Heather Fenyk
Heather Fenyk was raised in Minnesota and, after her time at the University of Iowa, moved to New York City where she became involved in Hudson River restoration projects. An avid and experienced traveler, Heather attended Rutgers to study transportation, bicycle, and pedestrian planning. This experience led to Heather receiving a doctorate in civic science, and has shaped her work in various community projects, and specifically with the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership.
ANNOTATIONS
Annotations coming soon.
TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by John Keller
New Brunswick, New Jersey
October 21, 2019
Transcription by John Bernard
[0:00:00.0]
Good
This is John Keller with, uh, coLAB Arts and the Rutgers Oral History archive. It is Monday, October 21st 2019. We are located at 54 Hassart Street– um, in the residence of our interview subjec, uh, whose name is–
Heather Fenyk.
Heather Fenyk– uh, Heather could you spell your name for the record?
Sure. “Heather”. H-E-A-T-H-E-R. Last name “Fenyk”. F, as in “Frank”, E-N-Y-K.
Great– um, and just so you know, I take, uh, I take kind of, like, very simple notes as we go along–
Yeah
Just kind of track things but– So, as I said, we’ll kind of– we’ll start from the beginning. Where were you born?
I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Um, and at the time of your birth, what was the reason for– for– for you and your family to be in that, in that area?
Yeah, my father was, uh, is, uh, from Virginia– um, and he was– uh, uh, in, uh, he had just graduated, I guess, from the University of Virginia, and my mother had graduated from Marion College, um, and they had gotten married and I was born soon thereafter.
Nice. Um, at the time you were born what was your family structure like?
Um, I was the oldest– um, oldest, uh, child, oldest grandchild on both sides and, uh, my folks had one cat and me [laughs].
[laughs] You said your dad had just graduated. Um, what were your parents– what– what was he in school for?
Yeah so, he went to school– um, he didn’t quite know what he was going to do, um, he went to school and, with a psychology degree, and ended up teaching. So, when I was born, he was, uh, teaching in the Appalachian region. Um, just the rural kids– um, that didn’t have access to educators and my mom, um, making, uh, total 70s, um, making macramé belts and selling them and, uh, very sort of hippie experience. Um–
Um, did you have a sense of a kind of like, as a little kid, of an extended family, or what was your– what was your social structure like as a child?
Yeah so, um, well, my dad’s family lived in Virginia, but I don’t remember seeing them real much until, um, my father graduated from med school and they were, uh, very proud of– of that, and so he didn’t start med school until after I was born and then they sort of came back into my parents’ life and into my life at that point. And then my mom’s family– um, and my mom’s, uh, extended family as well her grandmother, um, and on both sides were– were in my life as well, but they lived more remotely so I’d see them– uh, yeah a couple times a year, if that. But they were very generous. Um, and my sister came along when I was about three, a little over three, um, so it was immediate family, we lived in a duplex, um, and, uh, right next door to me was a little boy who was, um, about a month younger than I was and he was, in a lot of ways, like, my earliest friend and, uh, we’re still in touch and I have photos of us planting sticks. That’s what we did was we planted sticks and hoped they grew. We didn’t quite have the idea that you know seeds are what spawn trees [laughs].
[laughs]
But you know, so–
[0:03:50.1]
Um, so, uh, not to jump forward to this but just kind of relate it to this, I mean you’re obviously interested, very much interested in environmental issues and public policy. I was wondering if– if was that something that your family had also shared during that time? Or–
No. So my folks weren’t really that interested in environmental issues save for– um, as a little kid I remember going along, um, it's called Skyline Drive in the Appalachians, and that was beautiful and we’d go take a drive, but my folks didn’t have much money so the entertainment was really just, um, you know, looking out the window so, um, and driving checking out the scenery, so Skyline Drive, um, they never liked camping, um, my dad’s parents liked, um, picnics, so as we got older we’d go out and picnic with them, but my parents never liked that, but they did really like nature as from, as an object for photography, so, um, I remember, um, them sort of learning photography and that was a subject for them, but I don’t recall it as being nature for nature’s sake until, um, my– my mom had a garden and it was like a showcase garden.
Um, do you remember starting school as a little kid? Do you remember what that was like?
Yeah. Um, it was fun.
[laughs]
Yeah. I loved, I always loved school
Yeah.
Yeah, so it was, um, yeah I was in preschool in Virginia and then we moved to Minnesota when I was 5, so I started kindergarten in Minnesota and had half day school and, um, yeah.
Where did you live in Minnesota?
In, uh, first string suburb of Minneapolis called Golden Valley. Um, and my friends from– from that time are still really good friends, in fact I moved out to New York with some of them and they’re here.
Um, what did you like about school, was it social or was it–
Yeah it was the social–
The academic?
Yeah, I– I loved– I loved the social, yeah so, yeah.
What kind of things did you, um, so you know as you’re like a little kid and even into elementary school, were there specific subject areas that kind of piqued your interest more than others or–
Um, I loved the– I loved story-time. I loved it when the teachers would read books. I loved the opportunity if we had had it. I mean usually it was sort of, um, didactic but, loved the opportunity to talk about the stories with the other kids. Um, and to interpret those stories somehow, like if we could do puppets out of paper bags or– yeah that, that I really liked. Yeah, um, yeah I–
Yeah, um, did you have many– you said you liked the social aspect of it, but, you know, were there particular friends that kind of stick out in your mind, as being best friends–
Yeah
or closer friends?
