Riverkeeper is a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the protection of the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as the watersheds that provide New York City with its drinking water.

In the 1960s, a small group of scientists, fishermen, and concerned citizens led by Robert H. Boyle, author of The Hudson River, A Natural and Unnatural History and a senior writer[6] at Sports Illustrated, were determined to reverse the decline of the then-polluted Hudson River by confronting the polluters through advocacy and citizen law enforcement.

Eventually, the organization became a powerhouse that has played a leading role in protecting the Hudson and the New York City watershed.

In so doing, he opened up the courts to environmentalists for the first time in history, establishing the principle that citizens can sue corporations on the basis of potential harm to aesthetic, recreational, or conservational values as well as tangible economic injury.

[3] In 2000, a majority of Riverkeeper's board sided with Kennedy who insisted on rehiring William Wegner, a wildlife lecturer and falcon trainer[15][11] whom Boyle had fired six months earlier after learning that Wegner had been convicted in 1995 for tax fraud, perjury and conspiracy to violate wildlife protection laws.

At the end of 1980, Con Edison formally agreed to abandon its Storm King Mountain project, reduce fish kills at its power plants on the Hudson, and establish a $12 million research fund.

[16] The groundbreaking 1965 "Scenic Hudson Decision" by United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for the first time gave citizens without financial interest in the outcome the right (legal standing) to sue for protection of the environment, including "the preservation of natural beauty and national historic sites".

[21] According to the new legislation, it shall be unlawful to discharge any radiological substance into the Hudson River in connection with the decommissioning of a nuclear power plant.

[22] This put a stop on Holtec International's (the company decommissioning Indian Point) plan to dump wastewater into the Hudson.

Riverkeeper's position was in stark contrast with many other environmental and clean-energy advocates who argued that the plan was needed to shift the region towards greener energy.

Many are small and obsolete, abandoned by long-shuttered factories and serving no purpose other than to thwart fish migration and harm river ecology.

[31] Over 150 years of industrial use have resulted in substantial contamination and impairment of habitat related to releases of hazardous substances and oil.

Riverkeeper has brought litigation forward, raised public awareness about the oil spill, and worked with state officials to address this contamination.