Upstream, Downriver: Uniting for Water Justice

ANNOUNCER: Major funding for this program was provided in part by the Walton Family Foundation, working to protect our water for future generations.

Additional funding was provided by the following.

For a complete list of funders, go to aptonline.org.

(uplifting music).

(water dripping).

(birds chirping).

DR. MUSTAFA SANTIAGO ALI: Water is life.

(sound of waterfall).

ROSEMARY LECLAIR: Without it, there would be no us.

(eagle cry).

(children laughter).

JESSICA DANDRIDGE: Water is joy.

(train horn).

DENNIS MABASA: You immediately feel a sense of calm when you're down to the river.

CATHERINE FLOWERS: People from all races, creeds, colors would enjoy the rivers and streams.

(birds squawking).

FRED TUTMAN: Clean water is that gold standard.

RADHIKA FOX: Everybody should have access to clean, safe water.

(uplifting music).

(uplifiting music continues over opening title).

(eerie music).

MARC YAGGI: Before the Clean Water Act was passed, our waterways were a mess.

(siren).

DR. ALI: When you have things like the Cuyahoga River catching on fire, when you have the immense dumping, if you see some of those early photos, oil sheens across water bodies, mass fish kills.

(eerie music continues).

WILLIAM REILLY: Pollution that you could not quite walk across, but some places you almost could.

And you certainly uh had to be careful because a lot of it caught fire.

In a sense, we had gone too far.

We had allowed the water bodies of the country to go on and degrade substantially.

(rushing water).

TOM JORLING: It was important to demonstrate to the American people that, yes, we can respond to a problem.

We can do something.

(clapping).

WILLIAM: The Clean Water Act was a major part of the commitment the country made in 1972 on behalf of the environment.

DR. ALI: The Clean Water Act gave us the opportunity to begin to put a sort of a safety net, if you will.

You know, there are so many more people who are now protected.

(sound of children playing, laughing).

TOM: In effect, you had to repeal the right to pollute.

That changed the whole relationship between the polluter and the government.

(industrial noise).

NANCY STONER: We rely really heavily on the citizen suit provision of the Federal Clean Water Act.

That is our strongest tool.

Sometimes people call and say there's a big spill or there's something that looks wrong in the waterways.

And then the Riverkeeper investigates.

(ethereal music, sound of birds chirping).

FRED: Patuxent is a very particularly important river in Maryland.

It's the longest and deepest river that stays entirely within the state.

I've been the Patuxent Riverkeeper since about 2004.

(boat engine).

Our job as Riverkeepers is to really marshal the energy, the forces needed to try and protect these rivers.

Some of us are lawyers, some of us are scientists.

Using environmental laws to try and turn at least some power back to citizens.

People have a lot tied up in these issues and causes we work on, and failure is catastrophic.

(sound of boat engine, nature).

Patuxent was the first in terms of using the Federal Clean Water Act to compel the state to protect this river.

It got measurably better.

(gentle music).

The Patuxent is jeopardized by upstream growth.

The irony being that the downstream areas of the Patuxent are relatively wild and vast and that's where the most productive fisheries happen to be.

So we inherit downstream all of those inputs that come from the upstream highly developed areas.

Runoff from parking lots, storm drains, waste water, I mean tons and tons of different stuff and that goes into the Chesapeake Bay.

(birds chirping).

JULIAN GONZALEZ: The Clean Water Act doesn't really do a good job of regulating runoff, which is when things like manure from farms or phosphorus from large agricultural operations or bacteria from having a bunch of cows or pigs in a field, goes into the ground and into rivers and wetlands and things like that.

That's where most of the pollution comes these days.

Some states have regulations which allow state agencies to regulate runoff pollution, but most states do not.

(dramatic music).

With temperatures getting hotter thanks to climate change, you get things called harmful algal blooms where whole swaths of the river will turn green.

If you touch it or if your dog touches it, you can end up in the hospital.