Yeah, so, um, my– my best friend– and I met her when we first moved to Minnesota– my poor parents, um, here I am 5, we had just moved, they had to go and, I don’t know, sign something for us having moved in. I don’t know, paperwork for purchasing house, and there was a babysitter who was supposed to be taking care of us, and I decided I would just go around the neighborhood looking for kids to play with, yeah, had never been there before but I just decided to start knocking on doors, which is what I did, so I went door to door knocked on doors and I, uh, I met the mother of who would become my best friend, so and she told me, “Well I don’t have any little girls with you to play with right now but there, there ice skating but come back and–”
[laughs]
And I did. And Denise became my best friend. Yeah.
What was the reason that your family moved to Minnesota?
Um, my dad started his medical school residency.
Um, was your mom working at this time?
She was not. She was raising my sister, myself, and, um, she had been babysitting and doing lots of craft stuff and selling them when we were in Virginia, and then we moved to Minnesota and, um, she didn’t work until I was maybe, work again, until I was maybe twelve, and my father opened up his own medical practice.
Um, what was the relationship you had with your younger sister?
Um, so she was very quiet. I think I was a tremendous annoyance to her, um, because I just wanted to play [laughs] and she just wanted to read. Um, I mean, and we had a good relationship but I– I just– I feel sorry for my sister
[laughs]
Yeah, um, no, um, we had a good relationship, we still have a good relationship, so.
Did you have any pets growing up? Did you–
Had, yeah, cats and dogs, always. Had, my dad had actually, the year before he started medical school, he was a special student at, um, basically a post-Bacc, pre-med program and he was doing lab work and he’d bring home all of the, uh, rodents that they turned blue. Um, so we had there the blue, um, Guinea pigs and–
[Editor’s Note: A post-baccalaureate certificate ["post-bacc"] is awarded when you complete courses beyond your undergraduate studies in a non-degree granting program. The name literally means "after the bachelor's degree" and allows you to go deeper or broader in your studies.]
[laughs]
Yeah so, we had those as well. Yeah, so–
Um, what
I have no idea what they were doing [laughs]–
[laughs]
To turn them blue but yeah– blue bell, and blueberry, and bluebonnet– I don’t remember the rest of their names.
What was– so as you, kind of like, progressed through school, um, did you have a moment in, kind of like, your primary education where subjects, or ideas, or concepts, or themes, or, you know, topics were more interesting to you than others?
So, I really loved everything. I just, um, it was, it was hard for me to, um, choose any one thing. Um, I drew a lot. I remember being pulled out once a week, maybe starting third or fourth grade, and I’d go to the high school so that I could draw with the, uh, like a special group of kids who had been pulled out. And I loved to draw and I loved doing art but I loved everything else. Um, but I was kind of tracked early on artistically. I loved playing piano, I took piano lessons. And then in school, um, it was all wonderful, yeah the reading especially, um, and, yeah, yeah.
Um, what was your, uh, kind of that transition from young adulthood like into– into high school, specifically, did you–
It was awful.
Yeah?
It was just awful. I switched schools, so my folks had took me out of a public school with a good group of friends, um, too and put me into a private school where I did know a couple of people, but, um, it was, um, much more rigorous, um, much stuffier. Um, not that I didn’t learn a lot there. I did. It was a really wonderful education and I made some of my best friends that I have to this day but it was a huge transition, uh, for me. And that was, that was hard and I partied a lot. So, that was, I think I even started partying before I went to high school.
Mhm. Do you think that was just a part of your social atmosphere that was–
Yeah–
That was what it was expected or–
Yeah, um–
Or were you rebelling against something?
I don’t, I mean my parents were always partiers, their parents were partiers, um, and there was just a, you know, a very laissez-faire attitude, um, that I took full advantage of. Um, yeah.
Um, was it kind of an expectation or an assumption that you would go on to higher education?
Yeah. So I always thought that I'd go to medical school, um and that I guess, just sort of track in my father, especially at an early age, he was in medical school, or you know he started after I was born and that was just my– just what you do is you go to medical school. Um, and yeah, I thought I’d do that but I really did love the humanities and literature. Um, I loved science, in fact my chemistry teacher came to my wedding, I still, when I go back, I have um, have lunch with her. She’s very invested in the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership. Um, so I loved science, but there was just something about the humanities that, um I felt that I’d lose if I, um went into medical school, um, and so I went into college in a, for a writing program.
And what was that like?
Um, it was great. I went to the University of Iowa, which has a wonderful program, a writers' workshop for both creative and nonfiction writing. I did mostly nonfiction writing. I did, um, also an English major so it was steeped in the reading but also, I had opportunity to write and have the workshop which was wonderful. And also, I met, um, you know, it was at a time where there were a whole bunch of people following the Grateful Dead, so I had another wonderful social experience so– which was, which was great.
And, and what was the– what was the Grateful Dead experience? Was that more social? Was it about music? Or was it about–
So, you know, and I thought a lot about this, it was definitely about music, but the amazing thing was it wasn’t like just music on a record album, you know, it was live music, and you could see people collaborating and it was almost like co-creating because you had this audience there that was living off of the music or responding off of the music, and the musicians were responding in a way I had never seen, and I went to a lot of shows. A lot of shows, First Avenue, and, you know, one of the earliest Prince shows, and he’s a wonderful performer, but the Grateful Dead brought their audience in and worked off them in a different way which I just loved. Yeah.
