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| Photographs by Dilip Vishwanat (shot eco-friendly with no electricity) | |
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Citizens
Leo and Kay DreyPlanet Savers
Other couples show up for PTA meetings and maybe run the neighborhood yard sale. Leo and Kay Drey save the environment—Leo, by protecting and managing an Ozark forest; Kay, by barraging decision-makers with facts nobody knows about the issue nobody wants to talk about.
Leo was once the largest private landowner in Missouri; he has since donated much of his Pioneer Forest to the Dreys’ nonprofit L-A-D Foundation. Pioneer is aptly named; Leo was one of the first to demonstrate that clear-cutting was not necessary and that—contrary to American popular opinion—sustainable, selective tree-farming could be successful.
Kay’s love of nature took more dire form. She made her first speech to a Missouri Senate subcommittee on November 13, 1974—the day Oklahoma resident Karen Silkwood was run off the road for raising an alarm about plutonium safety standards violations—and has been fighting nuclear power ever since. “One reactor vessel the size of Callaway [Nuclear Plant] has a long-lived radioactivity equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs,” she points out, “and there’s even more in the spent fuel pool. And there is simply no place for the waste. Irradiated fuel rods are sitting at Callaway in what’s called a swimming pool, because there’s no place for them to go.”
She led the campaign that stopped Callaway from building a second reactor. She got the U.S. Department of Energy to acknowledge the radioactive waste at Lambert International Airport and won a 20-year battle to get it removed. She identified contaminated quarry water at Weldon Spring and made sure a water treatment plant was built so hot waste wouldn’t be dumped into the Missouri River. “We have the oldest radioactive waste of the Atomic Age here in St. Louis,” she remarks, “because we purified the uranium that went into the world’s first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.”
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Eric and Mary Brende
Models for Slow Living
When they had been married for less than a month, Mary and Eric Brende embarked on an 18-month journey, deep into the heart of an Amish-like community. In his book Better Off, Eric relates the ways in which they adapted to, and came to love, the hard work and slow pace of life without technology. What they learned, Eric says, was that “we actually experience more time in each minute when we are not constantly distracted by things like computers, cellphones and TV.” Further, he believes that making fundamental—not simply cosmetic—changes in the way we approach the world is necessary for real environmental change. “We live this life for its own sake,” he says. “The result, though, is that it makes it easier to stay true to the cause.” The Brendes live in Lafayette Square, where they have a rickshaw company and a soap-making outfit. Last year they started a home-school collective in their community. Their approach to the world is simple: “We just try not to use more than we really need.”
Adolphus Busch IV
King of Kilowatts
While the efforts of Anheuser-Busch can be found elsewhere on this list, Adolphus Busch deserves personal recognition for bringing his commitment to sustainability home—literally. In October he opened up his secluded 2,000-acre estate at Belleau Farm to show off a recent $100,000 purchase: a 10-kilowatt personal solar power plant, the region’s largest. Installed by Farmergy of Kirkwood, the solar panels are expected to pay for themselves—in reduced energy costs—in just over
10 years. Meanwhile, Busch continues his community efforts, including support for the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, which he formed to preserve the flood plains of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
Lee Cordova
Action Taker
One thing Lee Cordova wishes he could have brought with him from Seattle is the mind-set that people cannot be separated from nature. Lucky for us, he brought his green sensibilities and his leadership qualities. He’s used those to become president of Washington University’s Green Action and to draft a petition for carbon neutrality to be presented to the chancellors this winter. After greening Wash. U., Cordova wants to take the plan to the city as a whole, then Missouri, then the nation. Now’s a good time, he says: “People are starting to see that you don’t have to be an environmentalist to be for this kind of change. It’s a matter of economics and of survival of our species.” People his age and younger especially get it, he says, and that’s why he’s talking to them first. “This,” he says, “is the struggle of our generation.”