Your pets can die.

And it's really bad for these communities.

(music, boat noise).

FRED: This tributary, the Patuxent, used to be one of the most productive shellfish rivers in the Chesapeake Bay spectrum.

Today, you measure those catches, it's gone way, way downhill.

The Patuxent is the only river in Maryland's history that has been substantially brought back to health, only to see those gains lost again.

(dog barking, leaves crunching).

This literally is the river that gave rise to the Chesapeake Bay movement.

So here we go again.

We're getting pretty close to that worst case scenario.

(water splashing).

Riverkeepers want to build enough of a success that others can build on that.

(gentle waves lapping).

We've become the repository of the soul of this river.

(voices of demonstrators).

You know, to make real change, structural change, necessary change, you need to go out and fight for what's right.

(demonstrators chanting).

TOM: Government responds to pressure, to activism.

The tools are there, but the tools have to be exercised.

They have to be used.

(Native American drumming and singing).

(Native American drumming and singing continues).

(Native American drumming and singing continues).

(Native American drumming and singing continues).

(applause).

(greeting in native language).

NAKIA WILLIAMSON-CLOUD: On this morning, we come from along the Columbia River, Snake, Salmon, and Clearwater River to remind the decision makers here in the U.S. Capitol of what we stand for and how our humanity is centered around those rivers.

Because as we're told, the rivers are the lifeblood of this land.

(applause).

LARRY WRIGHT: We're all here today to advocate on behalf of our Pacific Northwest tribal nations and support them in calling for the removal of the Columbia and Snake River dams.

(applause).

JEREMY TAKALA: If we do nothing while temperatures rise in the system of lakes that the dams have made in our rivers, we will face extinction for our fisheries and other species like orcas that rely on them.

(music swells over sounds of nature).

SHANNON WHEELER: Salmon are dwindling, they're, they're just teetering above the extinction level.

SAMUEL PENNEY: The fish are critical to the whole ecosystem and, you know, water quality and fish survival, water temperatures, all those things are involved.

SHANNON WHEELER: That's a keystone species and just like any keystone brick in any building, the rest of the ecosystem falls.

And for us, a way of life and our obligation to, to these species, it's the same as us.

We don't view ourselves any different.

So we fall too.

(dramatic music).

ROSEMARY: We need to bring the salmon back.

So supporting the dam removal, I believe will help bring the salmon back to our neighboring tribes as well as our tribe.

(chatter).

JEREMY: Salmon extinction is not an option.

This is a cultural damage that we could never repair for our native nations and for all citizens throughout the Pacific Northwest and the U.S. (crowd chatter).

PAULETTE JORDAN: Our ecosystem is dying, and we need to protect it.

So help us stand up for humanity, stand up for nature, uphold your contract with the universe and do what's right for this planet.

(sound of nature over music).

JULIAN: Dams, levees, older aging pieces of infrastructure were built with good intentions back in the '70s and earlier, but we know now in the years and decades since then that there's a lot of unintended consequences that neither prepared us for climate impacts or benefited the communities that surrounded the infrastructure.

And acknowledging that is definitely the first step when we're talking about solutions.

(distant traffic and sirens).

(upbeat music playing).

(music shifts to serious).

DENNIS: Millions of people every single day drive over the Los Angeles River.

Many people don't know it's an actual river.

It was seen as a river channel.

You know, it was seen as a stormwater protection zone.

BRUCE REZNIK: You'd see these signs like you're going over the LA River and I remember asking my parents like, what do they mean?

It's just concrete down there.

MARISSA CHRISTIANSEN: This is actually a natural flowing river, the LA River.

This is why the city of LA grew up where it grew up.

BRUCE: Los Angeles grew tremendously quickly around the turn of the last century.

By the 1930s, our underground aquifers were already getting polluted.

The city just kept growing, but there was not enough water.

WILLIAM P. WHITSETT: We here in Southern California are face to face with a water problem.