[0:14:44.7]
So, um, you’re– as you’re kind of like going through your college experience, and having these experiences, did you have a sense that during that time you were formulating an idea of what you might do beyond college, or–
Yeah, so, um, in college I was, um, no I didn’t have a clear idea. I did still have in the back of my head maybe medicine, maybe I could do a post-bacc pre-med program like my dad, get through the writing program and just take an extra year to get those hard science classes. Um, but the– I was drawn to experiences, um, and I wanted to move to New York. So I had a good sense that I would move to New York, which I did right out of college.
What was the draw?
Uh, I loved Iowa but I wanted bigger. I wanted more. I loved Minneapolis and I was going to Chicago a lot, I loved both of those but New York just seemed bigger. Um, and just what’s going on there. And so I moved to New York right out of undergrad and, um, got a job with, um, a nonprofit. Yeah, so I basically ended up doing program manager work with a nonprofit.
What was the nonprofit?
Yeah, the Charles Revson Foundation. Um, they started, Charles Revson started Revlon Cosmetics, and it was, um, really kind of a perfect fit. It was, um, they had funded things like, um, Sesame Street, to start up. They funded, and I had been in college, I was involved in student politics, in student government, they funded something here at Rutgers, the Institute for Research on Women and the Center for American Women in Politics. Um, and so those were things that I was interested in, and, um, they were funding those and it was a perfect job for me–
What kind of work were you doing? Like, what was your role?
Yeah, so I did their annual report. I put together their annual report, I responded to– I did a lot of program management. I responded a lot to the folks who were seeking funding, um, that maybe possibly could’ve been grantees but we needed to know more about them, so I developed the relationship with them. And I was only there for a few years and then, um, basically said it’s time to travel so I– while I was there I was also again getting into a lot of partying and so it was time to, um, maybe get away from the crowd I was with so I, um, so I decided to travel and just, yeah. Clean up a little.
Where did you live in New York when you lived there?
I lived 137th and Riverside, so, um, on the Hudson River. I could see the Hudson and I got involved actually early on. So right outside our apartment was Riverside Park which is where the, um, basically a transfer station, basically major CSOs were there and they built the park over the processing facility, and that had happened right before I moved there, but there was still a lot of energy around that and I got hooked in with a lot of the folks who were doing Hudson River work at that time. I was naturally gravitated toward it in part because of my interest in the park but also because, um, I had just hooked up with a couple older individuals who were interested in restoring the waterway.
[Editor’s Note: Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) contain untreated or partially treated human and industrial waste, toxic materials, and debris as well as storm water. They are a priority water pollution concern for the nearly 860 municipalities across the U.S. that have combined sewer systems.]
Around what year was this?
That was ‘92-’94. Yeah.
Did you– I mean you said that your interest in that was your interest in the park but also your interest in some of the people who were working with it. Did you have, like, a larger political context that you were putting it in in terms of like how– how, you know, kind of like, part of the history of a lot of the work is there’s a changing in perception of what the waterfronts mean in urban areas specifically, so it’s like was that part of it or did that– was there realization of that in real time that people were reimagining what these spaces were?
I mean there was to a certain extent, yeah, I mean there was a lot of excitement around the waterfront. I think there was right in the time where, uh, so Dinkins had moved out and Giuliani was in and, not that I was a Giuliani fan at all, but he was definitely cleaning up New York City, and so there were these spaces that hadn’t really been safe that all of a sudden were kind of safer or perceived as safer. And I had no idea what was safer before or after, I just tapped into the energy of folks who were going to the waterfront who maybe hadn’t been going for a long time and trying to reclaim it as places for the community in general, whereas I think before, you know, there had been a lot of dumping, there’s a park that’s now on top of this dumping facility so they’ve been doing some of that clean up, you know, the Clean Water Act was kicking in and that was– had finally filtered down to the state level and to New York and so they had that. Um, there was activity around the pier, um, I was connected with a fellow who, um, John Doswell who led the harbor tours, um, and he was connected to folks who had floated up a US lightship that ended up being parked right next to the, um, big battleship that’s in New York now and, um, just being part of this activity around, trying to rejuvenate and regenerate the Hudson River waterfront was really exciting, and we’d go out on this lightship and, um, I remember it– think it must have been ’93, John said, “Oh, okay, were going out today is the tugboat races. Heather, you get to tell us who the winner is.” And so I go all the way up on the top to judge the winner and they’d had tugboat races before, but that was like the first time it had really gotten press. And people, there was a sense that, um, there was a regeneration or rejuvenation of the waterfront and I was a part of that, but I had not myself been working toward that, so I observed it and it was exciting and I was probably the absolute baby of the bunch being around them. You know, John Doswell was probably in his 60’s then, um, his crew was probably you know, 50’s, 60’s–
And what was the, perhaps you already said it, but did they have an organizational name, or a structure to what–
Oh, um, at that time, and gosh I should remember, uh, I don’t. I don’t. So, and there was, I mean there was environmental justice work happening too that was not so much what John was doing. He just wanted to make, and not that he didn’t believe the environmental justice work, but he wanted to ensure that there were places for people to go that were clean and safe and that folks knew about the river. Um, he figured that, “build it they will come” kind of thing, yeah.
So, you were having these experiences and you said around the same time you were saying it’s time to travel. What was your travel trajectory?
