Clean Water Profile: Maria Russo

For this Clean Water Profile, West Virginia Rivers Coalition’s Clean Water Campaign Coordinator Maria Russo weighs in on the joys and challenges of her work, de-centering from the now, and finding her way home. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Maria at the Coalition’s 2023 State Leads Retreat near Harrisburg, PA.

Kara Siglin: Tell me a little about your story – how did you get into the work you do now with West Virginia Rivers Coalition?

Maria Russo: My name is Maria Russo and I work for West Virginia Rivers Coalition! I grew up in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, right between Shepherdstown and Harper’s Ferry. West Virginia is very near and dear to my heart; I think it’s a very special and unique place. I studied public policy at Brown University in Rhode Island and became engaged in a lot of justice work. I began my career working in the realms of restorative drug policy and criminal justice policy, leading a variety of strategic policy campaigns. When the pandemic started in 2020, I really missed home. I had been away from West Virginia for about eight years at that point, and it was time. I pivoted back home and felt like I finally landed. During that time of flux, I was also trying to figure out how my career fit into everything. I worked in education for a little while, and then got offered this opportunity to lobby for the West Virginia Environmental Council. I went down to Charleston during the 2023 legislative session, and I was lobbying for environmental protection for the state. I also started a farm with my sister, who had similarly returned to West Virginia. I suddenly felt like so many pieces of my life had come together – my public policy background, my justice background, my love for the land – being back home in West Virginia. It was like all of these things that I had done across the first 28 years of my life finally fit.

KS: Tell me more about your lobbying experience and how that led to what you do today.

Maria and her sister, Rosie, on their farm.

MR: During the 2023 legislative session, we successfully helped pass the PFAS Protection Act to get forever chemicals out of our West Virginia waters, and we also secured funding to get the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to hire more oil and gas well inspectors. While I was lobbying, I met Angie Rosser, who runs the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, and started collaborating with her. West Virginia Rivers Coalition had provided a lot of the materials and background research on the PFAS Protection Act, and I really found myself admiring the voice that they had and the work that they were doing. It turned out that they had a job opening at the end of the legislative session, and I started at West Virginia Rivers Coalition on May 1st! For me, 2023 was a lot of re-orienting, but also finding these solid places to land. I’m now serving as the Clean Water Campaign Coordinator for West Virginia Rivers Coalition, where I also serve as the West Virginia State Lead for the Choose Clean Water Coalition. My role includes a lot of different things, but essentially, I’m furthering our public policy and legislative goals, with environmental justice, advocacy, and community engagement mixed in.

KS: Thank you for that! I knew bits and pieces of your story, but it’s inspiring for me to hear about things clicking for you. Could you have imagined that you would be doing this five or ten years ago?

MR: I couldn’t really have imagined it. When I left West Virginia for school, I was bound and determined to leave. My home was very dear to me, but I also felt this urge to go see the world. And I did! I don’t think I would have expected my current path, but now, ten years later, it makes so much sense. I had to go out and experience all of those things, and I’m so glad I did, but there was also this constant longing for home. I was always comparing these different places to what I knew. It has been really rewarding to come home to that place that I know, but with a more expanded worldview. I have a better understanding of why I am here, what this really means, and how valuable it all is to me.

KS: You mentioned West Virginia is unique; it’s so close to D.C. and Baltimore, but is still very rural. What challenges are you seeing in the state right now? What are you working on?

Maria with her farm’s fresh goods.

MR: The challenges feel very real and very present most days, but so does the hope. One unique thing about West Virginia is how much people love this place they call home. More than a lot of places I’ve been, people here care so much about the natural environment. Their lives are built around these mountains and these rivers and this land, and it’s so dear to them. It’s also sometimes taken for granted. One of the biggest challenges we have in West Virginia’s environmental efforts right now is industry’s efforts to gather the state’s rich resources. Historically, that has been coal. West Virginia powered a lot of places in the country and in the world with coal, but our people were not always taken care of. Our land definitely was not; there was a lot that was exploited. You can see present-day impacts of it, too, like in the PFAS contamination. We have an extremely hard time with PFAS contamination in different parts of the state, particularly the Eastern Panhandle and the Ohio River Valley.

A couple of other topics we’re facing right now include a hydrogen hub that is getting ready to be placed in West Virginia. We’re trying to figure out the dynamics of this hydrogen hub coming into our communities. We don’t want to give all of our resources away and again not have our people cared for, not have our land cared for. Same with the oil and gas industry. A lot of oil and gas companies are going bankrupt, or people are just walking away from their operations, so we’re dealing with a lot of orphaned wells and abandoned coal mines. The people that are from here and live here are the ones that will have to experience the repercussions of that for a long time. We are truly looking into securing the long-term sustainability of these practices.

The last piece I wanted to say is that we understand that the reason we’ve had coal, oil, gas, hydrogen, or even PFAS production is that those products are very useful. For example, PFAS is waterproof, water-resistant, stain-resistant; these chemicals have properties that are literally unlike anything else. The problem is that when we use something like this, we are not always seeing the long-term effects of those activities. We’re only thinking about the immediate benefits. A lot of the work we try to do is to zoom out and think about the downriver and long-term impacts. It’s about recognizing that these things are useful, but they can’t come at a cost to human life or wilderness protection – things that West Virginians have a particular love for and want to see sustained into the future.

KS: I feel like so much of environmental work is trying to de-center from the now and look at 50 years down the line, look at 200 years down the line instead. It’s so hard.

