Fletcher Sams for Grist 50 Fixers x Project Drawdown's Global Solutions Diary

Speaker: Fletcher Sams, Executive Director, Altamaha Riverkeeper

Fletcher Sams: I believe real change comes from working with folks on the ground who are being impacted by specific issues every day, especially in areas long written off by groups like ours.

Fletcher Sams: Hi, my name is Fletcher Sams, and I'm the executive director of Altamaha Riverkeeper. I've been involved in climate solutions for the better part of a decade. I first started working for a large international NGO working with the world's most vulnerable communities, and quickly learned that the primary building block for all successful projects was the ability for a community to source clean drinking water. Around that same time, I also started work as a volunteer board member for a local river advocacy group called Altamaha Riverkeeper. Because of this work, I became acutely aware that the largest coal-burning power plant, the Western Hemisphere, Plant Shear, was located just upstream of Macon, Georgia, near a small town named Juliet. Federally required plant disclosures had alerted us to the fact that 16 million tons of toxic coal ash waste was stored in an unlined pit. Deeply submerged into and contaminating the same aquifer that every household in the area drew their drinking water from. I felt that the biggest impact that I could make in the world of climate issues was literally in my own backyard, with American citizens facing the same challenges that people were facing amongst the world's most vulnerable populations, the right to clean drinking water. I started working full time for Riverkeeper, focusing on helping the residents of Middle Georgia understand the plight that they were in. And equipping them to fight back against the power company, as well as state and federal regulators and legislators who are all too happy to flaunt environmental laws at the risk of those residents' health and well-being. By utilizing modern campaign field techniques to organize and educate the citizens of the issue, I was able to test 300 wells in the area, many of which showed dangerous levels of heavy metals. Using these initial results, the county partnered with Riverkeeper to conduct further testing in the area, resulting in 78 miles of clean drinking water lines being installed for the residents surrounding Planthier with a combined $26 million of state and county funds.

Fletcher Sams: To say watching folks from incredibly conservative backgrounds who have never thought twice about environmental issues, board buses to advocate for a bill they helped to introduce in the state capital with the acumen of veteran lobbyists will always stand out to me as the strongest impact. Many of these folks have since embraced this issue as a calling, even traveling out of state to help other similar communities learn how to fight against the legacy of toxic coal.

Fletcher Sams: The community of Juliet continues to inspire me when reimagining what I think is effective climate advocacy looks like in our current world. I believe real change comes from working with folks on the ground who are being impacted by specific issues every day, especially in areas long written off by groups like ours. By working with the community and not speaking for them, I believe that we are embracing climate change on the micro level. While the community was successful in advocating for county and state funding to run clean water lines to the roughly 1000 households surrounding Planthi, they no longer see themselves as the David being menaced by the Goliath of the power company. They have since successfully fought improperly located wastewater facilities, data centers, crypto mines, and are currently advocating for the river corridor to become the first national park in the state of Georgia. They are capable and persistent protectors of the place that they love. They saved Juliet.