not consider themselves environmentalists at all. Usually, the leading line that I get from my fellow Alabamians that like what I’m doing is, “Hey, man, we really appreciate what you all are doing. I mean, I ain’t no treehugger, now, but we really like what you all are doing. And I want to have a healthy duck hunting hole, and place to take my kids fishing. So kudos to you all for standing up to the big guys.” I mean, I think that’s what it boils down to is we can connect with people across all backgrounds, all political and religious persuasions. Because everybody agrees that clean water is a right that we should all not have to fight for. And so, unfortunately here in the South, for a long time, our elected officials and politicians have just handed the keys to polluters. And they’ve allowed them to get incredibly wealthy by polluting our state and making us sick. And a lot of us don’t even realize that, that we’re unfortunately, being exposed to all of this stuff. So we’re having to fight really hard to one, educate the public about all these problems, and two, fight these really entrenched, powerful interests who are used to getting their way. And unfortunately, that comes with fighting the elected officials, and the regulatory agencies that are also essentially bought and paid for. They’re captured as a part of this fossil fuel, pollution-generating wealth machine. I remember, I think 20 or 25 years ago I went and I spent three days at the Alabama EEP offices going through Clean Water Act permit files. And we found huge violations that the state had on record for many, many years from all the big steel companies. And I think there were five or six companies that had thousands and thousands of Clean Water Act violations. We filed lawsuits against them. And as you know, when you file a Clean Water Act lawsuit you have to file a notice of intent to sue 60 days before you file a complaint. And it gives the state to opportunity to come in and preempt you by filing their own suit against the polluter. And if they do that, you’re out of the box. And what happened in that case, on the 59th day, the state attorney general came in and signed a sweetheart settlement with all of these companies that had no penalties in it, and basically required them to do nothing. But the purpose of it was not to enforce the law, but to make sure that we could not enforce the law. And that, unfortunately, is how enforcement works all over the South, and many, many other states outside of the South. I know that you’ve run into that.

– Yeah, unfortunately, more times than I would like. That was a real shock for me coming into this job, as, again, as young 20s. I thought, we have the law on our side. We have collected damning against these polluters. As a matter of fact, they’ve collected their own damning evidence by doing their own monitoring and self-reporting all their violations to the state. All these violations just sitting here in the state’s record box with them doing nothing about it. So here we are, we’re gonna come in, pick up all this evidence and take it forward through federal court and hold these polluters accountable. And yeah, here comes the state. We won’t hear anything back from the polluter. We don’t hear anything from the state regulatory agency, and then they just wait until the very last hour, and file their own action with the intent of blocking our case and nothing more. They certainly weren’t just all of a sudden waking up and trying to do their job. They were just trying to act like they were doing their job to keep us from truly holding the polluter accountable in court. And they’ll still attempt to do it today, but a cool thing is that over our history of almost 20 years of being a waterkeeper organization, is we’ve won some pretty cool lawsuits that set precedent that allows for the Clean Water Act Citizen’s Suit Provision to be upheld in Alabama, and throughout the 11th Circuit. Because we do have a right to do it. We have a right to bring an action against a polluter if the state and federal regulatory agencies aren’t doing their job. And that’s essentially way it even exists. We’ve always said it would be great if our state agency would get off of its laurels and do its job and uphold Alabama law. And if they did we probably wouldn’t even need to be in existence, they’d work us out of a job. But unfortunately, we have really strong job security and a state agency that has shown no interest to do its job any different. We’ve been through multiple attorney generals since we started doing this work, and we’ve heard promises from several that they would reform things, and do a better job of holding polluters accountable to clean up the environment here. And we’ve not seen any reform whatsoever. Within the past handful of years the attorney generals have continued to file those same suits to block us and other waterkeepers. What’s interesting is ADEM, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has chosen to pretend like that’s not what they’re doing, that they’re not trying to block us, that they’re just doing their job. But there have been plenty of articles where associates of the attorney generals office have admitted that that’s exactly what they’re doing. That they are trying to protect municipalities in the case of sewage lawsuits from the riverkeepers.