All Southern California was at one time a desert waste.

But the desert is ever around us, waiting and eager to take back what was once its own.

And it will take it back unless we bring in more water.

BRUCE: So to meet its water needs, aqueducts were built to bring water from hundreds of miles away from the Owens Valley, the Colorado River, Northern California.

ANNOUNCER: From Parker Dam, 150 miles to the south, the Colorado River aqueduct supplies the city of Los Angeles with a domestic and industrial water supply.

(somber music).

BRUCE: Los Angeles was built in an arid region and largely within the LA River floodplain.

You have water coming from the Santa Susanas and the San Gabriels and the Santa Monica Mountains.

We're kind of a bowl in LA and when it rains, it really can flood quickly.

And that's what happened in the 1930s.

(eerie music).

(house collapsing).

There was a massive investment to channelize and to tame the LA River and to straighten it and to put concrete everywhere and creating a massive flood control channel.

It's a scar across the city, a scar that led to more of the rail yards and the industrial development and it led to the 710 freeway and the 110 and the 10 and the 405 and the 605.

When it rains, about 85-90% of that runoff goes into the LA River.

MARISSA: You can imagine a 51-mile corridor that outfalls into the Pacific Ocean down in Long Beach.

(traffic).

BRUCE: One of the reasons we have to import so much of our water in LA County is because we get rid of our water so quickly.

We don't use it to recharge our aquifers in an area that needs every drop of water we can get.

JULIAN: A lot of important water infrastructure has been built in disproportionately low-income communities, communities of color.

They didn't have a say in where these facilities were placed.

And they've been fighting these battles alone for 10, 50, 100 years.

(jazzy music).

LAURA CORTEZ: Good afternoon, Buenas Tardes.

This is East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice.

It's really, really important that the LA County Board of Supervisors understand that they have the power to create structures that prioritize water, that prioritize land, that prioritize equitable community engagements with Indigenous people, with communities of color that are severely impacted, that have been generationally struggling because of institutional practices that they have created.

(audience claps).

ANMARIE MENDOZA: For us Indigenous people, we don't look at the water as a resource.

We look at it as a relative, as a part of our family, and that's why we're so passionate about, you know, this, these kind of actions because we want to protect our relative, just like you want to protect your family when it's under threat.

Well, that's why we're here.

(gentle uplifting music).

MARISSA: Our voices were ignored.

The community's voices who have time and again asked for ecological restoration were ignored, and that matters.

(bird calling).

BRUCE: If we're going to restore the river back to health, we need to prioritize ecological and community health and resilience and figure out that balance of a healthy river with healthy communities along the river.

(sounds of nature over music).

DENNIS: Once again, let's say thank you for coming out here today.

We are at the Great LA River Cleanup.

And I just want to say I'm so grateful for all of you to come out here today.

We're able to do so much because of y'all.

You know, when we get together, we can accomplish really great things.

(gentle music continues).

MARISSA: Friends of the LA River was formed in 1986 and really with the singular vision of wanting to bring the river back to life.

And for us, what that means is a verdant green river that serves the communities alongside it, specifically in this era of climate change.

DENNIS: Here you go.

MARISSA: So we're doing it across nine weekends through June and July in all different sections of the river.

VOLUNTEER: I found a horseshoe!

I wonder if it's lucky.

CUONG TAC: I know that I want more people to come out here every time, instead of paying for the gym, come out here and exercise and clean up the environment.

DAVID MAIER: I love nature, and, you know, we only got one earth, so we've got to preserve it.

(music continues).

MARISSA: For most people who participate in our cleanups, it's the first sort of brush with the river that they've had.

They've been in this environment that they didn't know existed and that now they feel connected to and responsible for it.

(music, traffic, nature sounds).

JULIAN: The Clean Water Act is like any other law in that it will only be equitable if it's enforced equitably.

RADHIKA: We can't fulfill the promise of the Clean Water Act unless we center ourselves in equity and environmental justice.

