Hana Katz
Hana Katz (she/her) is a powerhouse in the New Jersey environmental scene and, recently, she brought her learnings from River Network’s Clean Water Act Training Series back to environmental commissioners in New Jersey. In this interview, Hana shares her path to advocacy. From growing up with flood evacuations to becoming a volunteer firefighter to co-founding a Gen Z climate action organization, Hana shows up for her values in so many meaningful ways. Hana believes that water is life and she envisions a future in which people don’t have to fight for clean water.
This interview was conducted by Carly Schmidt on November 22, 2024. Press play to listen, or find the full audio transcript below the audio player.
Transcript
Carly Schmidt (00:00): Hi, Hana, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you? Last I heard you were doing volunteer firefighting in New Jersey. How is everything and how are you doing?
Hana Katz (00:11): Yes, thank you so much for asking. So maybe about two weeks ago, I went out with my local rescue squad to assist the firefighters and first responders in responding to a wildfire at Black Run Preserve in Evesham, New Jersey. We are a volunteer squad who are helping first responders in these larger fires. And so unfortunately, we’ve had quite a few wildfires across the state over the past few weeks. New Jersey right now is experiencing a drought. And because of that, our groundwater levels are very low and almost in perfect timing, quite a few different towns across the state experienced very bad wildfires, some of the worst that they had ever experienced. And so I was just happy to be out there on the ground assisting, but it is unfortunate to see so many valuable preserved areas going up in flames. So that was tough.
Carly Schmidt (01:10): Yeah, it’s incredible that you do that. I mean, I’m thinking living over here in Colorado, I feel very lucky that we’ve had a lot of precipitation, which is unusual for this time of year. Usually this is the time of year that kicks off a wildfire season. I think of wildfires in Colorado and like, yeah, that’s just something that happens all the time. But New Jersey, that was something when I heard about it, I was kind of just floored. Why did you decide to be a volunteer firefighter? Was it just looking ahead at the issues that you’re kind of foreseeing or is it being super tapped into the climate movement? What inspired that?
Hana Katz (01:45): Well, thank you for your thanks. I appreciate it. Really, I haven’t done much compared to people who go out and do this every day and who have been volunteering for much longer than myself. I just started this year. And like you said, New Jersey is not a place where you would think of there being many wildfires. But we actually have one of the, in comparison to our state size, we have proportionately one of the largest wildlife nature preserves in our state compared to the size of other states and their preserves. The Pine Barrens take up one third of our state and it’s quite a sandy area with trees that burn every year. And so we see throughout our country, Native Americans used to use wildfires and manage wildfires for land management purposes. And now we’re doing it at a different level. But I have family in Colorado and in California, for example, that say all of the time, New Jersey is so green. We love it here because it’s humid. New Jersey is interesting because we are in an area where we receive both extreme weather, we often receive wet weather, but we extreme very volatile weather as well. So lots of storms, lots of issues related to water level and drought and development and natural lands. And so you really get it all here and we’re a melting pot of people. So it’s quite literally the melting pot even when it comes to the environment. And you had asked why I’m doing firefighting. I’m someone who’s really cared about the environment since I was young because it’s something I grew up in. I lived along the Rancocas Creek, which is a tributary of the Delaware River watershed in South Jersey near Philadelphia. And it was in a home that my great grandparents had purchased back in the early 1900s. And when they had lived there, it had maybe flooded once a year. And everyone expected it and then it would go away the next day. Now we’re expecting it at a different level where my family evacuates our home maybe six times a year, roughly, and knows to go to the local hotel or come to my grandfather’s home because the water levels there have changed so drastically. And that’s due to a number of different reasons. But overall, we can say that climate change is really impacting our weather here in New Jersey. And I’m seeing it with my own eyes from my own personal experience, growing up in a place where firefighters used to have to rescue us in the middle of the night due to unexpected flash floods and water table increases. So we’ve had it all. We’ve had floods, we’ve had droughts. And unfortunately, due to very quick unsustainable development, we have so much impervious ground cover, that water is flowing on top of surfaces and flooding homes, overwhelming storm systems, and contributing to flooding downstream in places like where my family has lived for the last century. So it’s causing displacement and many other issues. So to me, I’m getting to see this firsthand impact of how human development and moving and changing impacts human lives in other places. And who’s to say we’re not doing that on a larger level?