Yeah, so, um, I landed, I took one of those one-way flights that you could get for like, I don’t know, it was like sixty bucks, you know, nothing, and landed in Scotland. And from Scotland to Ireland, and then Ireland hitchhiked through Ireland with lorry drivers and then found a lorry driver to take me over to France–
[Editor’s Note: A lorry driver is a person employed to drive a lorry (truck).]
[laughs]
And then I crossed France and I crossed Italy, and into Greece, and I met up with a good friend that I met in New York.
Were you solo during this?
I was solo. Yeah. Um, I met up with a friend in Greece and we traveled there together for a while and then onto Turkey with him again, and then he left, and then I was in Turkey, um, and then from Turkey to, I think I flew straight to Nepal from Turkey, and then from Nepal to, and I had tried actually in Turkey, I tried to go into Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, but there were travel advisories and I could not get the US to give me the– basically the paperwork that I needed. Um, and so then, uh, right, so then Nepal and India, and Sri Lanka, and then I got deported from India, and ended up in Kuwait, and from Kuwait I went to Malaysia, and Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, um, and there I was, um, doing, um, scuba diving, and working live-aboards for scuba diving.
[0:24:40.3]
What was your– maybe had a sense of it at the time, or maybe you have a sense of it looking back on that like, what was the purpose of the journey?
Yeah, well the most proximate purpose was to get out of a really hard party scene. So, I just, well I wanted to travel, I always wanted to travel and I figured I would at some point but, um, I, it just, I knew health-wise for me that I needed to get out of a partying scene and just, let’s go. Let’s have a new experience and do that and then, uh, I wanted to learn to scuba dive, did, got my dive master, worked for scuba diving, you know, work make money then travel more.
What was appealing about scuba diving?
Um, it was just part of the world that it was just fascinating, I mean exploring the underground and meeting the lobsters and the fish and checking out the coral and, um, but then dive mastering, the most appealing thing was showing people that world but also, um, working with them to get over their fear of diving. Believe it or not, even seasoned divers will go out into a new body of water and they’ll stop breathing, they’ll forget how to breath, and it's– that was really interesting to me was, you know, connecting in a way that they’d feel calm enough to have an amazing experience so, um, and yeah I loved that. And one of the people that I met actually was, um, from Japan and he’s the one who told me about an opportunity in Honduras so he worked with something called JICA, which is basically the Japanese peace corps. And it was sort of time for me to get serious about my life and so, um, he basically gave me information about this peace corps activity in Honduras that I ended up in Honduras at the department of transportation. And, and, uh, worked there until I realized that nobody really knew what they were doing and I wanted to, um, get more information about transportation so I applied to Rutgers at the Bloustein school for a masters to study transportation. So that’s how I ended up here.
Um, hi.
Hi kiddo. Interview.
We can pause it for a second.
[Break in audio]
[0:27:24.4]
Uh, we kind of jumped over it but is it worth articulating anything about why you got deported from India?
Basically, I wouldn't pay a bribe, or I did pay a bribe, but it was an insult, the amount of money was an insult and, um, yeah, basically it, yeah.
Great, so you wound up in Honduras and you're working for the Transportation Authority, what– I guess what– what was it about Transportation? Because then you decided that you wanted to go study it more. What was it about transportation?
Yeah, so I was in that that's how I even, so this fellow, he was from Japan, and I had been talking as I was traveling through southeast Asia, um, this was a time in the 90’s when Chinese were coming in and building roads everywhere and bisecting communities and, um, logging, you know, a lot of rubber tree plantations, but logging, just a lot of devastation, like water ship down kind of devastation to the landscape, and, not only that, but bisecting communities, you know, um, so whereas before it be easy to walk from one place to another folks would need vehicles of some sort to get– get around and that just seems so wrong to me and I was just very interested in bicycle and pedestrian issues. I thought that you should be able to get around on your own steam if you want to in the communities that you created and I was just really interested in bicycles and pedestrian planning and that's what I was doing in Honduras and that's what I came to study here.
Um, what was the– did you apply to multiple programs or was it just, did the Rutgers thing just kind of–
Nope, just the Rutgers. I don't recall applying anywhere other than Rutgers so, the Rutgers had the best program in transportation planning and one of the only ones in bicycle and pedestrian planning. Um, what they didn't have, and what was also of concern to me, was a strong environmental planning program, but I just saw bicycle and pedestrian planning as by default an environmental, um, you know, designed to address environmental issues.
What was it like moving to New Jersey?
Um, so well it was nice to be close to New York again, um, but not in New York as much as I love New York and, um, yeah I don't know. I don't remember, I was more excited to start the program and yeah it was just another, another town, another place.
What was the– what was, uh, if you kind of like recall getting started, starting that work of the program? Was it what you were hoping it was going to be or–
Well it didn't have as much of the environmental push as I sort of thought that it would and thought that it should, and, uh, yeah, I mean it was a good program, and maybe was a little less international that I had hoped to. Um, so I ended up taking classes at Princeton, their international offerings, that you could do that through Bloustein. Um, the master’s program– it quickly became clear to me that it wouldn't be enough, I wanted a more, more rigorous study, but then I realized that it wasn't, you know, if you're doing a doctorate it's not that you're necessarily doing it in transportation then you want to dig deep into literature, and yeah, that that's what I ended up doing is moving towards a doctorate where I was looking at, um, citizen science and the role that people play in bringing about policy change, you know, for whatever, and for me it was a focus on New Jersey's environmental policy and practice, and that was in part because of who I connected with. I had a job, that was what paid for my degree, I was working the Bloustein school and I ended up landing with a wonderful mentor, Professor David Gustin, um, who we just talked all the time and just started researching, um, the sort of intersection between, um, expertise, different types of expertise and policy making, you know, who do policymakers listen to and why? And if they don't listen to the people who want them to listen to them, how do the people gain voice, or gain standing?