(church bell).

DR. ALI: We have to understand that when we're talking about the Clean Water Act, that we're also talking about people's lives.

We know that there's still work to do.

Our most vulnerable communities often were not fully benefiting from the Clean Water Act the way that other communities have been able to.

We have crumbling infrastructure in our country and in some communities, non-existent infrastructure.

(dramatic music).

(sound of water fall).

(Native American inspired music).

(speaking in native language).

DR.

CRYSTAL TULLEY-CORDOVA: Within my matrilineal as well as my father's side, we both have water that's associated with our identity.

We have indigenous ecological knowledge that was taught to me ever since I was a young kid.

Being able to understand more about the natural world that I grew up in and its relationship to water was really integral in who I am and where I am today.

(bird calling) (upbeat guitar music).

DR. TULLEY-CORDOVA: I am a principal hydrologist for the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources.

The Navajo Nation is the largest populated and land-based tribe in the United States.

So, we'll be stopping there.

On the Navajo Nation, we have a large population of people that don't have running water.

I was part of that percentage at one point in my life.

The percentage now is approximately 30% of people in the Navajo Nation don't have access to clean water or sanitation services in their home.

(metal clanking).

So these are the barrels that the water is hauled in.

(metal clanking, water running into basin).

I don't want to waste any water.

Ever since I was like the same age as my children, this wash basin has been here.

(thump of bucket).

Growing up in a house without running water, I guess I didn't realize it, it wasn't the lifestyle of everyone until I got older.

I think when a lot of people think about people that don't have running water, they all think of third-world countries.

They think of Africa, but they never think of the United States.

There's a lot of labor associated with hauling water.

You have 55-gallon barrels.

You have water that you need not only for yourself, but also for your animals.

(dog barking over somber music).

There are challenges associated with it.

If your vehicle goes out, like, what do you do?

Like how do you haul water?

(car engine).

Now it's our turn.

(car doors closing).

Everyone's job is to be a water hauler.

(water dripping, nature sounds).

When you carry the water yourself, you know the value of that water, and that value of that water is priceless.

(nature sounds).

JASON JOHN: The Navajo people have been very conservative with water.

We've been living without water for so long that we're just trying to get basic access to water.

(mysterious music).

DR. TULLEY-CORDOVA: Our mission is to protect and manage water resources for the Navajo Nation, secure water rights.

It's important for us to be able to consider not only our generation, but the many of generations that will be coming behind us.

(dog barking over music).

I think sometimes when people say water is life, maybe they only think about the human perspective, and what can be left out is the natural world.

We think about the sapling trees that are in the Chuska Mountains.

We think about the medicinal plants that we gather.

We think about the food that we grow, the vegetables, the fruit trees.

It looks like they're almost ready.

You want to step up and see it?

NAABAAHII CORDOVA: Yeah.

DR. TULLEY-CORDOVA: Go ahead, take a bite.

(quiet music).

NAABAAHII: Good.

DR. TULLEY-CORDOVA: So we grow food.

We grow food to eat, and we grow food to share with our family and friends and neighbors.

And during harvest time, we don't have to purchase things in store and have them travel thousands of miles to get to us.

(birds chirping).

We do drip irrigation to help preserve water.

We don't flood irrigate this area.

(chatter).

When you think about any type of development, what do you need?

You need water.

You need utilities.

To plan for an unknown future, especially with climate change impacts.

And that's challenging.

Yeah, the 4Runner.

(somber music).

(nature sounds).

MICHELLE BROWN-YAZZIE: Just because you turn on your faucet doesn't mean that there's plenty of water available.

There isn't.

There's only so much from our planet that you can take without having an impact, a consequence.

MATT DIBBLE: Along with 29 other tribes, the Navajo have rights to Colorado River water.

But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 22nd that federal government treaty obligations do not include an affirmative duty to help the Navajo Nation get that water.