Clarissa Eaton
Our Own Erin Brockovich
The day she found cases of bottled water on her porch and a note from nearby Westinghouse’s nuclear facility warning that her family’s tap water was contaminated by nonradiological volatile organic compounds, Clarissa Eaton became terrified. When the plant’s health and management representative told her to calm down, the chemicals in her drinking water were no worse than the ones in cleaning products under her sink, she became furious. The first thing she did? “I just laughed. I told him that was true—I did have those same things, but I clean with them, I don’t mix them into my kids’ Kool-Aid.” The second thing she did was sue Mallinckrodt, which owns the Westinghouse facility, for contaminating her Hematite community. Eaton says that her family was “forced into a settlement without our acknowledgment, authorization or signed contract”; citing a denial for a fair trial, Eaton took the case to the Missouri Supreme Court, where the motion to enforce the settlement was overturned. (She represented herself.) Eaton and her family are now negotiating with the companies involved. Stay tuned.
Julie Jakimczyk and Tony Hilkin
Models for Simple Living
The mission of Julie Jakimczyk and Tony Hilkin’s Greenbee Center is as sweet as its name: “to provide opportunities for adults and children to explore real possibilities of how to live more sustainably in an urban setting.” But it’s not really a center, in the traditional sense—it’s the house that Jakimczyk and Hilkin built, using “mud and straw, salvaged and recycled materials, and alternative energy systems, our own labor, sweat and tears and the help of a few good friends.” Longtime volunteers at a women and children’s shelter called Karen House, they began constructing “St. Louis’ first and only natural building project” by asking what two people in the world can do. After biking to 20 sustainable communities across the region, they had their answer: Live simply and invite others to do the same. “Sustainability is the word of the new millennium, the way antiwar was in the ’60s,” Hilkin says. “It brings a lot of hope.” And harvest—they’re transforming Greenbee’s ample yard into a garden with eight fruit trees, five kinds of berry bushes, strawberries and a host of seasonal vegetables from which they will feed themselves, their neighbors and, one gets the sense, anyone else who needs feeding.
Advocates
Jean PonziRadio Host and Gateway Leader
Jean Ponzi says we should listen to our bodies. She says they tell us when we need to stop drinking coffee, take a day off of work or stop everything and just pay attention. Ponzi also says that the earth is our body, and it is screaming. That it’s telling us that it has a life-threatening bodily infection, that it is a cascading failure of living systems, that it needs us to hold everything and pay attention NOW. Every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m. on her KDHX radio show, Earthworms, and every day at the Gateway Center for Resource Efficiency, Ponzi tells St. Louisans that we must transform the way we relate to the earth, that we must bring all of our creative energy to the process of undoing the damage we have done. Ponzi admits that for a long time humans were not her favorite species. She says that this year, however, because people finally seem ready to believe in global warming and because she was faced with a life-threatening illness and witnessed firsthand the miracles that caring, focused people can perform on one human body, she might—just might—have new hope for the human race and its collective body.
J.B. Lester
Publisher and Editor of The Healthy Planet
When J.B. Lester started The Healthy Planet, “St. Louis’ Natural Living Magazine,” 10 years ago, people told him he was crazy: Promoting green living was just too radical for environmentally conservative St. Louis. But Lester knew enough about himself to know his educational, not-too-pushy approach would work. He was right: Not only is the magazine thriving, so is St. Louis’ green scene. “I like to play the middle, because I think I can see better from there and get a broader picture,” he says. He is kind, even-tempered, and considers no one an adversary. “It is only by working together that we will get anything done,” he says.
Kate Lovelady
Leader of the Ethical Society of St. Louis
Kate Lovelady helps all of us understand the overlap of ecology and ethics, both through the Sunday Platform series she oversees (Vertegy’s Thomas Taylor spoke on “Ethics and Architecture” in June) and through her own addresses and postings on the Ethical Society’s blog (ethicalstl.org/blogs). Readers and listeners aren’t preached to, though—they’re just let in on the satisfaction possible when one is actively part of the solution. In one recent post, “1,000 eco-miles and counting,” Lovelady described her transition from car to scooter: “I am a small person and I have a very large helmet (I value my skull), so if you stuck a broom on the top I’d look just like Marvin the Martian. But that’s a small price to pay for helping the environment.”
Steve Patterson
Blogger at Urban Review STL
You’ve heard of a megalopolis, right? It’s when cities sprawl so far and wide in so many directions they eventually touch each other. Not only does this phenomenon make a road trip seem like little more than an extended tour on a crosstown bus, it also gobbles up land and resources and takes the country out of the countryside. Steve Patterson’s mission is to reverse this trend by making the city more hospitable to live in (by pushing for sidewalks, lights, bike parking, high-density housing). Almost 25,000 people a month read Patterson’s blog, urbanreviewstl.com, which boasts a healthy “Environment” category. Join them the next time you log on.