Carly Schmidt (05:20): Thank you for all of your advocacy. You were recently connected to River Network through the Clean Water Act training cohort for folks in the Delaware River Basin. That was how we were connected. And Colleen gave me your information. And this really awesome story about how you brought this training program back to more folks. And the Train the Trainer model is something that we’ve been working on for a while, but it’s so wonderful to kind of see it in action and you kind of took on all of this learning and brought it to more folks. So I’m curious kind of of all the areas where you have opportunities to learn and grow as an advocate. Why the Clean Water Act? Why was this training the one that made you apply and honestly dedicate so much of your time and energy?
Hana Katz (06:13): This is going to be such a hard question to answer because it could easily start with, it all started when I was born and then philosophical analysis of life. But to quote the president of American Water here in Camden, New Jersey, he had said something at the Water Fest recently over the summer that I had attended. It is beautiful. And he had said, “History has taught us that we can build a civilization without electricity, but not without water.” And I think that is so true. Water is life. There are people who have not been so fortunate as myself; many people do not have access to clean water or affordable water. And I think you being in the River Network, perhaps you know this already, but only 2% of our world’s water is freshwater. And a huge amount of that is in glaciers and locked up in places where we can’t access it as potable drinking water. And that gave me quite a few existential crises as a kid, honestly. You know, I could watch all of the movies about aliens and ghosts in the world and nothing scared me more than natural disaster movies. I remember this movie called The Core when I was a kid about the core of the earth. And I know it’s, you know, it’s far out there, but those are things that we really can’t stop and are seeing, you know, we can’t stop tsunamis. We can’t stop earthquakes, but we can manage the way that we deal with them to the best of our ability and prevent damage from the beginning. And I definitely consider myself someone that sees the value in working together with the planet and not against it, which it seems that unfortunately we’ve been doing for a while.
Carly Schmidt (08:00): As far as the movies that inspired this feeling of the Earth is big and wondrous but also terrifying, for me that was Dante’s Peak, which was maybe a little bit before my time, but it’s the volcano movie. Nightmares.
Hana Katz (08:12): Yes!
Carly Schmidt (08:18):
And I was in Canada at the time, so this made no sense for me to be scared of this, but just like I think it’s just you know these experiences we have as children are so evocative of or they inspire so much like my gosh the the natural world is so big and so terrifying and deserves our respect but also protection. But it sounds like as a kid baby Hana was very…
Hana Katz (08:34): Traumatized! (laughs)
Carly Schmidt (08:44): No, not trauma, but environmental education! You know, even through these, but you knew, you knew somehow at that stage just seemed like it inspired some, I guess, lifelong interest.
Hana Katz (08:49): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I come from a line of environmentalists and professors. My grandfather was a professor for many years at Rutgers University as a chemist and he took part in the beginning of the environmental department there. And my mother worked for the Department of Environmental Protection for some time. And then I grew up in a natural area that was right outside of a highway, And I have this love for the planet. I really think that we don’t spend enough time together as communities living in our – I don’t want to say all of the United States because there are some very connected places in the United States – but where I grew up in the suburbs, it would take me like 40 minutes just to walk out of my neighborhood. And I saw often that people in other places got together more with their communities and their neighbors. And it sparked larger conversations And so I don’t want to say that I don’t want to diss any communities because I think every community has its ups and downs. But I do think that there are many missed opportunities for connection on a larger scale and I consider myself the connector. I’m always trying to bring people together because I don’t think I can do this alone. I think that the environmental cause and any cause in general is a community effort and so a big part of myself getting involved was wanting to get other people in on it with me, you know, wanting to show other people what I’ve learned and to have this collective movement, you know, to bring others together and move forward with bringing something good to our area, to our country as a whole. And I know that just it’s amazing how just one person has made change throughout history, but I think that the more voices, the better. I also feel very strongly about – I’m very empathetic, you and I really, really think that if we work together and speak about things in a more collective way, we can ensure that no one gets left behind and that these historic systemic issues that we’ve faced can be solved if we work together. I so many times have heard people, even my own friends and family members and people I’ve worked with say, there’s no making a difference. This is how things are. Why should I care? And I think that’s the problem, is that there’s not enough people speaking optimism and holding each other’s hands or lifting each other up when they feel down. So many people have turned to pessimism instead.