(flags blowing in the wind).

PRESIDENT BUU NYGREN: What if we settled our water rights in Arizona?

I know that it's been tried for decades and decades, but if everybody comes together, there's nothing that we can't accomplish.

The historic votes this week with the Southern Paiute, the Hopi, the Navajo Nation Council.

It's so amazing to see three tribal nations come together because we all live within the same boundaries.

We might as well fight together.

(applause).

PRESIDENT NYGREN: 24th day of May, right, here we go.

Historic.

I get the chills.

(cheering and clapping).

(upbeat music).

CLIFF BENTZ: The Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries will come to order.

REP. TERESA LEGER FERNADEZ: In New Mexico, we say agua es vida.

Water is life.

Water is also key to tribal sovereignty.

These agreements were not easy to reach.

Tribes are giving up their valuable senior rights in exchange for settlement and project funds.

The tribes have acted in good faith.

It's now Congress's turn to act and approve them.

REP. RUBN GALLEGO: The federal government has a legal obligation to protect tribal water rights.

Tribes were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands and often restricted from accessing significant water resources.

BRIAN NEWLAND: The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act will provide reliable and safe water for the Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.

This settlement authorizes $5 billion to acquire, build, and maintain essential water development and delivery projects.

REP. JUAN CISCOMANI: It is high time we right this wrong and ensure these families and communities have reliable water resources, which is the foundation of a thriving community.

PRESIDENT NYGREN: No one in America should be denied access to water because of where they live.

These settlements will ensure a safe and secure water supply available and accessible to tens and thousands of Navajo people now and for future generations.

(drumming).

(horns playing, crowd murmuring).

DR. TULLEY-CORDOVA: For our tribe, it's thinking about the future.

Thinking about the opportunities we have that can exist with the foundational element being water.

(parade sounds continue).

(mysterious music).

DR. ALI: We're blessed that we're in a moment now where there are literally significant more resources that are finally there.

Question is, will we dedicate those resources to the spaces and places that need them the most, or will it once again go to those who have power and privilege?

Now, when you look at areas like the Black Belt down in Lowndes County, Alabama, you know, we've got folks who are literally walking in human waste because we have not yet addressed those issues properly.

CATHERINE: The waste water issue in Lowndes County is really where people never get access to basic sanitation in the first place, or they have failing septic systems, or they're living next to sewage lagoons where everybody's waste goes into a pond.

The reason the problem hasn't been solved because people have not acknowledged that it's a problem until recently.

(footsteps).

CHARLIE MAE HOLCOMBE: I've been dealing with this sewage problem ever since I've been here.

When you wash sometimes, it used to be where the water would back, back up even in the washer from the raw sewage.

When you go to wash, maybe a second, third load, you go to back it back up, coming back up in the washer and all.

I mean, it has been so disgusting.

And I can tell when the lagoon, something's going on.

The sewage comes up in the bathtub, come up from the sewer and got on the floor.

CATHERINE: What she talk about the lagoons, it's like a lake full of raw sewage that's right on the other side of those homes.

In Lowndes County, Alabama, actually throughout the state of Alabama, but certainly in Lowndes County, Alabama, we know that at least 90% of the septic systems, or the onsite systems, are failing.

The average age of these systems was 21 years old.

But we've also found people getting systems that are two years old and failing.

ANNYE BURKE: That's my home right there.

And I actually had the same issue.

If it rains, if it got too full, it will overflow, you know, it will come back up in my bathtub or the bathroom.

CATHERINE: This is not just a Lowndes County issue.

And I think when people look at it in isolation like that, they miss the boat.

And what we don't want is infrastructure that's going to keep failing.

(somber music).

It's not just a Lowndes County or an Alabama problem.

And that's why we call it America's dirty secret.

The other problem is that with climate change, we're seeing tropical diseases emerging.

In the parasite study that we conducted, more than 33% of the people tested positive for some form of hookworm, DNA from hookworm.