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg
Senior Editor and Content Director of greenoptions.com
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg believes it’s best to meet people where they are. For example, people not quite ready to go off the grid might be ready to find out more about hybrid cars. That’s why this former professor is creating a network through his website, greenoptions.com, and his blog, sustainablog.org, which “finds” people who are looking for something specific, say a solar-powered gadget or information about carbon offsetting. He calls them green-curious—people, he says, “who might just need a little guidance and inspiration.”
Entrepreneurs
Bill BriggsOwner, Laclede Computer Trading Co.
Surrounded by pallets of discarded computers, scanners and other electronics, Bill Briggs says he believes recycling is just the right thing to do. He charges nothing to recycle electronics and only a small fee for monitors and TV sets. He takes old cellphones to women’s shelters and nonprofit groups. All items are recycled in Missouri, keeping them out of landfills overseas where they can leach toxic chemicals. “This is not a moneymaker,” Briggs says. “It’s a personal project. It just seemed like an utter waste not to recycle.” Learn more at lacledecomputertrading.com.
Patrick and Becki Geraty
Owners, St. Louis Composting
It’s a dirty business, but Patrick and Becki Geraty dig it in a big way. St. Louis Composting (stlcompost.com) operates the largest composting facility in Missouri. Most of those bags of grass clippings that stand guard in front of St. Louis County homes land at St. Louis Composting, where they get turned into 20 kinds of compost. “We’re all in this, obviously, as a business, but it’s nice to know that we’re doing something good for the environment at the same time,” Patrick says. “To keep this material out of the landfills is certainly a good thing.”
Patrick Horine and Jenny Ryan
Founders, Tower Grove Farmers’ Market and Local Harvest Grocery
In May 2006 this married couple founded the growers-only Tower Grove Farmers’ Market (tgmarket.org), putting in hundreds of hours selling farmers and the park itself on the benefits of the idea. A year later, with the market established, they opened Local Harvest Grocery (localharvestgrocery.com), which sells local produce, meats and organic foods from farmers who practice sustainable agricultural methods. Horine promotes eating local food not just for its health-related benefits but for its economic benefits, too. “No matter what happens to gas prices, we’ll be able to bring this food into the city because it’s that close,” he says. “We are building a safe food network.”
Kelly Luckett
President, Green Roof Blocks
When it seemed like his architectural roofing business wasn’t shooting through the ceiling, Kelly Luckett branched out into plants. His company, Green Roof Blocks (greenroofblocks.com), has installed aluminum boxes of the succulent sedum atop roofs such as McCormick Place convention center in Chicago and St. Louis Community College’s Wildwood campus building. Most recently, Luckett hit prime time when the blocks were installed on an eco-friendly home for a low-income family during an episode of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
Bob and Nickie Solger
Owners, The Energy Savings Store
Can’t quite figure out how to go green? The Energy Savings Store (theenergysavingsstore.com) and its Solar Design Studio can help. The company, founded in 2003, works with homeowners, architects, energy consultants and engineers to add or design energy systems using solar, thermal or wind energy. “We are not a company that is pushing a product,” Bob says. “We are a solutions-oriented company. It’s all around a green or sustainable agenda.”
Gary Steps
Owner, Butterfly Energy Works
In 2004 physicist Gary Steps could see the green handwriting on the wall. He launched Butterfly Energy Works (butterflyenergyworks.com) to consult with homeowners and small-business owners on how to make their energy systems, such as heating/cooling and appliances, more efficient and sustainable. People thought he was crazy. “At first I was the wild man in the wilderness,” Steps says. But after a few demonstration projects and consulting on the construction of 26 sustainable homes around the former Enright School, Steps’ fortunes are turning greener. “The public is just beginning to wipe the fog out of their eyes and begin to understand the real environment that we live in,” he says. “I am now perfectly positioned to help.”
