The Riverkeeper

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

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4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fred Tutman is the voice of the river. Specifically, Maryland’s Patuxent River. As the Riverkeeper, his job is to protect and preserve all 110 miles of that waterway – a role that takes him both to the courtroom and to the riverbank. But Fred is also the only African American Riverkeeper in the United States, a fact he sees as an indicator of an environmental movement that is incomplete. And it’s the planet that will pay the price.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:13.0	I'm Lizzy Peabody. You have no sense of civilization. There are sections of this river. You could be on the Amazon Amazon. I mean this is no human habitation
0:34.0	obvious. It's pretty cool. I met Fred Tutman on a sweltering July day by the
0:40.6	banks of Maryland's Patuxent River, about 30 minutes outside DC.
0:45.0	The water was so glassy I could see water bugs skittering along its surface.
0:49.6	It was hard to tell the water was moving at all until a little leaf floated by.
0:54.0	Some of this land is Smithsonian land by the way.
0:57.0	I'm pretty sure that there's a big ownership of Smithsonian owned land along the Patuxent
1:01.0	in this area.
1:02.0	It's beautiful.
1:04.0	Here, I'm going to dip my toe in here.
1:07.0	Fred is a member of the Director's Circle at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center,
1:16.0	but his full-time job is Riverkeeper with a capital R.
1:20.6	And as the Patuxent River-keeper are.
1:23.0	And as the Patuxent Riverkeeper, his only job is to protect and preserve the Patuxent River,
1:29.0	all 110 miles of it.
1:32.0	But his love for this quiet bend in the river is personal.
1:37.0	I mean as a boy this was our swimming hole. This was where I would hang out and do my little
1:41.5	Huck Finn routine, you know.
1:43.0	But I love this part of the river because it does remind me as a boy, like it's placid, it's peaceful, there's nothing threatening here.
1:50.0	You know, granted there are probably copperheads and stuff, but...
1:52.0	What? Hang on.
	...

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