I just read an article that talked about polio coming back to this country.

And one way in which polio can be spread is through feces.

(insects buzzing).

I think when the Clean Water Act was put in place, it was well-intentioned.

But I think that we're now talking about it because it's not just a plumbing problem.

It's because we have developed wastewater infrastructure that cannot deal with the current reality.

And now that the EPA, the White House, and USDA is acknowledging there's a problem, means that there could be solutions on the horizon.

(cars driving over gravel).

RADHIKA: So today we are here with Catherine Flowers to really help ensure that the 2 million people across the country that don't have access to water infrastructure finally have that access through investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

And what we're doing with that initiative is making sure that rural communities that have never had access to centralized wastewater infrastructure will finally get it.

(insects chirping, footsteps).

CATHERINE: Well, first of all, I would like to just say that this is a very historic moment to have the guests that we have here today in Lowndes County.

The Secretary of Agriculture, the EPA Administrator, thank you so much.

SECRETARY TOM VILSACK: Well, actually, our thanks is to you uh and Mrs. Grant uh for putting a spotlight on a problem that shouldn't exist in America today.

Shouldn't have existed in America at any time.

So we're announcing today 11 projects in seven states across the United States to begin addressing issues like this because 2.2 million Americans today live in circumstances where they literally don't have uh the right kind of sanitation.

Mrs. Grant, we're going to take care of this.

AQUILLIA GRANT: Just to see this get fixed, it'll be thankful for me.

SECRETARY VILSACK: So my partner here, uh we've worked closely together on a lot of projects, but I think this one's personal to both of us.

Michael.

MICHAEL REGAN: The President heard Catherine Flowers' advocacy.

No one in America in 2022 should have to have a hole in their backyard where waste flows in some of the very places that our children play in.

(cars on gravel).

CATHERINE: I think that our water and sanitation is a human right.

People in Lowndes County are entitled to the same rights and privileges of all other Americans.

(uplifting music).

(rushing water).

(birds chirping).

(birds squawking).

(boat horn).

(New Orleans inspired jazz music).

(music turns more sinister).

(wind howling, waves crashing).

(house crashing down).

CALLER: The water's steadily rising in the attic, ma'am.

And I'm going to drown in the attic.

CALLER 2: In the attic are me, and my little sister, and my mom, they got water in the whole house.

MALE: Pray for me now.

WOMAN: Oh sir, I will pray, I will have to pray for everybody, even myself.

JESSICA: I started this work after Hurricane Katrina.

My birthday is the day after Katrina hit.

The Water Collaborative started in 2013, just kind of as a community group.

But in 2017, it formalized.

The work that we do now on water quality, water affordability, water access, insurance, environmental justice was added on when I became the director.

(group talking).

So who wants to go first?

We'll try to keep it brief.

I know there's a few top line items.

Maybe Joey, Keree, y'all can go first since y'all just came back from the P-3 conference.

JOEY ALGIER: Yeah, I think that now that we've done it, the community stuff, getting it more and more... JESSICA: The Water Collaborative is really unique because from our inception, we started with landscape architects, engineers, community based organizations, and national groups thinking about how do we solve water equity issues.

(group talking over each other).

Today, we work with tons of people.

We have over 500 partners.

We work with national groups, state legislators, government agencies, and the list goes on.

JOEY: So now getting to see like all of these like umbrella people, how we've kind of worked with them... JESSICA: We organize around water issues and water justice challenges.

People come to us for really understanding what the challenges are.

SAMANTHA COOKE: So we have eight, eight more videos for "Don't Water It Down," and then we've 10 gotten coming out with the drag queens, so... JESSICA: We're all millennials and Gen Z.

We're very excited.

We're a vibrant bunch.

KEREE BLANKS: We gave them a good presentation.

Like yeah, like... JESSICA: I want them to be out in the community.

I want them to be talking to people.

I want them to be educating people.