Dave Stine
Owner, Stine Woodworking
On a 40-acre farm across the river in Dow, Ill., former lawyer Dave Stine is felling his own wood (from trees past their prime, dead or damaged; from forests that have been responsibly maintained for sustainable growth), milling his own boards and making beautiful, one-of-a-kind furniture (stinewoodworking.com) smoothed with natural, eco-friendly finishes. We’re as impressed as his clients, who include architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen and writer Andrew Sullivan. “I take stewardship of our family’s forests very seriously and spend as much time in the woods as I do in the shop,” Stine says. “I love the idea of going to the woods that you care for and being able to harvest interesting and valuable trees for generations to come.” Stine and his wife, Stephanie, are both sustainability advocates, and they live it every step of the way—raising their own beef and chickens, using raw milk from the farm next door and honey from another set of neighbors. “It’s a lifestyle choice,” he says, “both in terms of what I create and how I live.”
Richelle White and Larbi Belkouch
Owners, Herb’n Maid
Plagued by asthma that was aggravated by her housekeeping service’s cleaning solutions, Richelle White searched for a cleaner cleaner. After failing to find an eco-friendly cleaning service in the area, White had an “Aha!” moment and started her own. She also discovered that her boyfriend, chemist Larbi Belkouch, once owned a janitorial service. Belkouch mixed cleaning supplies using essential oils and other natural cleaners, while coaching White on the cleaning business. Herb’n Maid (herbnmaid.com) was born last year. “I’m out every day meeting with people who have one thing in common with me—we all care about the environment,” she says.
Lori Allen
Owner, Boutique Chartreuse
Formerly known as Righteous Ragz, Boutique Chartreuse (boutiquechartreuse.com) is the centerpiece of Lori Allen’s quest to provide stylish eco-friendly clothing. At this Maplewood green boutique—the first in the Midwest—clothes are made from hemp, bamboo or organically grown cotton; many were on view last fall at Garden of Eden, the fashion show Allen put on at Schlafly Bottleworks. Her store operates on sustainable principals such as switching to fluorescent light and recycled paper products. For Allen, the message to consumers—of anything from jeans to java—is a simple one: “When you can, make a choice that’s better.”
Peter McMillan and Chuck Pass
Head Honcho and Operations Honcho, Pedro’s Planet
Peter “Pedro” McMillan has been on the green scene since 1990. Through his St. Louis–based company (pedrosplanet.com), McMillan and business partner Chuck Pass sell office supplies, including 2,500 recycled-material or environmentally friendly items. The company is one of the largest sellers of recycled copy paper in the Midwest and picks up office waste for recycling at offices—possibly yours—around the region. (Last year’s catch weighed in at 600,000 pounds.) “I have been a conservationist and environmentalist going back to very early in my life,” McMillan says. “It’s always been a concern of mine, and I’ve always wanted to do what I can to help; this is my expression of it.”
Terry Winkelmann
Co-Owner, Home Eco
Shocked that she couldn’t find an eco-friendly home store in St. Louis, former journalist Terry Winkelmann decided to open one herself along with partner Phil Judd. Now the two co-owners spend their days at Home Eco (home-eco.com), peddling organic cotton and hemp apparel, home furnishings, housewares, art, composting supplies, solar ovens and just about anything else renewable. “When we launched in 2005, we couldn’t believe there were no green stores in St. Louis, but we suspected and hoped that wouldn’t last much longer,” Winkelmann says. “I’m glad we can always look back and know that we were on the leading edge and maybe contributed a little to the growing green movement in St. Louis.”
Two area dry cleaners, Pleats Finest Cleaners (pleatscleaners.com) and Chesterfield Cleaners (636-536-7995), are doing their part to press our clothes but leave a smaller impact on the earth. Nimish Shah, owner of Chesterfield Cleaners, converted in May to silicone-based cleaning, saying that the cost has been worth it. “The traditional dry cleaning solvent is pretty toxic,” he says. “I was looking for something that would provide equal to or better cleaning. The customers love it. It’s odor-free, and clothes are brighter and softer.”
Builders, Architects & Designers
Matt BelcherBelcher Homes
Since its start 16 years ago, Belcher Homes has made green one of its primary colors. The Kirkwood-based builder had some good news this past year, when its Timbers at Creekside community—five wooded single-family homes near downtown Kirkwood—was selected as Green Builder Magazine’s Vision House 2007. In addition to speaking around the country about green building, founder Matt Belcher helped establish the St. Louis Home Builders Association’s Green Building Council and chaired two recent National Association of Home Builders Green Building Conferences. Belcher has enjoyed watching the rise of this movement. “As green building is moving from a ‘cheerleading’ stage to a practical application,” he says, “its enhancement to local economics and improvement in quality of life is a great benefit to St. Louis.”