Carly Schmidt (11:29): Yeah, that community as a source of optimism is so important. I also, I remember in our first conversation, you had dropped this concept you’re thinking a lot about lately, which is optimistic nihilism. I did watch the video and was just kind of just felt so seen by it in a way of just like these two things that seem so contradictory existing together. I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about how that is showing up for you and your climate work. And then we’ll talk a little bit more about the education piece and bringing this back to, bringing the Clean Water Act back to other folks.
Hana Katz (12:03): I really want to inspire hope in people. I really think that hope is necessary because life is short and you don’t know what comes next. And therefore that makes every day on earth so much more special with each other and that’s because you know i was raised with a very scientific household with folks that were not very religious and so i got to see different religions from the outside and the collective message that i’ve gotten from all of these is be kind to your neighbor and live life to its fullest with a communal sense of mind here on this on this planet to do to do honor to what’s been given to us and this video I found also made me feel so see and I completely understand where you’re coming from. Shout out to the creator of these videos because he makes a lot of really wonderful videos analyzing the deeper meaning about our everyday lives and things that have happened in history. And the optimistic nihilism video essentially says that life on earth could be meaningless, we don’t know, but in a more optimistic view of it, we can make the meaning because we don’t know what happens next. And so what we can do is work together to make sure that our time here is beautiful and that each of us are taken care of. That’s what drives my interest as a scientist and I think many scientists I think people who are interested in learning the whys and the hows the beautiful thing about the river network is that you guys make everyone scientists you make it possible for citizens to do these citizen science programs and get involved and for people like myself to learn more about the policies and the science in the world and the laws that dictate our everyday lives.
Carly Schmidt (13:54): Thank you so much. I feel very honored to work with folks who have so much expertise in all these different places. Like Colleen, leading these Clean Water ACt trainings is one that’s very top of mind right now. But I think you’re so many things and it’s wonderful you’re describing yourself as a scientist and I love hearing about the background of your family as educators and you yourself are just such an educator and such a galvanizer. And so you went through this Clean Water Act training cohort over multiple weeks, applied to be a part of this program and then just took on all of this education for how folks can use the Clean Water Act to advance clean water policies curious if there was, like, what was the moment where you’re kind of, you’re in this training and you had said before that this training kind of encouraged cohort members to go off and challenge you to kind of use this training in very practical ways in your communities and with your own networks. And you brought this training back to the network at ANJEC, which is wonderful. But what was the moment in this training where you’re kind of, you’re learning about the Clean Water Act, not only history, but direct applications and the moment where you were like, more people need to know this. Was there one moment that kind of stands out for you?
