Catawba Riverkeeper

The Catawba Riverkeeper really opened my eyes. I had no idea Charlotte, NC had the third most endangered waterway in the country due to the fact there were four high-hazard coal ash ponds directly surrounding our drinking water reservoir and the Catawba River. Not only that, but key provisions of the energy permit for the power company had been left completely blank. The Riverkeeper simply wanted us to get attention about this issue, and really get people talking. We learned through the research that there were two camps we needed to reach: one that cared about the environment and future generations, and one that cared about how it could affect their property values.

The first ad we ran was the drinking water ad, and boy, did it get attention. Every major news network covered our ad, with the NBC affiliate starting its segment by holding up our newspaper ad. 60-Minutes came down and did a segment on the coal ash ponds. The power company started running a major PR campaign (which inspired our “coal-aid response.”) The cockroach was so popular we created a stop motion animation video to build on the momentum. We conducted guerrilla stunts to draw attention to the blank permit issue. We even created a coal ash-polluted water cooler for the Riverkeeper to take to events. It took some time, but in January 2021, the Riverkeeper announced it had reached the largest environmental cleanup settlement in the history of the United States. Thanks in part to these ads.