– Which Southern people who aren’t that familiar with the Clean Water Act, kind of understand what waterkeepers do, and how we use the law. Prior to Earth Day, essentially all the environmental laws had been overrun. We had ancient laws, like nuisance laws, a public trust doctrine, that had protected the environment. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution they had been eroded. And the pollution was getting really bad in the late 1960s. I remember what it was like before Earth Day. I remember the Cuyahoga River burning with flames over eight stories high. I remember Lake Eerie was declared dead, zero oxygen, no life in it, and it needed oxygen to live. The Hudson River, and the Potomac, and the Charles River where I grew up I couldn’t swim in them. There were signs on the side of the river, do not get wet. If you do, go get shots. And that Santa Monica, or the Santa Barbara oil spill, that same year, 1969. Those reached all the beaches in Southern California. That accumulation of insults drove 20 million Americans out onto the street on Earth Day 1970, 10% of our population. The largest public demonstration in United States history. And the political system, Republicans and Democrats were so frightened by that democratic outpouring that they came together. Nixon was President, and he created EPA. He signed the Clean Water Act. We passed 28 environmental laws in the next 11 years. The Clean Water Act is by far the most popular of them. And that was done in 1970. All of those laws, when we wrote those laws, we understood that the regulated industry over time was gonna be able to come in and take over those regulatory agencies, to caption them. We needed to protect the laws, and give citizens the rights to protect those laws when the regulators and the enforcement agencies were compromised. In every one of those laws we inserted what we called a Citizen Suit Provision. Which says that anytime that somebody is violating that law, when a polluter is discharging against the law, any citizen can, and the government fails to act, any citizen can step into the shoes of the United States Attorney, prosecute that polluter for penalties that are over $30,000 a day, and injunctive relief. And that’s what you do. You go and you take your patrol boat out, you test the pipes, you go into the office of ADEM, which is the state EPA. You look through the files, you prepare a case. You file the letter of intent to sue, and then 60 days later you file your complaint. And then you’re in a very strong position to make that polluter clean up. And unfortunately, what we see is the state agencies coming in to protect the polluters instead of protecting the public. What is your relationship, do you ever talk to any of the people from the attorney generals office, or from the state agency who are doing these shenanigans?

– We do, we’ve been in touch with them. Of course, we have to be. Beautiful ultimately, what it comes down to is, they used to be able to take all of our cases, and because of the advances that we’ve made, and upholding our right to file, especially where they’re not doing anything demonstrably. We have been able to keep our cases where we go out and collect our own evidence. And so whereas in the beginning we were trying to pick up all the messes that they had let fester, just all these polluters have had thousands of violations to their permits that had never been addressed meaningfully by the regulatory agency. As we worked through all of those, and in a lot of cases had our cases preempted, or taken by the state, we got to a point where we started to do a lot more of our own data gathering. So as riverkeeper I’m out going to the permitted pipes that discharge pollution, through a state permit, into our waterways. And I’m taking pictures, video, water samples, and having labs analyze it. And so we’re essentially looking at whether or not what they are discharging is complying with their permit. And where we found really awful facilities that are violating their permit all the time, it’s not that hard for me to go out and grab a sample, and show that they are violating their permit. And so where we have that kind of evidence, it’s very difficult for the state to take our case away. And so we’ve been able to bring a number of cases, not saying the state didn’t try to take our case away, but where we’ve been able to hang on to our case, and continue to hold polluters accountable in federal court. We’ve made a lot of strides by getting out there and doing the tough, difficult work that unfortunately, the state most of the time doesn’t do. I think a lot of people out there assume that the EPA, or the state agency is out there really doing thorough investigations all over the place, and collecting a bunch of evidence. But what we’ve found is that our state agency very rarely does a thorough inspection against major polluters by going down to the actual discharge pipe and taking samples to double check what they’re being sent by the polluter. They oftentimes just believe whatever the polluter is sending to them data-wise about compliance, or whatever the permitee is telling them through email correspondence. And so a lot of the enforcement that is done by the state of Alabama is actually just paper letters. It’s not even real monetary fines, or anything meaningful that’s gonna really get a polluter in line. And that doesn’t apply to just Alabama, that applies unfortunately, all over.

– All captain agencies when used they very rarely actually check the pipe, you may never. I’ve never seen them out there checking pipes. We check pipes.

– It’s uncommon.

– Tell us about the coal industry in Alabama, because that’s probably your worst polluter, right?

– Coal is definitely one of our top threats in the Black Warrior Basin, and I would say around the world.