[0:05:07.0]
How would you define, I mean you did a little bit, but how do you define citizen science, like–
Yeah so I should say I usually call it civic science not citizen science but both are fine–
Why is that? Why the differentiation?
Yes well it's sort of evolved, it was certainly citizen science the first decade of my work in it but, yeah, citizens are, um, have a different sort of– we have a different understanding of citizen given immigrant situation in the United States, and civic is much more all-encompassing, it’s much more of an umbrella approach, and plus I think it hints toward what we should all be engaged in is, you know, civic-minded activities, so I prefer it but I’m one of the only ones who really uses it so, um. And to define it is just civically engaged learning about our environment for the purpose of making decisions ourselves about, um, how to engage in the environment or for the purposes of shaping policy.
Um, so as you were kind of progressing your way through the program did you start to develop ideas about how you were going to apply this afterwards, or?
Yeah so to a certain extent yeah, um, so my thesis– I was so lucky in my thesis to have interviewed several dozen New Jersey actors in the environmental policy scene and many of these folks were, they referred to themselves as housewives who saw wetlands disappearing in their backyards, and, um, didn't know what that was and what was happening, but something was happening. Their landscape was changing and this was a time when folks didn't really even know what freshwater wetlands were and it was these, um, housewives these women who, um, actually defined what freshwater wetlands were for the state of New Jersey, um, affecting passage of New Jersey Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act. With this definition they had shaped, you know, without a substance of expertise and none of them had been through doctoral programs and ecology didn’t really exist yet, I mean it did nominally. But, um, and subsequent to this, you know, this definition freshwater wetlands that New Jersey, um, shaped and incorporated into their law was used to shape the federal definition of freshwater wetlands and I thought my god this is just remarkable. Here are these people who are raising their kids wanting to teach them about kettle holes and the intermittent streams, and they are finding that these kettle holes and intermittent streams are being developed over and they are outraged by this, and so they take action because they want their kid, their kids to have this experience and, you know, look at what they could do. And so it was less so the content, you know, as much as I’m passionate about that the content of this that I was impressed with but more by the commitment of these people in meeting them and understanding the structure of how they had formed coalitions that, um, I think was what really empowered me eventually to create a vision for the, the LRWP work that I’m doing right now, so I sort of had a sense for, um, what it would take you know, I felt like honestly probably more than anybody else I had a bird's eye view into, how to build coalitions around environmental issues and I knew all the players because everybody had told me in interviews who the players were. Yeah, so–
Around what time were you finishing up your thesis?
Yeah so it took a long time. So I started my actual interviews in it in, um, '99, and continued interviews probably until like 2003, and Maya was born in 2004, I was still working. So I was working too, I had a job at Voorhees transportation center at the time, um, and had research that was coming out but I had to focus on there, um, and so I don't think that I wrapped up my dissertation until maybe 2012, 2013, yeah, and, but I had most of the interviews done before Maya was born.
Um, so we could backtrack, so you moved to New Jersey and then met, you had a social life I assume outside of– of school as well–
Yeah, yeah so my social life, actually a lot was still in New York, but then a lot was pretty early on in the community garden world here. Um and I wanted to grow plants, yeah. And, um, I wanted to grow vegetables and found that most places had lead in the soil, and so early on got involved in stating a garden right across from what used to be C town, now it’s the Bravo, um, a grocery store there, we called it the "food not bombs" garden and we put some raised beds there, talked the fire department into coming in and watering every once in a while for us because there was no hose, um, and from there, so that’s the garden that’s now on Tabernacle way, the Shiloh community garden. So that eventually when they came through to do the development on George Street in 2001, when the projects were knocked down and they were going to develop that, Elijah said, "Okay well we can, um, help with moving this." They started, I guess, realizing that there was a movement around this and we had started actually our community garden. Folks had connected with nutritional sciences, with, um, [unclear] and started something called “Check New Brunswick”, which was a community health and environmental coalition of New Brunswick. And, um, that was not just, um, garden focused but also food security focused and so there was that running in tandem with now the popping up of, and this Check New Brunswick was helping the popping up of multiple community gardens because we had known what it took, you know, who to talk with in the city, um, how to get the fire department to come in, you know, where to get barrels, where to get soil, and so they were popping up all around and, um, then eventually all of the community garden folks decided to get together and had a conversation about, um, just food security in general and that came to be, um– now I’m going to blank on it– it went from Check New Brunswick, it’s now the New Brunswick Food Security, now is that right?
Food coalition?
Food coalition yeah, and why am I blanking, I was involved, I was a founding member–
The community farmers? No?
No, it's not the farmers market, it's food alliance. New Brunswick Community Food Alliance.
Yes.
NBCFA. Yeah. So the NBCFA was involved with that for a few years, um, and, um, that kind of just started blossoming more on its own but again with respect to the, um, LRWP, the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership, um, went in there talking with folks about general food security concerns, you know, gardens were still an issue but they were kind of blossoming on their own. We're talking about, well what other types of food security issues are there- backyards, lead problems, grocery stores, not enough of them, that’s a problem, where are people getting their protein? Well a lot of folks are fishing out of the river. Okay that’s a problem. Um, what do we know about the health of the river? Um, goose egg. Nothing. We really knew nothing about the health of the river. So that– there was some sort of clarifying to do in terms of need locally.
