Luis Melendez will officially take the helm of the “R. Ian Fletcher” from captain and Vice President of Advocacy John Lipscomb at the end of the year. It marks a big shift for the Fletcher, which has been under Lipscomb’s care for more than 20 years, and a shift for Melendez as well. Melendez commuted two hours from his home in Brooklyn on this late-summer morning to launch from Westerly Marina in Ossining.
“It’s been great getting to know Riverkeeper," he says. "I’m also really excited to meet all the communities that are on the water, and see how the communities in the upper Hudson interact with their water. That’s something I don’t know, and I’m really interested in seeing what that looks like. And then how I can connect and, possibly in the future, figure out opportunities to build programs to bring people to the water — and also on the boat.”
The Fletcher sticks out amidst the cargo ships, fishers, and swimmers that frequent the Hudson. The 36-foot wooden vessel with “Riverkeeper” emblazoned across its sides patrols thousands of miles up and down the river each year, especially between New York Harbor and Troy. On trips that can span several days, Melendez will pull the Fletcher slow and close to the shoreline to grab water samples and watch out for signs of pollution, like cracked or leaking pipes.
“That, to me, is a red flag. If I see any kind of pipe with wet discharge during a dry day — we know that it’s not rain, because it’s not raining. So what’s coming out of that pipe?" he notes. "We document, we meet up with our watchdog team internally, and from there determine if it warrants an investigation.”
Riverkeeper says its patrol boat program has sparked numerous lawsuits and millions of dollars in fines against polluters over the years. Today, however, the Fletcher is in the shop, awaiting a new engine and a fresh coat of paint. We’re actually on the “Bob Boyle,” a new boat Riverkeeper launched this year to take on some of the Fletcher’s lab work.
While Melendez is still training, this is not his first time at the helm: Melendez has a maritime career spanning roughly 15 years in New York City, where he served as boat captain for the New York Water Taxi, dockmaster for Dyckman Marina, and assistant waterfront director at the Billion Oyster Project working to restore the oyster population in the New York Harbor. He sees the Fletcher as an opportunity to build on that work.
"For me, it serves more like a reminder that there’s still a lot of work to be done of the Hudson, and it was also an invitation to give back and protect the Hudson," says Melendez. "I’ve celebrated a lot of my personal and professional milestones on the Hudson, so I really wanted to give back.”
Back on land, Lipscomb and program assistant Neale Gulley are working on the Fletcher. Lipscomb lovingly calls the Fletcher Riverkeeper’s “longest-serving employee.” The boat was initially built in 1983 for shellfish companies to spy on oyster "poachers" encroaching on their space in New Jersey’s Delaware Bay, but it has been patrolling for Riverkeeper since 1998. With regular upkeep and a new engine, Lipscomb expects it can easily last another 26 years.
“In my time with the boat, we’ve put 17,000 engine hours on, and our make-good speed is about five nautical miles per hour — five knots. If you do the math, that’s about 80,000 miles," he smiles. "That’s more than three times around the globe at the equator...and not once did we have to call for help, not once did it not get us home. It’s a super, super great boat.”
As for Riverkeeper’s second longest-serving employee, Lipscomb says he’s looking forward to winding down — a bit. While he won’t say exactly what his plans are, he expects to be advocating for the river in some way, even in retirement.
“The kind of projects that I’d like to work on are not necessarily the ones that require litigation, as of course, I won’t have access to attorneys anymore as I’ve had at Riverkeeper," he notes. "But there are many, many issues that can be effected and resolved with advocacy where litigation isn’t an option.”
With Melendez, he says the Fletcher is in good hands. But he has some advice:
“The job will be what you make it," he says. "This is not a job where you come to work in the morning and your boss says, ‘Do this, do that.’ This is a job where you go out and find the work for the river…The river is mute, the river can’t help itself. It relies on us to do the right thing.”