I want them to be a part of the places and spaces that they need to be in.

KEREE: Me, myself, we know that it's a daily struggle with water.

And a part of fighting that struggle is why we drafted up these recommendations for a stormwater fee.

JESSICA: New Orleans has a major flooding issue.

One of the reasons why it has a flooding issue is because many people don't pay into drainage, especially non-profits and big entities.

You guys passed the Superdome on the way here.

They don't pay into drainage.

The Convention Center doesn't pay into drainage.

Only residents do.

(water sloshing).

So we have a plan created to have everybody pay into the system.

It's the first ever stormwater fee program created for and by residents in the United States.

We're very, very proud of it.

I really wanted to break the cycle.

I wanted to see, what does it take to have innovation and new ideas be pushed into policy, pushed into community?

(conversation).

OLIVER THOMAS: The fear of a flood, the fear of a natural disaster is always to go back to what you did in the past.

Jessica is trying to say, hey, hold on.

Here's some new tools.

Uh, here's an opportunity for some new resources.

Here's some new public policy so that we don't have to go back to the past, which didn't work.

But we can retool and move forward.

(jazz music).

(horse hooves clopping on pavement).

DINAH CAMPBELL: I was glad when she got into water because we really need people fighting for us and educating us.

JESSICA: I see how much when it rains or when there's any type of storm event, everybody in the city gets so stressed.

So a lot of PTSD around it.

DINAH: A lot of PTSD around it.

JESSICA: Yeah.

The trauma of hurricane after hurricane, flood after flood, but also rising insurance rates, rising cost of living, and no one's trying to deal with the problem.

The federal government, they failed us, and they're still failing us.

There's evidence of all the things that work better than levees or can complement levees, but they don't even want to hear it.

OLIVER: Our fight against water has cost us, instead of learning to live with water.

We're learning now that in many cases we pumped and drained too much water out, which causes subsidence.

We went too far.

(seagulls).

(eerie music).

JESSICA: When they dredged the Mississippi and they dredged the swamps and the marshes, they drained it to intentionally make it seem like you're not in a swamp and make it seem like you're not in a place that is a wetland, that is a coastal community.

(ship horns).

(footsteps).

New Orleans has always been a swamp and a marsh, and we forget that, but this is a reminder of, this is what the city looked like before the pump stations and before infrastructure came in.

It looked just like this.

So I love coming out here, one, it's just tranquil, you forget that you're in a city.

It's quiet, all you hear is the wildlife.

You could be a part of nature.

(bugs buzzing, birds chirping).

(bird splashing in water).

JESSICA: In order to deal with storm surge or deal with flooding, you need multiple lines of defense, which needs to include healthy swamps and marshes.

And being that this is the first point of entry outside of the city, you see why it's so important to keep this healthy and strong.

Because if it floods, this marsh can take that on.

But if it's not healthy, it's gonna go straight for the city, which is right down the way.

(somber music).

(boat engine, people talking).

MICHAEL HOPKINS: So what's it feel like to be back in Neptune Pass?

JESSICA: Well, I always love being on the water, and it's always a learning experience.

It tells a different story of the Mississippi River, and a story that most people don't know about.

MICHAEL: New Orleans is essentially walled off from the water.

We've done that to the river.

We've built levees to prevent river flooding.

We have disconnected the river from the ability to replenish itself.

The ultimate fate of a delta is that it compresses and subsides, and it is eventually, if not replenished, it floods.

(bright music).

We're starting to see uh developing islands, sandbars, a tremendous amount of sediment coming out of the river.

This is delta building.

This is what it looks like.

It's literally building out into open water.

You are getting the banks of the channel now being colonized by willow trees, these taller trees in the distance right there.

Those are willow trees.

(horn blaring).

Corps of Engineers realized that the pass was taking more and more of the river's discharge.

You can see ships in the satellite image.

Um, but basically, as they pass Neptune, it's taking so much water that they start to drift into the pass.

