The HRFA was growing and many members now spread its message to communities and public officials. Richie Garrett, HRFA's president, was a local grave-digger from Ossining, NY who had grown up along the Croton River, fishing and living by means of this waterbody. By his involvement in the HRFA, he grew as an activist by writing letters and presenting slide shows of fish kills and pollution at venues from garden club meetings to Knights of Columbus halls. He became so well known that he testified in front of the U.S. House of Representative's Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation over Governor Rockefeller's idea for a Hudson River expressway, describing his efforts not as radical, but as American in disposition. Garrett urged his audiences to forgo trying to resolve all the issues facing Earth, but to find a part of the world meaningful to them, and protect it. He found such an advocate in Fred Danback in one of HRFA's largest cases yet.