Daniel Hellmuth and Ralph Bicknese
Hellmuth + Bicknese Architects
Started five years ago by co-principals Daniel Hellmuth and Ralph Bicknese, this firm works in three main areas: designing LEED projects, consulting for others in the business and planning community redevelopment projects. Out of its Maplewood office, the firm focuses on higher education, recreation and pre-K and K-12 schools, plus municipal and office projects. Among its current 15 LEED projects is the Bick i-Building, a 50,000-square-foot high-tech office building in Des Peres, which is slated for Gold certification. Hellmuth says that research and studies—like 2003’s “Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl”—are quantifying what he and his peers have long suspected: Integrating environmental concerns into building decisions helps cities, businesses and citizens. “Rather than being penalized,” he says, “businesses are realizing the incredible benefits of ‘going green’: increased occupant satisfaction, lower operating costs and just plain better workplace environments.”
Paul Henckler and Josiah Cox
Trumpet
This modest-sized general contracting and civil engineering firm, formed in 2005, has sustainable design at its core. “We have one LEED Accredited professional on staff and are training six more,” explains CEO Paul Henckler. And who wouldn’t seek certification if it meant working on Trumpet’s coolest current project—construction of the 33,000-square-foot Frieze Harley-Davidson dealership in O’Fallon, Ill. Henckler says that Trumpet is committed to disproving the assumption that going green necessarily means spending more money; the Frieze project, to the contrary, is being built sustainably at no increase in planned costs. Another bonus: It’ll be one of the first LEED-certified Harley dealerships in the country.
Punit Jain
Cannon Design
When architect Punit Jain isn’t busy chairing the St. Louis Regional Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, he’s got a few other projects going. Big ones. Like the $82 million Edward Doisy Research Center at Saint Louis University, the university’s largest building project ever. Jain, Cannon’s associate vice president and LEED consultant, is shooting for Silver certification. Projects like this, and the forthcoming BJC Institute of Health at Washington University, are changing mind-sets, Jain says. “Since these buildings are located on university campuses, they are educating and influencing the students and facilities personnel who will define the future of green design.” Jain has spent the past several years educating area business leaders about the benefits of green building. “I have made multiple presentations in the community, and people are listening,” he says. “They understand the triple bottom line—that green buildings are good for people, profit and planet.”
Mary Ann Lazarus
HOK
Mary Ann Lazarus came to St. Louis in 1976 to study architecture at Wash. U. and never left. She’s spent 27 years at HOK, and while the company boasts 400 LEED Accredited staffers, she’s at the top as sustainable design director—the go-to green mind for HOK projects around the globe. One project closest to home is the Centene headquarters planned for Ballpark Village, which is seeking LEED certification. “St. Louis’ leadership in green building is an important demonstration that sustainability is not a ‘coastal’ issue or one limited to major cities, but has importance and unique opportunities that people in
St. Louis truly value,” she says. “We have companies and institutions of higher learning and research that nurture a strong community of people committed to the principles of sustainability.”
Marc Lopata
Sage Homebuilders
Managing partner Marc Lopata calls Sage, founded in 2005, the “only exclusively green builder in the St. Louis area, both in the projects we accept and the way we run our company. We work only on green-certified projects, without exception.” Like what? Like the Sage NZEH, a “near zero” home that generates most of the power it needs from the sun, thus using almost no energy from the grid. Must be some freaky home in the woods, right? Wrong. It’s cottage-style, 3,600 square feet and located in Creve Coeur. Lopata has absolute confidence he and his peers are on the right track. “Every city and country where green building has been promoted can show ample evidence of higher incomes, lower unemployment and greater economic growth,” he says. “There is no downside for any stakeholder.”
Paul Todd Merrill
Clayco
For the past three years, Paul Todd Merrill has been the director of sustainable construction and senior engineer for Clayco, which recently ranked 10th on Engineering News-Record’s first-ever ranking of the country’s Top 50 Green Contractors. The only St. Louis firm to make the list, Clayco employs 44 LEED Accredited Professionals who have steered projects like CORTEX One and Solae Company’s global headquarters. One of Merrill’s most exciting current projects is an addition to and renovation of Novus International’s St. Charles headquarters, which is pursuing Platinum status. “The green movement in St. Louis and the Midwest is strong already,” Merrill says. “Identifying St. Louis as a green leader will have a direct impact on future development choices for places to work or live.”