[0:14:07.2]
What do you think that– What was the missing? Why was there no curiosity or information about what was going on with the river at that time?
Yeah so, um, in a lot of ways it's I think, folks had always thought it was somebody else’s responsibility. A lot of folks also thought that it was just too far gone, what could we do about it? And I get angry, actually I think, I get so angry, why didn’t someone at Rutgers pick up on this? You know, it's happened around the country that the university has strong armed this for perhaps not necessarily purely altruistic community-oriented purposes but for teaching their students you know, but, um, damn it why didn’t someone at Rutgers do this, let alone community members, I mean there were plenty of folks with enough resources in Bridgewater or in Highland Park or other places in the watershed that could have taken the initiative to get substantive information about the river and share it out. To be fair there had been efforts in years prior to do volunteer monitoring but they were never sustained. And I don’t know why they weren’t sustained but it was usually just one or two people I think and you’d get burnt out really fast and they didn’t necessarily have that network to carry it through.
So you come to this realization that there's not a lot of information about the major waterways, so what next? What do you do? How did you start? What’s the goal you set up and then what are some reaction steps that you start to take?
Yeah so, okay so–
A big question.
Let me backtrack just a little bit. So in 2000, I think it was 2000, 2001, um, there was a statewide effort to develop watershed management plans, and the gal who's the chair of my doctoral committee was going on maternity leave, and had brought me in to basically fill her seat as, um, in the institutional legal, um, chair for this watershed management area planning exercise. And so she brought me in and I had witnessed this three-year and been a part of this three-year effort to develop a watershed area management plan that, with the change of administration, died. You know, there were efforts all around the state to develop a watershed management area plan. Ninety hundred people were involved just in the lower Raritan watershed management area nine, developing all of these, um, progress goals, all of these how do we know when we’re meeting our goals, um, and it drove me crazy that just a simple change in administration could let something as important as watershed management just sit on a shelf.
And we’re talking about the gubernatorial administration, right?
Yeah, right. Yeah, um.
And that change in administration was from whom to whom?
Yeah, so well it was to, um, Christie Todd Whitman, um, and it was from, um, so sorry I’m thinking and I should know. I don’t remember john.
So it was from Christine Todd Whitman’s administration to Jim McGreevey’s administration?
No, it was from– who was before Christie Todd?
Um, Florio?
No, Florio was before– so it was Christie Todd, I remember–
So Christine Todd Whitman would have left the administration, left as governor, resigned as governor in 2000, 2001, when she became the secretary of environmental protection–
Oh right, okay so who was the interim?
It would have been her–
It was the interim
Yes, uh–
Yeah, right.
It would have been, it was a Republican senator that was then president of the senate
Yes. Yes.
Who was then a two- or three-year governor.
Yes. Yes. Yes, thank you. Yeah and I cannot remember his name.
Yep
Anyway
We’ll look it up
Yes. Things languished under him.
Okay
Um, and I don’t know why McGreevey didn’t prioritize it. I was prioritizing something else at that time, my own daughter, you know, moving on from there, but it still knickled at me that this had not been moved on and a lot of work had been done. And again, so I knew the players, so I knew everybody in the, not everybody, but a lot of folks in the landscape. I knew Rutgers well, I knew New Jersey's environmental political structure well, I knew the history well, and it dawned on me, um, I was thinking, "Damn it, why isn’t somebody going to do this, why hasn’t anybody done this," and then I’m like, you know what you’re probably the best positioned to do this in terms of starting up the watershed partnership. So, um, it really just started with, um, water quality monitoring and partnering with Dan Van Abs, who was one of the fellows involved with coordinating watershed management area planning, but he ended up and he was doing that for the state but he ended up at Rutgers. He retired from the state and ended up there. And he had interns that he basically let– availed me of, and it was with the assistance of those interns that we started sort of shaping up a plan for water quality monitoring going forward. So, we did that locally here in the New Brunswick area and in Highland Park, and then it just became clear that there was demand for so much more. And all along I was saying, "Okay I can do this, but is this, was it really for me to do?” I’m not from New Jersey, you know, I know this but I have a good position to understand it but there has to be somebody else to do it and I kept waiting for that somebody else. And I kept also thinking that I was going to be doing other things, my own research, which I have continued to do but not as fully as I might otherwise if I had not thrown myself into the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership.
[0:21:30.1]
You said that you were kind of discovering that there was a demand. Where was the demand coming from?
Yeah it was, it seemed to be coming from all over. I'd get calls from Green Brook area, from Bridgewater, from folks who wanted to know more about their water quality from Milltown, um, North Brunswick, um–
So were these, kind of like, private citizens who were curious about–
They were– environmental commissions would reach out, so that was another thing I was involved with, the New Brunswick Environmental Commission, and so that was sort of, um, a springboard also for conversations. So I would go to these Association of New Jersey Environmental Commission group meetings and talk about this and folks would say, "Oh that's an issue in our area too, our streams we don't know anything about them or they're trash-ridden, and can you help us? What have you learned?" And I'd share information and, yeah. I can't really say that there was a defining moment where it all came together except for maybe our first meeting at Middlesex county and I said, "Wow what is this?"
