[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13354]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             CONGRATULATING THE BUFFALO NIAGARA RIVERKEEPER

  (Mr. HIGGINS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. HIGGINS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Buffalo Niagara 
Riverkeeper, and its executive director, Jill Jedlicka, winner of the 
Thiess International Riverprize awarded by the International River 
Foundation.
  As Buffalo's industrial economy faded, we were left with a river so 
polluted that the Environmental Protection Agency declared that the 
Buffalo River was biologically dead and ecologically destroyed.
  So western New Yorkers decided to do something about it. They formed 
the Friends of the Buffalo River, which became the first organization 
to receive Federal authority and funding to manage a remediation 
project in the Great Lakes.
  Now, thanks to the Riverkeeper, the Buffalo River has come back to 
life, with over $80 million in private investment as Buffalonians 
reclaim their land at the water's edge.
  I congratulate the Riverkeeper on this recognition, and I thank it 
for the legacy it has left to our community, one of the greatest 
environmental success stories in Western New York's history.

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