David Ohlemeyer
The Lawrence Group
One of the founders of The Lawrence Group, David Ohlemeyer is now the company’s CIO, COO and, in general, leader on all things LEED. While the company has numerous clients, one of its most interesting projects of late has been itself—renovating The Security Building downtown (built in the 1890s) into a LEED-certified HQ. In Ohlemeyer’s view, St. Louis—centrally located and rich in nearby natural and industrial resources—is in a great position to use the green movement to its advantage. “The next generation is expecting cleaner, faster and better everything,” he says. “If we can offer something here—a strong scientific base, a progressive, environmentally committed community—that could be huge in continuing to make St. Louis a great place to invest one’s life and business.”
Jay Swoboda and Nate Forst
EcoUrban
Jay Swoboda formed EcoUrban in 2006 as a builder of modern, prefabricated homes with twin commitments to design and sustainable construction. A year and a half later, after recruiting Wash. U. friend Nate Forst to join him, he’s got three display models up in Benton Park West and Tower Grove East. The homes—modular construction, two to three bedrooms, designed by St. Louis architect Garen Miller—have been created to fit well into the significant number of St. Louis’ “infill lots” (vacant spaces in existing neighborhoods). And while EcoUrban homes provide owners with the knowledge that they’re making a difference, Swoboda claims they make a sound investment. “We believe that in 10 years,” he says, “a green home will simply be worth more than a similar home that does not have green components.”
Civic Forces
Citizens for Modern TransitThey’ve spent the last 20 years advocating for public transit in St. Louis—a city slow to abandon the auto—and never giving up, not even when it looked as though steering wheels would have to be pried from our cold, dead hands. Citizens for Modern Transit (cmt-stl.org) helped lobby for MetroLink in the early ’90s and has pushed for its expansion ever since, reminding us that every pointless solo trip in the car (Cherry Slurpee run, anyone?) contributes to reduced air quality for our entire region. Ever-realistic about how our current car-centric infrastructure can pose challenges to those who choose to bike or take the train, they also sponsor a “guaranteed ride home” program to provide a safety net for those who need more than MetroLink in an emergency. Their newest program is the Ten Toe Express, launched last fall, which emphasizes how walking and public transit enhance physical fitness; check out their Ten Toe Express Walking Tours, which combine invigorating walks with visits to local sites of interest.
The City of Clayton
For the past two years, Clayton’s been designated as one of the Sierra Club’s “Cool Cities”—communities dedicated to fighting climate change—after former Mayor Ben Uchitelle signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2006 and 2007, pledging that the city would meet the Kyoto Protocol’s 12 targets for reducing global warming; it’s already met 11 of them. But there are plenty of other reasons to qualify Clayton as cool, including a new ordinance requiring all new construction projects larger than 5,000 square feet to be certified LEED Silver or higher, a Public Works Department project to plant bioswales (rain gardens that prevent runoff and erosion) and the fact that Clayton’s Ecology and Environmental Awareness Committee has been around since ’97. Clayton’s new mayor, Linda Goldstein, attended the Mayors’ Climate Protection Summit in Seattle in November, and she wants to implement the ideas she picked up there. “We’re planning on prioritizing and organizing those ideas, then asking our citizens’ help in helping move us forward,” she says. Goldstein’s also hoping to work with ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) to obtain software that will help measure how close the city has come to meeting its Kyoto goals.
Gateway Green Alliance
Even Greens in larger cities like Frisco haven’t taken on the issue of ecology and skin color as boldly as St. Louis’ Green Party (gateway-greens.org), with its monthly discussion series examining the toll of environmental racism in the bi-state area. But these Greens do more than just talk—in September, they gathered the necessary signatures to request an audit of the City of St. Louis after becoming suspicious about where money allocated for childhood lead poisoning prevention money was being spent (most lead poisoning occurs in low-income, often African-American neighborhoods). Though the results of the audit won’t be available until later this year, the GGA will be plenty busy in the meantime, publishing the Compost-Dispatch newsletter, taping episodes of its public-access TV show Green Time and organizing events like its annual Great Green Pesto Feast.
Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic
For the Rachel Carsons of the world, righteous outrage is like Popeye’s spinach. But a battle against polluting mega-corporations can seem hopeless to most people, especially if they don’t have large sums of money. And so the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic (law.wustl.edu/intenv) within Wash. U.’s Law School has its work cut out for it. Student attorneys and seniors or grad students in engineering, environmental studies, medicine, social work, business and even architecture work in groups under faculty advisors to provide pro bono legal work for those fighting environmental degradation of their communities. Past cases have involved lead poisoning in Herculaneum and the protection of Horseshoe Lake in East
St. Louis. “There’s no substitute for seeing the challenges of a real problem and trying to work through those using what you’ve learned in the classroom,” says director Maxine Lipeles, “and applying it to an actual case, with the complexities and challenges that an actual case brings.”
Missouri Coalition for the Environment
Since 1969, this environmental watchdog group (moenviron.org) has used lawsuits, lobbying, legislation and education to defend the natural world. In 1972 the coalition helped write and pass what became Missouri’s Clean Water Act; in 1984 it helped draft and pass Missouri’s Superfund cleanup law. In 1993 it blocked a 308-mile ATV trail through the pristine Mark Twain National Forest, and just recently, it fought to update the state’s water quality standards. Saving water, land and air is not the romantic pursuit it might seem—the staff spends long hours hunched over a desk making phone calls, poring over spreadsheets and parsing legalese.
Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Who makes sure there’s no giardia in your drinking water? Who spearheads the redevelopment of lots made toxic by years of coke processing? Who sponsors carpooling programs and leads tours through the caves at Ha Ha Tonka, braving (nay, relishing) the chest-high water and the flocks of gray bats? The good folks at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (dnr.mo.gov), that’s who. Be thankful that these Realtree-clad angels are watching the quality of the water you drink and the air you breathe, and don’t forget that MoDNR offers hundreds of free programs all year long that offer both kids and adults opportunities to learn about and interact with nature, including cave tours, bald eagle viewings, amphibian-watching trips and edible-plant hikes.
State Senator Jeff Smith
Along with Sen. Joan Bray, Sen. Jeff Smith (D-St. Louis) sponsored SB702, which was defeated this summer but is set to be reintroduced when the Legislature comes back into session this month. The bill requires any state building larger than 25,000 square feet built after July 1, 2010, to meet LEED Silver certification standards. By July 1, 2016, state buildings must draw 10 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources; that jumps to 20 percent by 2026. The bill would also create green building tax credits for citizens through the Department of Natural Resources and create grants to help new public schools achieve LEED or Green Globes certification. When asked if he thinks the bill has a chance this session, Smith says, “I’m encouraged by the fact that the Republican chairmen of the two committees to which the bill may be referred both attended a summit I hosted to polish the bill. This is a modest way for government to be a role model by increasing the energy efficiency of state buildings—and also provide a modest incentive to stimulate private interest.”
State Senator Joan Bray
Sen. Joan Bray’s (D-St. Louis) good, green deeds far exceed what we can list here, since many of them fall into the “negative capability” category: preventing gravel mining in Missouri’s creek beds, blocking chip mills, reversing the elimination of emissions tests. Some of her green deeds are personal (she’s been checking out zero-energy houses at the spate of recent Green Home Tours, eschewing cars for bikes and Metro in St. Louis, and carpooling to Jeff City). What we’d like to focus on here, though, are her recent environmental bills, including SB702, co-sponsored by Sen. Jeff Smith (D-St. Louis), which requires all state buildings to achieve LEED Silver or higher, and the Easy Connection Act, which she co-sponsored with Rep. Jason Holsman (D-Kansas City). Before the bill passed this May as part of an amendment to SB54, Missouri was one of the few states in the country that did not require utility companies to credit people for excess electricity produced by small, sustainable grid-tied wind, solar or hydro systems. Thanks to Bray’s bill, Missourians have one more incentive to install those solar panels on the roof.