When was that first meeting?
I want to say it was about maybe five and a half, six years ago or so?
So, 2013?
Sounds right, yeah, maybe 2013 and, um, just had a meeting with a lot of institutional partners but also folks like Allen Williams from Highland Park and Allen Godberg from Milltown, um, who else? There were folks from Bridgewater there–
Was there consensus reached at that meeting? Like, about what was needed or what the work would be?
So, what I brought in was that document that folks had created as part of the watershed area management. I said "It's a shame that this is just sitting here. Can we carve out some aspect of this to improve our water?" There was no consensus around what that was to carve out. What there was consensus around was that we needed data, and there were different approaches or suggestions on how to do that. Um, but there was the suggestion that we needed data and there was a commitment to working together to kind of think regionally, think from a watershed level to address these issues. And some folks just wanted to kind of, "Oh I’ll go out and monitor," and they didn't necessarily want to build a community as civic scientists, and there was maybe a little tension there, "why are you putting effort into having kids doing this when the quality control isn't going to be where it should be?" So what if we have to do it again? I know it's a pain, but then a couple of years from now the kids will be able to take over and then they'll really have quality control. So there were some conversations along those lines, and I forgot your original question.
[0:24:53.0]
No I think you kind of answered it. Like, you know, pulling out of that meeting, was there consensus on terms of action items, and it sounds like it wasn't a one meeting kind of–
No, so well we decided a couple things to work regionally at a watershed level. We decided that it would be a partnership of, um, institutions so, Middlesex County, Somerset County, municipal interests, environmental commission interests, so we decided watershed partnership, we decided data would be water quality data would be a first push, and we decided to hold another meeting. So, and then, we kept deciding to hold additional meetings, and, "Let's meet next month, okay. Let's meet next month." And that just commitment kept pushing us until finally we had our fourth Earth Day as a nonprofit.
Happy birthday.
Yeah. [laughs]
So I would say then, what was some of– we could talk about either in terms of what were some of the challenges or roadblocks you hit or what were some of the successes you had, you know. And if we're talking about like 2013 until like early– so if you're four years as a nonprofit that's 2015.
Yeah '15 was securing nonprofit status. I would say truly a very early success was meeting coLAB, meeting you and Jeff and Jerry, and for us that was really, um, thinking about communication through the arts and just thinking about building something as a partnership with another entity that had other goals if in their growing arts community, but could marry those goals to our communications needs, that was I think, I mean it was certainly a success in terms of our ability to progress, but it was also, I think, for me personally really, um, affirming, but also transformative in sort of understanding that partnerships could be much bigger than just coalition building around general environmental issues, and I really think much bigger picture about what that means and what it could look like.
Um, what were some of the bigger challenges you faced, I mean you talked about a few of them in terms of organizing or determining exactly what the work of the entity should be–
So, I have to say I'm the kind of person that I try to move past the challenges and then forget them quickly but no, there have been a lot of challenges, certainly lack of funding, certainly the municipal focus, you know. "We can take care of this within our own municipality, why should we work regionally? Why should we be concerned about what happened downstream?" That's a huge issue, and not just within the watershed, but talking to our upstream neighbors, sort of being a new entity in the environmental world, one that's perceived as possibly going to take resources from the existing, longstanding entities- that's been a tremendous hurdle for us. Being too nice, and learning to be maybe a little more strident has been personally a challenge for me, New Jersey plays a little rougher than maybe they do in Minnesota and Iowa, um, and then there are the challenges that still, the DP doesn't accept the data. There are the challenges still that our water is filthy, there are the challenges still that municipalities are not holding accountable developers for developing every square inch of land that they can and when they are doing that not being sure that there are erosion controls in place or that the landscaping is done in as sympathetic or pro-watershed way as possible. Um, it just feels like we aren't getting the message out even though we are trying as hard as we can. And then really, really engaging the community is still a big hurdle, and which community, because this is such a diverse area. Every time you do work with a constituent group, folks will say, "Well why are you working with them? Why aren't you working with these folks?" And it's certainly a big enough tent, but there are certainly different motivations and interests, you know we're all working toward the same thing but bringing all the motivations to do that together has been a struggle.
[0:30:37.8]
Um, what– I think the types of activities that the LRWP chooses to engage in, like is there a, perhaps maybe even just for the record to help to articulate what types of activities that you engage in, and then how you see them kind of wrapping into what the overall drive is of the organization.
Yeah so, um, civic science first and foremost and that is, um, done– the big impetus is, yes, to secure and deliver data, however it's also to allow folks the opportunity to develop for themselves, um, their own understanding of the natural history of the area. And so they're holding that, but you're building I guess an army, for lack of a better term, of folks who then have a shared understanding of the natural history of the area. And that's a shared story, um, and with that shared story you can build a social movement. That shared narrative is so important. So, the LRWP focuses on building communities around data gathering and knowing places as deeply as possible and that's through our stream-keeper program where we're trying to build capacity in, basically stream-keepers but then their communities around them to do ongoing monitoring and ongoing stewardship and care of the waterways that feed into the Raritan throughout the watershed. Um, so those are stream-keepers, those are also the project wades schools, and we have a handful of those schools who are doing monitoring with us that's basically trying to integrate it into the curriculum and if it's not in the curriculum even if it's a one off type of thing, having students go out and experience their waterways, do data collection there, know the place and know why the water flows the way it does, know why erosion is the way it is so they can recognize in their own communities. Along with that is the hashtag look for the river program that we're trying to advance and that's really the goal with that is to get folks to connect with their landscape to feel the contours under their feet, to know why there's standing water in one place, to recognize the uphill-downhill flows, to understand where the best to plant trees, just intuitively because they know the landscape well enough, and to know why there’s flooding, where their streams used to be, and where is the river, where are streams, look for it. And just intimate, deep knowledge of the landscape in an area that's been so, um, completely manipulated by the human hand over not just decades but centuries, and it's a hard thing to do but people still have that sensibility so, "Why is it flooding here?" They're paying attention but just need a couple of tools to make the connections, and that's what we're trying to do with some of these programs.