Hana Katz (15:05): The moment I saw the online platform! I was like, this is so cool. Everyone needs to know about it. And I still have it. I’m literally looking at it in my bookmarks right now, above your head. River Network has created this beautiful online training platform for the Clean Water Act. And it is in module style with different lessons. And it happened to be during a time where I was not sleeping so well, so I’d find myself like, you know, in the morning I’d do a little bit while I was drinking coffee, I’d watch a video and do a little brainstorming and writing, or maybe like 11 o’clock at night, or I’m a little crazy, sometimes I wake up at like four in the morning, I start working and then I go to the gym. And so it was one of those time periods in my life where I was doing that. That’s not any comment really about River Network. They don’t keep you up at all hours, but it was so interesting to me that I was able to engage like that. And it was easy to look at too. I could even pull it up on my phone if I wanted and be on a treadmill and read stuff. So I would say that the first thing that caught my attention was how attractive and user friendly the platform was. I thought it was really easy to get a basic understanding, especially for someone like myself who’s just starting out in the environmental law side of things. It really provided a great background for the Clean Water Act and showed a lot of resources too that were not just papers to read but maps and visualizations So, you know, me having the gift of gab and also loving to connect people and bring things together. I immediately was like anyone who’s like myself xthat has limited time maybe but wants to learn more and perhaps is an up and coming professional could really really use this tool. Water is life and I cannot believe that it was only, what, 50 years ago that the Clean Water Act was put in place and the Clean Air Act. And we’ve seen substantial improvement in the environment since then. Hearing experts talk about it and then seeing pictures, I am like, wow, policy goes far, law goes far. And I didn’t quite learn that in school. I realized the Clean Water Act saved lives and saved the economy because if it was not for the Clean Water Act we would have so many people hurt and living in unhealthy conditions today that businesses would be paying for if they had not pulled back or scaled back on pollution or considered that after the Clean Water Act was put in place. It’s so important for people to understand these laws so that they can see violations with their own eyes and speak out against it for their own health and for the wellbeing of themselves and their own communities and their future generations
Carly Schmidt (17:55): Yeah, it’s so important to know this context too. Like we talk about the Clean Water Act. I feel like in two ways, we talk about this history all the time, you have this context which is important because otherwise you just take it for granted. Like the Clean Water Act is the law upon which the EPA was created out of the Clean Water Act. It is the foundation for our environmental policy as it exists today. And then you have this other side of the applicability, the practical applications, the places where citizens and organizations can make complaints against the Clean Water Act to hold folks accountable to these standards that make our world livable. So I’m curious what it was like for you to bring this training back to the folks at ANJEC. If you wouldn’t mind telling me a little bit about your organization, ANJEC, and what this audience was, and how they received all of this information.
Hana Katz (18:48): I am so thankful to be in the community, in the place that I work. I’m so thankful to be working for ANJEC, the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, because I get to work at the intersection of law and science with so many other people who are doing the same thing and are passionate about the environment. I have the pleasure of being their policy and project manager. Stephen Elliott from the Pylons Alliance, he’s also a part-timer at ANJEC, and so him and I worked together. And we thought, what can we do to bring this back to our audience? Because we want to ensure that as many people as possible are learning about the Clean Water Act and getting these tools that are available to them to live healthier, safer, lives. And so we decided to create a webinar as part of a larger series. So we said, “Hey everyone at ANJEC, we just finished this awesome training series with River Network for the Clean Water Act and we would like to see if we can bring environmental commissioners into the fold and municipal officials and anyone who’s our audience.” And from there, we thought it would be really great to do a Clean Water Act webinar 101 that turned into this awesome dynamic webinar that wasn’t long enough for all of the valuable information being told. So we’re definitely going to look into a part two for it. But it was Colleen from River Network talking about the Clean Water Act and its background. And then Michael Pissarro, the policy director at the Watershed Institute. They are a big watershed advocacy group here in New Jersey that does a lot of citizen science and policy advocacy at the state level. He talked about the legal cases that have happened in New Jersey and other ways local folks can help the environment. Then we had Chris Miller, the executive director of the Eastern Environmental Law Center, he spoke about the legal applications of the Clean Water Act on a federal level and on a state level especially with the Sackett case and then they answered questions. So it turned into this beautiful dynamic session where the attendees could ask any questions that they had about the Clean Water Act. Everything from what is it and how it works all the way to how it impacts my municipality on a legal level and what can we do to support it or uphold it in a better way. We help to support over 300 municipalities. And really anyone who has an environmental commission or a green team can turn to us for webinars, networking, support and advocacy at the state level, insight and expertise to solve their local problems. And then we will bridge them to any local organizations and anyone who can help them. So we engage environmental commissioners, which are really supposed to be the leading voice for environmental issues in their municipalities, but they’re volunteers and they need our help. giving them education sessions like this helps them to learn the basis of what maybe they did not learn themselves in their careers. And I want to help connect people to each other even if you are all the way in Denver, Colorado, or in New Jersey. We need to be having these larger conversations about how we can uphold these policies. It might, you know, so clean water and clean air are not just environmental problems but they’re health problems as well. There are so many cases where people’s clean water rights have been violated And we can see from Flint, Michigan, for example, what happens when you don’t invest early on in making sure that your water and drinking water is safe for your communities.