– And coal-burning power plants, Duke Energy, Southern Energy is the other company.

– Yeah, I mean, from cradle to grave. So mining, whether it’s strip mining, or mountain top removal, or underground mining. And then whether it’s coal that’s being used to burn for electricity by power plants, or if it’s metallurgical coal it’s being cooked in coke ovens into coke for the steel industry, which is incredibly toxic, as well. There’s the coal ash that is generated by the power plants that’s incredibly toxic. And then there’s the transportation of all, of the coal around the world. Most of the coal that’s mined in Alabama is actually exported to other countries. So this is really, even if it seems like a local issue, it’s a global one, because this stuff is being sent all over the globe. And then we’re importing stuff from all over the place to burn here and utilize here. So it’s an intricate web of, unfortunately, one of the nastiest fossil fuels out there, being perpetuated across communities. Where many people don’t even realize that that this is going on, being transported by barge, and rail and truck. And we’re left to pick up the pieces. Right now, we’re just trying to get all the existing operations to follow existing law. But we’re also looking to the future, and asking for a better one, right? We’re pushing really hard for cleaner sources of energy. That’s where the waterkeeper line, safe and clean energy campaign is a really important one that binds together all the different water people programs around the world that are fighting not just coal, but all forms of fossil fuel pollution. So that we can ideally get away from having to deal with it. Because it’s a wreck from the moment that we pull it out of the ground, millions of years old. And it’s effecting our environment, our air, our rivers and lakes, our groundwater. And it’s effecting our lungs and our health uLtimately. And this is a problem that future generations are gonna be shaking their heads over.

– And a whole system has dropped, and is completely dependent on subsidies. If the coal industry had to pay the true cost of coal to the public, all the coal plants would shut down overnight. It’s the most heavily subsidized industry on the planet I think. We’re all anxious at a study that shows that the carbon industry gets about $5 trillion in subsidies annually. And there’s no way that they could compete. I think the cost of building a coal plant now is, $5 billion per gigawatt. The cost of owning a solar plant is about $1 billion a gigawatt. And once you build a solar plant or wind plant, which is a little bit more, maybe $1.2 billion a gigawatt, is free energy forever. And once you build the coal plant, now the real costs begin, because now you have to knock down the mountains to get at the coal, you have to poison the rivers, you have to poison the groundwater. The air pollution from coal plant costs Americans, just in particulate in our lungs. And the damage from that of $347 million a year. We’ve acidified all the lakes on the high, altitude lakes in the Adirondacks and the Appalachians. We have put mercury contamination and . And the cost of that to our country, if we forced those companies to internalize their costs and pay the true cost, there’s no way that they could compete in a marketplace. We’re free market believers. We believe in free market capitalism. Coal is, as you say, from cradle to grave it’s corporate, cronie capitalism. It’s all based on corrupt subsidies.

– Yeah, and unfortunately, in the regulatory realm and in the health realm, all of the data and all the science out there is just now catching up regulators to actually putting in place permits that even try to scratch the surface of being truly protective of the environment and public health, as the industry is falling apart, crumbling. A lot of the coal mining companies out there are going bankrupt, because of the competing price of renewable, clean energy. And also, because now they’re having to pay their fair share to do things the way they should have been doing it decades ago. It’s just sad to see that it’s taken so long, so many decades for our government, and our infrastructure and our regulations to catch up. I mean, to think that the neurotoxin mercury was not even covered by the Clean Air Act until 2011 is mind boggling. I mean, we have rivers and lakes, and water bodies across the world that have fish consumption advisories for mercury, because of air deposition of mercury from burning coal around the globe in several other industries. But these coal-burning power plants are king there. And that’s devastating, particularly throughout the South where there are so many rivers that are loaded with more fish than any other place in the country. Alabama has the number one boosting rank for aquatic biodiversity in the whole country. And it rivals some of the most biodiverse places in the world. People eat tons of fish here, and a lot of people are unfortunately, not being properly notified about the danger of eating certain types of fish ever. Or how they should only eat certain types of fish maybe once a month. Whereas, they’re eating these fish multiple times a week. So I mean we’ve got a lot of catch up to do as the industry falls apart, and all these big coal barons go bankrupt. Unfortunately, there’s less and less responsible parties to pick up the tab for the billions of dollars of clean up costs that we’re looking at down the barrel. Here in the South with air pollution, Southern Company is one of the last utilities to try to upgrade and do things properly. And here in Alabama we’re really the red caboose with coal ash. Alabama Power is still towing the line that they can cap and place their coal ash in wet, unlined impoundments with no liners that are situated right next to our rivers. And they’re just leeching toxic contaminants, such as arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium, and the list goes on, into groundwater and into the rivers. With move it. They plan on just leaving it there for decades to come. Whereas, Georgia Power next door, another Southern Company subsidiary, and Santee Cooper in South Carolina, and Duke in North Carolina, and Dominion up in Virginia. Utilities all across the country are being required to remove their coal ash and put it in upland, lined, dry landfills away from waterways. And we’re just dealing with the worst kind of decision for future generations. This is a struggle because coal ash is the largest toxic waste stream that we have to deal with. And it’s gonna be dealt with by many future generations.