MR: Exactly. I’m actually reading this really awesome book right now called Becoming Kin. It’s by Patty Krawec, an amazing indigenous author. She talks about not thinking about right now, but instead thinking about generations from now. How do we reconnect to each other and think about the impact on each other instead of only what we need in this current moment, which our capitalist, consumerist society has deemed as normal?

KS: I find that sometimes the most challenging environments can be the most rewarding. What is the most rewarding part of your work? What keeps you going?

Maria and her sister Rosie.

MR: I feel like I have a lot of answers to that, but the first thing that came to mind is my team! West Virginia Rivers Coalition has grown a lot in the last few years, and for the first time ever, we have nine people. It’s a big deal for us. We now have people across the state of West Virginia, so it’s a really cool opportunity to do specific work in our local communities but then also have a statewide vision of what we’re helping to contribute to. Last week, we were all together in Blackwater Falls, and it was so gorgeous. The falls were all covered in snow, and we had rooms that overlooked the rolling mountains. As I drive through the state to go to meetings or to do programming, I’m reminded that this is why I do what I do. It seems silly to say, but it’s about those picturesque moments for me. And then sometimes I’m driving along Corridor H, a contentious topic in the region, or I’m driving past a strip mine, and it’s truly so present. I don’t know how people pass things and don’t say anything. I want to ask people, “Do you see what’s happening?! We need to do something about it!” In my work, I am honored that I get to contribute to these issues in both in my local community and statewide. The people I work with are amazing people who care so much about this work and who put their hearts in it every day. It feels really cool to be in a collective of people from all over West Virginia, working for a common good. They’re really what helps me keep going.

KS: It sounds like it’s really visual and visceral for you.

MR: Exactly! Last year, when I was lobbying for the legislative session, I had to drive across the state all of the time. I haven’t been to every part of West Virginia – that is a goal of mine, to get to more parts that I haven’t been to – but I have driven back and forth across this place quite a bit, and it really is that. It’s visual, visceral, I can feel my heartstrings being pulled. I am reminded that I do this work for the land that we love.

KS: Okay, next one is a fun one. What do you like to do in your free time outside of work?

MR: I mentioned how I have a farm, so I spend a lot of time especially when it’s nicer weather – not so much this time of year, but March through October I’m outside working the land. We have a big farm party and music festival in August called Tomato Jam, so I spend some of my free time during the summer prepping and planning for that, and growing a bunch of tomatoes and seasonal veggies. Also, as cliché as it might sound, I love spending time on the river. We go out on the Shenandoah if we want to have a bit more whitewater, or we can chill and do some lazy river boating on the Potomac side. In a boat, a tube, a kayak, get me in the water however you can! It’s an important part of the work, too. West Virginia Rivers Coalition started as a recreation-based organization, so it feels good to tie my work and my purpose into my free time. Other than that, I love going to live music events, and really any event happening in my local community. Any moment to bring people together, listen to music, eat good food, and have a good time, I’m all in on that.

KS: Would you say that those rivers are your favorite place in the Bay watershed?

Maria on the Potomac River near Harpers Ferry.

MR: One hundred percent! These rivers feel like home. But I will say, I really do love going east as well to check out other parts of the Bay. My partner grew up in Annapolis and has family there so it is always fun to explore. Recently, I went to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Philip Merrill Environmental Center for the first time. It was so gorgeous! We watched the ospreys diving and the sailboats out on the water. It’s cool to remember that the waters I love and spend so much time on flow right out to there. It’s all a huge cycle, so connected. I love that about water; it just keeps flowing!

KS: That’s part of the work that the Choose Clean Water Coalition is trying to do - to get people to connect their rivers and streams with everything that’s coming out into the Chesapeake Bay and into the Atlantic. Conceptually, I think that can be really hard to get if you live so far away.

MR: Totally! It’s hard to get people to buy into protecting the Bay if they’ve never seen the Bay. I grew up eating Maryland blue crabs – my dad is from Baltimore, and I sometimes went to Annapolis – so I can see the connection, but for other people I imagine it’s really hard to understand what that means. It’s kind of like saying “Protect the Atlantic Ocean!”, but if you live far from the ocean, it probably feels less important to you. That’s one thing I’ve loved about the Coalition, too, is that I’ve gotten to go to new places around the watershed. Every place we go has a very different feel. When you start to see all those pieces and how they fit together, you can see the very important work that the Coalition’s doing. I appreciate it.

KS: One last question for you. What advice, if any, would you give to a young person thinking about breaking into the environmental world or thinking about what do with their career? Any words of wisdom?

MR: I would say that, whatever your life path, it doesn’t make sense until all of a sudden, it does. Every single thing you do in life really will be for something, but in that moment, you can’t always see what that something is. Trust the process. I also try to live my life based on values, even in my career. Often our careers are seen as a separate thing from the people we want to be, but I believe that there’s a world where we can bring those pieces of ourselves together. Part of that is really trusting that that will all be worth it. I do think that in the environmental field, it can sometimes feel like a sacrifice, but it’s for the heart work. It’s hard work, but it comes from the heart and I do think that as we envision the future and the world that we want to see, we have to make room for people to do the work they believe in. That’s the advice I would give – don’t be afraid to do work that matters to you, and all of the other pieces will fall into place in time. Contribute to something larger than yourself and trust that that will come around. It will be worth it in the end.