Carly Schmidt (22:32): I’m curious how these issues show up for environmental commissioners. They’re volunteers, so what kind of decision making power do they have and what authority are they given to to make changes?
Hana Katz (22:45): Great question. That’s one that I would really love to talk about because in the state of New Jersey, every municipality or town has the ability to create its own environmental commission. It’s much like a planning board where they’re appointed by the mayor and are essentially in charge of the municipality; they are the municipal liaison for environmental issues. And they work with the planning boards and with the mayor and local government or with any entity within their towns to relay environmental issues and weigh in as well. Now they have certain set duties, like for example, they are given the power to create an ERI, an environmental resource inventory for the municipality to utilize and understand what they have within their boundaries. But they also don’t have a lot of powers, which is something that we really want to work on and that a lot of people really think is necessary. Environmental commissioners are mayor appointed and volunteer. And that right there is a problem because people who don’t have time or the money often times cannot participate. And that’s not to say there aren’t amazing environmental commissioners now doing wonderful, awesome work but it shouldn’t have to be volunteer; they should have more authority to weigh in on environmental decisions for a municipality because right now they are purely advisory. And that’s where ANJEC comes in. Mayors don’t always appoint people who have an environmental background, And so us as ANJEC, if you’re a member of ANJEC, we help them to get the knowledge that they need to fight clean water violations for example, or to get in touch with organizations like the Watershed Institute that can help them to mobilize and provide data to why they should be protecting water at a greater level in their municipality. So it’s more of an advocacy entity and I would very much like to see the state of New Jersey give them some more authority because without that authority, when without pay and without resources, these groups are not as equipped as they could be to helping our communities in their constituencies.
Carly Schmidt (25:04): Mayor appointed; that presents a bunch of issues as well.
Hana Katz (25:08): Yes, there, luckily there are some great mayors that are appointing some very environmentally oriented people that care and do see these problems on a larger scale, but then you see the political games on the other end as well. And I wanna just have to provide a quick anecdote. Here in New Jersey, we have the Highlands region. And the Highlands region, I believe, provides water to like a third of the state. It’s a huge amount of people that get their water from these headwaters. And so the water flows from the highlands to the rest of New Jersey or is utilized through reservoirs and redirected and the highlands are constantly at risk of warehouse and property development and pollution and and you know political games like the ones we were just talking about where unfortunately, there are some political actors that don’t support environmental initiatives. And that’s scary because that’s where we get our water from, not just those local communities, but for the rest of our state and where some of our largest environmental preservations are. And so environmental commissioners are constantly working to stand up for the voiceless or for those who can’t make these meetings to be able to say that your actions as a developer or as a lawyer or as municipal official are going to impact your voter base, the constituents that didn’t maybe didn’t vote for you but live in your town. It’s going to impact the environment and four to five generations after you. And so environmental commissioners have a really tough job they could really use the support of their municipal officials, the public, and anyone else who’s willing to listen to be able to make this collective effort. There are places here in New Jersey where people don’t have access to clean water. And time and time again, we keep seeing people ask, where are our tax dollars going? And it starts to breed this mistrust in our local government and in our elected officials. Investing in environmental solutions as a way to make your voters happy too and to make people’s lives better on a personal level. ANJEC got on the ground to interview people to hear their firsthand accounts about how flooding impacted their personal lives, especially in places that were heavily impacted by Hurricane Ida, like Elizabeth, New Jersey and Newark, New Jersey. These are places that are also historically underserved and these places are still being underserved or overburdened and I hear things I remember this one individual spoke to us at Newark Greenfest last year and it said that they had lost their car due to a flood and all of their belongings were in their car and they had lost their job because of that because they were a freelancer and also using the car to get to a part-time job to afford living so the car was gone everything in the car was gone they lost their livelihood their marriage crumbled and i remember feeling so hurt that this is some people’s reality and feeling also hurt to hear the anger that that person felt And to see how much it impacted them on a personal level reminded me that there were people who had it much worse than myself when I was being evacuated from floods when I was a child. And I want to do everything in my privilege and my power to ensure that others are not impacted. So, bottom line, it’s really important for our municipal officials to care about what’s happening with the environment and their built structures and to work with environmental entities.
