Defend Our Health: Authors & Friends

Our fifth conversation featured Professor Gardner, an internationally recognized expert in wetland law and policy. His recent projects include testifying before a World Bank arbitration panel, advising the Government of Oman regarding wetland policy, coauthoring amicus briefs on behalf of environmental scientists, and creating interdisciplinary courses that facilitate discourse among experienced scientists, policymakers, and students.

His research and scholarship focus on U.S. and international wetland legal and policy issues, with an emphasis on biodiversity offsets. He has lectured in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America.

Professor Royal Gardner is the author of Waters of the United States: POTUS, SCOTUS, WOTUS, and the Politics of a National Resource, which examines this unprecedented history—and its importance for today’s efforts to conserve a critical natural resource. Professor Gardner teaches Law at Stetson University and is the Co-Director of the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy. His book not only examines how bodies of water are legally defined (and therefore protected), but also who gets to decide on these definitions. The result is a fascinating look at the ongoing power struggle among the president, federal agencies, the courts, the states, and Congress over water quality.

For this conversation, Professor Gardner was joined by Defend Our Health’s organizer, Sergio Cahueque. Sergio has worked heavily on access to safe drinking water in Maine. He talked about his experience working with impacted communities on well water testing and remediation of contaminants like arsenic and PFAS, and how this connects to the legislative process and the drinking water policies coming out of the Maine State Legislature.