Peter Raven
Missouri Botanical Garden
It’s been nearly a decade since a little publication called Time deemed Peter Raven one of its “Heroes for the Planet.” Did he sit back and bask in the glory? Of course not. He’s been as busy as ever, presiding over the garden and educating its 750,000 annual visitors, founding new MoBOT initiatives like the Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development and using the strength of his institution to establish conservation and sustainability efforts in South America, Central America, Madagascar and Vietnam. Raven says that the most pressing environmental problem we face is the worldwide loss of species of organisms—animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms. “With habitat destruction, the spread of alien invasive species and global warming, as many as three quarters of all species in the world could be lost by the end of this century,” he says. “Yet they provide all of our food, globally most of our medicines, protection of soils, waters, determination of local climate, and the bases for developing a sustainable world in place of the one we are destroying so rapidly now, in the future. Once gone, those species are lost forever.”
Scholars & Educators
Karla ArmbrusterWebster University
Karla Armbruster, an associate professor of English at Webster University, has written a great deal about two subjects you may not have studied yourself: eco-feminism and eco-criticism. Nationally, she’s president of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, and she co-organized the group’s most recent conference last June. But what Armbruster’s perhaps best known for here is coordinating Webster University’s environmental studies program. Once a major, the program fell on hard times and was eventually cut—only to be resurrected as a minor in 2001, with Armbruster at the helm. Seven years later, it’s still going strong.
Nadine Ball
Maryville University
As associate professor of science education at Maryville University, chair of Maryville’s Sustainability Task Force, president of the Missouri Environmental Education Association and a member of the Missouri Environmental Literacy Working Group, Nadine Ball is at the nexus of a statewide environmental education movement—and has been a major force behind Maryville’s efforts to address environmental issues. Last February Ball prompted campus dialogue with a free screening of An Inconvenient Truth in Maryville’s auditorium. In September she and a group of students and administrators attended Ball State’s seventh Conference on Greening the College Campus, bringing back tons of ideas. Now that a recycling infrastructure is largely in place at Maryville, Ball’s got bigger plans for 2008: promoting sustainable energy solutions on campus.
Sarah L. Coffin
Saint Louis University
An assistant professor of public policy studies at Saint Louis University’s College of Public Service, Sarah L.
Coffin specializes in research on environmental and urban development issues—specifically focusing on urban brownfields, properties contaminated by former industrial use that can’t easily be reused without rehab and environmental cleanup. While the cleanup efforts necessary to remake brownfields normally aren’t extensive, a stigma is often attached to a property thereafter. A former researcher with (and current associate of) the University of Louisville’s Center for Environmental Policy and Management, Coffin teaches courses, including “Planning the Metropolis,” “Land Use Analysis” and “Real Estate Finance,” that are helping the next generation of city rehabbers understand what they’re up against—and why it’s important that they persevere.
Bill Retzlaff
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Talk about a local “green celeb”: Bill Retzlaff made headlines back in October when he headed up a team to design a “green roof” for an Arizona home on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Retzlaff, biology chair and a professor in the environmental science program at Edwardsville, was first approached in 2004 by Green Roof Blocks to research the most effective green roofing solution. Soon, he was named research coordinator for SIUE’s very own Green Roof Environmental Evaluation Network, and in June 2006 SIUE was able to host the Midwest Regional Green Roof Symposium. Retzlaff and his researchers have collaborated with the Missouri Botanical Garden, Pyramid Group, Alberici Group, HOK, Tao + Lee and more than a dozen other local companies to test soil mixtures, groundcover plants and watering patterns in an effort to find the best green roofing materials. AmerenUE recently pitched in to help build 27 scale-model buildings on campus—some with green roofs, some without—in an effort to determine potential energy savings.
Matthew Malten
Washington University
Appointed Washington University’s first assistant vice chancellor for sustainability in July, Matthew Malten’s long list of environmental credentials are impressive. After grad school, he served as a senior environmental specialist with Wisconsin Energy Corp. and in 2004 was named the U.S. Green Building Council’s first Mark Ginsberg Sustainability Fellow. From 2005 until he took his current position, Malten served as sustainability coordinator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, implementing energy-efficient, renewable building and food solutions for the campus.
At Wash. U., he’s been charged with examining the campus’ energy footprint to see how improvements can be made—an intellectual approach befitting campus life and appropriate to precede any sweeping action. “Many of my peers across higher ed have not been allowed to step back and create a comprehensive plan,” he says. “I think without that, you get drawn too quickly into detailed programs and projects without knowing how they should fit together. The two focuses of our strategic plan for sustainability: Align all campus operations with the principles of sustainability, and have a very conscious effort to identify operational projects and needs that can also serve as really good educational projects.”