They're being pulled into it, and river pilots, you know, they don't like that.

Those cross currents can be quite dangerous.

And their emergency action, they put rocks on the bottom right here to maintain the channel from getting bigger.

(construction noise over music).

JESSICA: Really thinking about how do we live with the land while also ensuring that people have jobs, that they have a high quality of life.

And that goes to the concept like of learning how to live with water, finding that safe balance between economy and then also restoration, protection, which is having the marshes and the barrier islands and everything to help with that storm surge and prevent that during a hurricane or a natural disaster like that.

You need that.

MICHAEL: To get out here and actually see what the river is capable of doing in the face of climate change, in the face of sea level rise.

JESSICA: Right.

MICHAEL: All we have to do is actually just reconnect it to the wetlands and we get new land.

JESSICA: And we get new land.

Let her do her job.

I always tell people, just let her do her job that she wants to do.

So when we let her do her job, everybody wins.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

(nature sounds over soft guitar music).

(children talking excitedly).

DR. ALI: I'm inspired by young people, the transformational movements that they have in place.

You know, it doesn't matter if you're from someone who's had more wealth or less wealth.

Everybody can play a role.

Everybody comes together.

That's the beauty of youth.

LA'TANYA SCOTT: The Cahaba River Society is a non-profit organization.

We take students and teachers out into the river and build a connection with folks who may have not had the opportunity to step foot in their water source.

LA'TANYA: Good morning everybody, I'm La'Tanya.

CHILDREN: Good morning!

LA'TANYA: Oh, I love it, sounds awesome.

So with the CLEAN program, we go fishing.

We're looking at life, biodiversity in the river.

So we work together, we're building teamwork and talk about why it's important to protect their water.

Scientists go fishing every day.

And they also test the water every day.

And you guys are gonna act as mini scientists testing the water out today.

Cahaba River is where they get majority of their drinking water from.

We have to build that connection for the kids.

We're actually walking in the Little Cahaba, which is a tributary that feeds into the main Cahaba.

We always say be kind to your downstream neighbors.

Wherever you are, you are upstream of another river.

What do you guys think we're gonna be doing right now?

Do you see these nets over there?

CHILDREN: Yeah.

LA'TANYA: What do you think we're gonna be doing?

Ooh, nice.

I love to go fishing.

We're gonna catch quite a few if we work together as a team.

All right guys, bring those fish in, fishy fishy.

Stay together, stay with me, don't pass me.

Don't pass me.

It doesn't matter.

Keep going, come on, stay together.

All the way, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

(children walking and splashing).

(excited talking).

In the bucket, now go over there.

You can get a fish, Patience.

Now, put it in the bucket.

Yeah, now go over there.

TEACHER: Patience, uh-uh, Patience, back up.

LA'TANYA: Patience, come here.

Seeing their eyes open up with excitement and enjoyment.

We want to come back out here with their parents and hopefully protect it for the generations to come in the future.

(uplifting, happy music).

I have hope.

I have hope that our programs for our nonprofit organizations to teach the youth that hey, this is a great place, and we want you guys to protect it for your families and for also the generations to come.

JULIAN GONZALEZ: Everyone is downstream of someone, and most people do agree that clean water is important.

(nature sounds).

DR. ALI: There are so many different things that are tied to water and why we need to be really, really focused on protecting that resource.

Everybody can play a role.

Everybody comes together.

DENNIS: When we work towards clean water, we're benefiting all of us.

("Make The World A Better Place" song plays over end credits) A little more equality would go a long, long way.

To make this world a better place.

I don't really care whose God it takes.

Let's make a change before it gets too late.

A little understanding would go a long, long way.

To make this world a better place.

ANNOUNCER: For more information and toolkits, go to www.upstreamdownriver.org Major funding for this program was provided in part by the Walton Family Foundation, working to protect our water for future generations.

Additional funding was provided by the following.

For a complete list of funders, go to aptonline.org.