Carly Schmidt (28:40): Yeah, and experiencing that and hearing those stories kind of firsthand and, you know, also having to evacuate because of flooding yourself in your own childhood, like that can really radicalize a person and that can move a person toward a space of, wanting to engage in many different ways And so I would love to ask you about another passion project. You have many. What you brought to ANJEC is so wonderful to see learning continue and trickle down through different communities and through different lenses too. I’m also curious about your work with the Climate Revolution Action Network. What inspired you to co-found this organization and how is that showing up in all of the other ways that you’re showing up for folks in New Jersey and the people you care about?
Hana Katz (29:31): Yes, thank you so much for all your kind words and for bringing up CRAN. And you know, it’s quite a mouthful sometimes. So we just say CRAN, which is great because New Jersey has a huge amount of cranberry bogs in the Pine Barrens and a lot of history surrounding that. So CRAN and Jay. And our color is a cranberry. So we love CRAN.
Carly Schmidt (29:49): I love that.
Hana Katz (29:55): So yes, Climate Revolution Action Network New Jersey. We are a Gen Z based nonprofit based throughout all of New Jersey. We are statewide and our founders are spread throughout the state. I’m the oldest being 26 out of the founders. It’s myself; an individual named Ben Dizio Beck, really the executive director and the starter of the organization; Dave Roberts; and Chris Sertiro. We’re all involved in the environmental industry in different ways and we are essentially just a collective group of young people that were sick of seeing people talk but not actually taking action. We were sick of seeing elected officials make promises, but not follow through. And all of us have been impacted at a personal level by environmental disparities And so I was approached by them in the very baby stages of it. It was just Ben and Dave and then Chris came on not too long after and we were like, we need to start a group where young people are involved in the conversation. Because so many times young people don’t go out and vote And there’s a lot of people greenwashing their campaigns to seem like they care and many times the public is led to disappointment. And there is this mistrust, like we talked about earlier, in our local officials. So, Climate Revolution started as a way to get young people involved, to show what young people want and what kind of behavior we will tolerate from our elected officials. We support candidates that are running for certain positions that care about the future, we’ll go to candidates and we say, “Hey, can we talk to you a bit about what young people think in New Jersey about climate change and the environment?” And we try not to speak for everyone. We have meetings every other Thursday night via Google Meet and it is wonderful. Like last meeting, we had 40 people show up. Just at yesterday’s meeting, it was about the same. It’s really an impactful group of young people from, I think our youngest is 15 or 16 to about 33 looking for ways to get involved, ways to learn, and ways to make a bigger network for themselves. And so it’s helping them, it’s helping us to get the word out there, it’s helping municipal officials learn what young people want. It’s really a win-win for everyone having this organization in place. And I’m finding that we’re also serving an underserved population. A lot of the people that come to us oftentimes tell us they can’t afford certain conferences or maybe they don’t have a ride to something. Can we help them? And it’s like, of course, yes. And we will help with job support. I will do mock interviews and help them go over their resumes. When I say they, our mentees. These are people that come to us and for free by volunteer work. We do everything we can to get them hired and get them educated about what environmental policy individuals do and all of the jobs surrounding that so that they can get a foot in the door. And we’ve seen great success. We’ve mentored dozens of individuals already and we’ve seen them get jobs in our field. I love this bragging point because I’m so proud of it but I’m not usually on our social media. That’s mostly Ben and Chris and Dave and our other volunteers who have done a great job but they have really done a massive amount of outreach through social media.
