2026 Impact Report
Clean water protections do not happen automatically. Waterkeeper groups across six continents test our waters, take polluters to court, and win victories for our communities. This report closes our 2021–2026 strategic plan and sets the stage for the next five years of action. Here is what it added up to.
16.6M
Square kilometers of watersheds patrolled and protected
2.4B
People who rely on those waters
111
Court and policy wins
2.3M
Times people took action with us
What does that look like on the water?
Averages across 2021–2026.
Averages across the Waterkeeper movement, worked out from the five-year totals in the 2026 Impact Report. Real work comes in surges, not a steady drip.
The 2021–2026 plan
In late 2020, more than 260 Waterkeeper groups, partners, and supporters set three priorities for the movement. Here is how each one landed.
Accountability in 2026
From a federal courtroom in Louisiana to a pellet count on the Texas coast. Filter by issue, then open the page in the full report.
Atchafalaya Basin, Louisiana
A federal court vacated and blocked the permit for a project that threatened wetlands, fisheries, and flood protection, finding the approval failed to weigh impacts and alternatives. It caps more than 15 years of advocacy by Atchafalaya Basinkeeper and partners.
New York City
With Hudson Riverkeeper, Save the Sound, NY/NJ Baykeeper, and partners, we won a ruling that strengthens the Sewage Pollution Right to Know Act, so swimmers, boaters, and anglers know when sewage and polluted stormwater reach local waterways.
United States
We joined partners in challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rule extending deadlines for steam electric pollution controls, which lets coal-fired power plants keep discharging mercury, arsenic, and selenium into waterways.
United States
With Cape Fear River Watch and coalition partners, we sued over EPA’s withdrawal of standards that would have limited phosphorus discharges from at least 126 meat processing facilities and kept millions of pounds of nutrient pollution out of waterways each year.
United States
We appealed an EPA rule that exempts industrial animal feeding operations from reporting hazardous air emissions such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.
Washington, D.C.
As EPA moved to narrow which “waters of the United States” the Clean Water Act protects, 98 U.S. Waterkeeper groups joined our comments against the rollback. Ten groups joined us in four meetings with members of Congress, and six testified with us at two EPA public hearings.
Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee
With the Center for Water Security and Cooperation we released Protecting Clean Water at the State Level After Sackett, showing how states can strengthen protections for rivers, streams, and wetlands as federal safeguards weaken.
Washington, D.C.
Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Patty Murray sent letters demanding accountability from the U.S. Department of Defense for delayed cleanups of PFAS-contaminated military sites. In congressional meetings, Waterkeeper groups reinforced our October 2025 letter urging faster cleanup.
United States
We asked EPA for its records on efforts to delay and weaken national drinking water standards for PFAS, including an unreleased toxicity assessment. PFAS communications reached nearly 1.2 million people.
249 sites in 31 states, the District of Columbia, and six countries
More than 1,000 volunteers took part and found a major hotspot near Dow’s Seadrift Operations Facility in Texas. San Diego Coastkeeper also reached a settlement to prevent pellet spills from trains along California’s coast.
The Bahamas and Sénégal
Coalitions with Waterkeepers Bahamas, Hann Baykeeper, and Bargny Coast Waterkeeper pushed back on oil and gas expansion. Timed with the 2026 UN Water Conference preparatory meeting in Dakar, campaign leaders presented the findings of our white paper, Threat Below the Surface.
Exposing plastic pollution
The second International Plastic Pellet Count brought more than 1,000 volunteers to 249 sites in 31 states, the District of Columbia, and six countries. Seventeen Waterkeeper groups took part and removed more than 724,000 pellets from shorelines and waterways.
At one hotspot on Texas’ Victoria Barge Canal, near Dow’s Seadrift Operations Facility, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper collected about 715,000.*
“The line is drawn and we demand zero discharge of plastic.”
*Estimated by weight: 32.5 pounds of collected material at about 22,000 pellets per pound. Other volunteers collected more pellets at the same site.
Our network in fiscal year 2026
From July 2025 to June 2026, six new Waterkeeper groups joined, six regional summits brought the network together, and every month we profiled one Waterkeeper. Choose a marker or a name.
Millicent Olal-Muchilwa (also a Waterkeeper profile)
Kisumu, Kenya
Expanding protection across the northern basin of Lake Victoria, where industrial contamination and plastic pollution threaten surrounding communities.
Accountability starts at home
Fiscal year 2025–2026
Top-RatedCharityWatch (view Waterkeeper Alliance’s rating; opens in a new tab)
4 StarsCharity Navigator (view Waterkeeper Alliance’s rating; opens in a new tab)
PlatinumCandid, formerly GuideStar (view Waterkeeper Alliance’s rating; opens in a new tab)
20 of 20BBB Wise Giving Alliance Standards for Charity Accountability (view Waterkeeper Alliance’s rating; opens in a new tab)The full report
Page through it here, jump to a chapter, or download the PDF.
The PDF is the accessible version for screen readers.
Waterkeeper Alliance has adopted a new 2027–2031 Strategic Plan to strengthen Waterkeeper groups, elevate our collective voice, advance and defend clean water protections, and build the capacity to sustain the movement.
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