What's the– what are some of the perceptions that you think need to be dispelled and perhaps what are some of the realities that need to be brought to light?
About the river?
Yeah.
Um, well first perception about the watershed in general and about urban areas, because this is a very urban watershed, is that there is a lot of nature here. It's just sometimes you have to look for it, but it's actually there is a lot of biodiversity, not what you'd expect, but it's here and it's something to celebrate. So that's the first thing that it's here for our celebration and taking. Um, two, is that we are all connected to the waterway and that just because we have all of this hard surface, all of this impervious cover doesn't mean that we have to disconnect ourselves from the natural space. This is our creation, we can un-create it or recreate it. Um, and three, the Raritan is actually really beautiful. Yes, it's been degraded time and time again but there is so much potential. It's through our commitment that we can make these changes, it can happen. We've seen this with the Cuyahoga, we've seen this with the Charles River, we've seen this with the Chicago River, we can do it with the Raritan River too. We have a wonderful dense population here, a lot of savvy folks, a lot of know-how, we have wonderful institutions, we have a fair amount of money- we can make this happen. And just to get over the "It's a lost cause" mindset, we have to dispel that.
[0:36:20.0]
And what do you think is, I mention this because you had a recent experience in which you had good data being used in a public relations way that wasn't necessarily, perhaps was a speed bump–
Right, right.
I mean, how do you balance that and what is that?
Yeah, so so you're referring to the Star Ledger report that the Raritan River is gross, and yeah, on the front page or whatever, the front section of whatever section it was in in the Star Ledger on the day of the Raritan River festival, and our cardboard canoe race at the Raritan River festival was canceled and, um, so we had good data that says we have a pathogens problem for sure, um, we have had a pathogens problem for decades. We have been out in cardboard canoes for the Raritan River festival for decades. The crew team has been going out for years on that Raritan, um, with probably worse pathogen numbers than we have now so, yes there is a problem, yes, we absolutely need to address it because it does pose health risks. Um, at first I was pretty mortified, um, and I’m still peeved that it came out on the day of the Raritan River festival, however, you know, you're given lemons let’s make lemonade. This past Thursday we received another award of that ilk. We received the golden toilet award for the dirtiest waters in the New York/New Jersey harbor estuary, um, which is not something you typically want to have but let's use that and say, "there's no way to go but up from here." And, um, it's a problem when that's all that people see, but let's use that as a way to say, you know, "Okay guys, let's do something here." You know, we know what this baseline is, again we're all smart, savvy, let's put the energy here to fix it, and simultaneously to do things like the beautiful mural on the side of the facility in Boyd Park that shows the wildlife and shows people engaging in ways that we know that the wildlife are out there and people engage. Yeah so–
If you had to direct resources either to LRWP or to solving a specific issue that you feel like would be a really good starting point, you know, that hasn't been tackled yet or resources haven't been directed yet in that way, what would it be?
Yeah, um, that's a good question, um, so education and opportunities for people to come together around natural history and environmental education, you know, bringing people together to share those experiences is super valuable. It's great to have folks go out with an app and identify what the birds are, but it's even better to go out with a book and with a group of folks, naturalists, for a bio-blitz, and to collectively share in the awe of seeing an osprey fledge, you know, it's– and just to have that shared experience, again, it's creating opportunities for shared experience, in learning about the natural environment, um, so that then you can work together in stewardship, so I don't quite know what that would be, but that's, yeah.
Yeah. I want to be cognizant of time. We are a little after 4:30 which was the, kind of the time frame I gave you but, um, what I was just going to ask is do you think there are any questions that I haven't asked you that you assumed I would have asked you, or a question you might ask yourself if you were–
Yeah, so one thing I do want to say is that you were going through that early history and just thinking about the importance of kids to have a connection with the environment, and for me with parents who weren't super into environmental issues, I mean they cared about the environment and they were amazing nature photographers but, you know, like I said, we didn't camp of anything like that. For me Girl Scouts was really important, I got to go camping with Girl Scouts, I earned badges like a themed, you know, working through this protocol, and that gave me a structure to learn- hi, John's interviewing me- so that gave me a structure to learn and to learn on my own, but again with a group, but then it also was a way to connect with, there were camps, there were outings, there were camping experiences that I could take advantage of and I really appreciated having that given that it wasn't something that my parents were going to give me. So, Girl Scouts was really important, yeah so, and if we could create opportunities for kids at younger ages, like that third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, um, for that real immersion in environment I think, that's a great hook. So, but again, do it as much as possible in a collective way.
Any other thoughts, or parting thoughts or ideas? It's not too late now, but if you have other thoughts later on–
I can share. Yeah.
We can always add them.
Yeah.
Okay great. I'll go ahead and stop the recorder here.
[0:42:41.0]