Carly Schmidt (33:30): Honestly, tell everyone your secrets. How did you do that?
Hana Katz (33:30): Yes, because I think that having this youth platform is so important. We always complain about social media, but it’s the greatest tool for organizing. And we don’t really talk about that in an optimistic way. So going back to optimistic nihilism, I just found the statistics: in 60 days, we got 14,000 followers and 7 million views and a million likes all together. Now we are at about 17,000 followers overall, just from making videos, speaking the truth, and talking about what young people care about and getting other people included in the conversation. So we try to be as inclusive as possible. We try to be as outspoken as possible. And even at times we’ll be funny. So if you follow us, you’ll hear some memes, some jokes. It’s beautiful because it’s a platform for young people to care. And the worst thing that some of these polluting corporations have done is take away our hope. And I see it all of the time in elected officials and municipal officials. People are tired, people are overworked and burned out, and we can’t let our hope be taken away for a better future. And regardless of what your better future is, I know that a polluted one is not a better future for anyone.
Carly Schmidt (34:44): Yeah. my goodness. Could, well, first of all, we could do an entire part two on social media strategy and that engagement, which is absolutely incredible and probably also just speaks to, I mean, not only the content that you’re producing, but like you said, you’re funny on there. Like people are hungry to experience joy when it feels like, there’s such an absence of hopefulness and there’s so many reasons to just go full nihilism and fall into a hole of nothing will ever change.
Carly Schmidt (35:13): This is a question we love to ask at the end of every interview and probably fits in beautifully with the work you’re doing which is what does a just water future look like to you?
Hana Katz (35:23): I love that. A just water future. Gosh. I did think about this prior now that we’re here on the spot. It’s like so many things. A just water future to me sounds like a future where people don’t have to fight to have clean water. A just water future sounds like a future where clean water is accessible. I would very much like to see a future where my friends who come from less privileged backgrounds than myself, don’t have to struggle to get the same resources as myself. I hope that one day the powers across the world will commit to not using natural resources as leverage in political issues. And that starts on a small scale all the way to our international leaders. So many times we’ve seen water sources being cut off or polluted to harm people for political reasons and that should be upheld as an international crime. A big part of inspiring hope, to me, is passing the baton and ensuring that the next leaders can have a voice and contribute to relevancy in the topic. And so I’m actually stepping away from CRAN. I’m still working with them, but not in the directorship position that I had before. I will be supporting it from a membership point of view because I’m now the chair of the New Jersey Young Democrats Environmental Caucus. And so I will be, thank you. Yeah, yeah, I’m really excited.
Carly Schmidt (36:42): That’s amazing, congrats!
Hana Katz (36:43): Thank you so much. I really, something I don’t love is that environmental issues are partisan it shouldn’t be. but when it comes to the policy issues, bigger fights to have here and I’m ready for it. And I’m ready to help the state in environmental policy in the next four years because we don’t know what’s going to happen. So I’m staying optimistic in my nihilism and I am, and I’m hoping for a future that comes with clean water and clean air for everyone.
Carly Schmidt (37:16): Well, appreciate your optimism And just so grateful for you and your advocacy and your time today. I’m so inspired by you and I know others in the network are going to be as well.
Hana Katz (37:28): You inspire me! I’m so thankful. Thank you so much. And thank you for allowing me the time to speak here. I really hope for more collaboration and I hope that other people can use the River Networks Clean Water Act training series as well as I did because I thought it was so educational and interesting. And I encourage everyone to check it out.