– And we’re living in a science fiction nightmare, where my children and your children, and the children of literally every other American can no longer engage in the seminal, primal activity of American youth. Which is go fishing with their father and mother in the local fishing hole, and then come home and safely fish. Literally every fresh water fish in Canada, and the United States now has dangerous levels of mercury in its flesh.

– Yeah, and unfortunately, even though we have these great environmental statutes, the Clean Air Act of 1970, and the Clean Water Act of 1972, they still had shortcomings. And like you said earlier, there have been plenty of opportunities since then for polluters and the corrupt politicians who are bankrolled by them, to keep themselves in office for decades on end, to take advantage of loopholes, and of corrupt state and federal regulators. And really work in a little niche for themselves to figure out how to continue polluting while calling it legal. It’s a travesty, really, that we lack the leadership in this country to not just uphold these amazing environmental statutes that protect our environment, and our health, most importantly. But instead, you know, just basically hand the keys of our future away to a few greedy interests for their own wealth gain. It’s part of this whole cycle that I think future generations are gonna really be looking at us and saying, “How the hell did you all let this happen? Why would you all stick us with this mess?”

– Nelson Brooke thanks you very much, Black Warrior Riverkeeper in Alabama. Tell our supporters, our listeners how they can support your work.

– Black Warrior Riverkeeper can be found at blackwarriorriver.org. We’ve got a bunch of different social media handles out there. We’re a membership, non-profit organization, we’re actually really small, so every little bit helps. And we are really floated by all of our volunteers, so we really encourage everybody up and down the river, and from anywhere who thinks what we’re doing is great to lend a hand. If they can’t provide money, volunteerism is great, as well. Help us spread the word about the waterkeeper movement. There’s over 350 waterkeepers around the world. And we’re really proud to be part of the Waterkeeper Alliance, shoulder to shoulder with all the other waterkeepers out there fighting against major polluters on behalf of clean water. I guess I can keep a positive attitude, because I love Alabama. I was born and raised here. It maybe took me going away to school and coming back to realize all the things that I took for granted here. But it’s just, it’s a paradise. It’s a very wild place, lots of forests, wild rivers, and great people that enjoy all of that. Being a state that is a little bit behind the times, we always joke that we’re 20 years behind the rest of the country when it comes to progressing forward. We realize that if we weren’t doing this work, who would be? This is not a California kind of scenario where we have so many different non-profit and non-governmental organizations out there fighting for all the things that matter, that it’s hard to get a job. There’s no shortage of opportunity here. And if Black Warrior Riverkeeper didn’t exist, then all these polluters would just continue to be taking advantage. It’s tough, a lot of what I do is depressing. A lot of what I find is depressing. So unfortunately, when I’m telling about what I do it can be really depressing for people to hear. I just have in the back of my head, I just know that this is important work and that I need to be doing it. It’s what I was meant to do. I can wake up every day, no matter how stressful the job is, knowing that I’m making a difference. I’ve got kids now, honestly, that really took it to a whole new level when I realized that it wasn’t just about me and what I thought was right or wrong anymore. It was about really stepping up more aggressively for my kids. You know, this is really about the next handful of generations, because we’re not gonna solve all these problems now, we’re just basically laying the groundwork for what is to come.

– Nelson, thank you very, very much. I bless you, and I’ll see on the barricades.

– All right, buddy. Have a good one.