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10 trailblazers making a difference.

The River Man
Brewster Rhoads, cofounder of Paddlefest

If you happened to be watching the game on TV when the Reds beat the Indians at Great American Ball Park in mid-May, you might recall the camera zooming in on a man in a kayak battling waves on the Ohio River. A series of three-foot high whitecaps pummeled him mercilessly, but he hung in there, riding a wave for a few seconds, turning around, then tackling the next one head-on. “I find any kind of wave action I can to have a whitewater experience on the Ohio, which you can do if you get behind a barge,” he says with a wry grin. “You just carve back and forth and it’s like the endless surfing wave on the Ohio. Who would think?”

The man’s name is Brewster Rhoads, and while his day job is serving as Governor Ted Strickland’s regional director for southwest Ohio, Rhoads is perhaps better known as the cofounder and chair of the Ohio River Way Paddlefest, the largest on-water canoeing and kayaking event in the country. Rhoads began Paddlefest seven years ago as a way of connecting people with the city’s greatest natural asset—the Ohio River, which has had trouble rising above its long-held toxic reputation. “We’re giving people a personal, upfront, and safe experience, with a view of the hills that they would otherwise probably never have,” he says. “This is a way to connect people to the Ohio, and in the process of doing that, change perceptions and rededicate people to be good stewards.”

Rhoads made headlines last summer when he swam across the river with National Geographic Traveler writer Boyd Matson. It’s a stunt that shocks people who remember when chemical byproducts from industrial plants on both shorelines used to get dumped into the Ohio—a practice that’s been regulated to the point of near extinction. “I’m not saying that the Ohio is a safe river for physical human contact every day of the year,” Rhoads says. “If there’s heavy rain for a day or two, that’s when you will see combined sanitary and storm water sewage run into the Ohio. I don’t paddle then. The bottom line is that the river used to be a whole lot more threatening to one’s health than it is now.”

After Rhoads’s unwitting TV spot, he paddled back toward his houseboat, docked next to Newport on the Levee, and jumped into the water to rinse off. It’s something he does hundreds of times a year—his way of enjoying, celebrating, and changing the perception of a river that’s thought of more as a postcard scene than a recreational and historic asset that deserves protection. If that still sounds unthinkable—swim in the Ohio?!—you should talk to Rhoads. You’ll find him most evenings on the river near downtown, riding endless waves. // Brent Donaldson

The Water Purifier
Robin Corathers, executive director of the Mill Creek Restoration Project

From its headwaters in Butler County to the spot where it dumps into the Ohio River, the 28-mile-long Mill Creek passes through 37 political jurisdictions. Which means that Robin Corathers, the executive director of the Mill Creek Restoration Project, must grapple with scores of different agendas as she works to improve one of the most degraded waterways in North America. When she became head of the MCRP 14 years ago, the Mill Creek was so polluted by industrial waste, urban runoff, and the city’s sewage overflow that most people simply thought of it as a filthy ditch. The Laughing Brook wetland in Northside hints at what it could be. The constructed “brook” features sculptures of cupped human hands that morph into salamanders and fish—the fish that should be in Mill Creek if it were healthy. But the art/environmental project has a real function. It’s a wetland and a wildlife habitat, and all of it—the pebbles, the permeable concrete walks and pavers, the plants, even the sculptures themselves—absorb and filter storm water runoff before it gets to Mill Creek. Now Corathers is working with individual communities along the waterway to develop projects (trails, wetlands, wildlife habitats, and more) that will eventually create a greenway corridor. “It’s a slow process,” she says, but “more people are finally getting it.” All the bits and pieces seem to be making a difference. Corathers reports that, for the first time in 50 years, there are beavers living on the Mill Creek upstream in Butler County and black-crowned night herons nesting downstream in Lower Price Hill. Just two more reasons that she’s able to utter the words “hope springs eternal” with a straight face. // Linda Vaccariello

The Constant Gardeners
Willie Carden, director of parks, Cincinnati Park Board
Gerald Checco, superintendent of park operations, Cincinnati Park Board

At the front desk of the Cincinnati Park Board Administration Building on Eden Park Drive, a desktop screen displays carbon removed from the air, noted as pounds of CO² avoided, as well as the kilowatt hours generated by 90 solar panels and a wind turbine on a nearby hill. Those two sources combine to supply about 20 percent of the building’s energy needs—an achievement of considerable pride to parks director Willie Carden and Gerald Checco, superintendent of park operations.

“There’s lots of fun in the jobs we have, and that’s part of the beauty,” says Checco, who has been responsible for implementing at least 14 different green proposals in the city’s parks during the past two years. The goal is to introduce alternative clean energy wherever possible, including the use of bio-fuel in the parks’ lawnmowers and cars, a “right-sizing” of the fleet (ensuring that the minimum number of vehicles needed are used, and only vehicles appropriately sized for the task), and the creation of rain gardens—featuring water-absorptive plants, thus reducing sewer run-off—in Ault, Eden, French, and Mt. Airy Parks. Since February 2007, the solar panels and wind turbines have produced 20,000 kilowatt hours of electricity (equivalent to removing five cars from the road), and the parks have taken more than 40 vehicles out of service.

True, minimizing the use of the Park Board’s vehicle fleet and retrofitting buildings with energy efficient systems do not necessarily translate as “sexy” environmental initiatives, but it all depends on your definition of enviro-sexy. Take the recent introduction of solar powered trash cans—a.k.a. Big Bellies. To the naked eye, Big Bellies are roughly triple the size of a regular trash can; they can hold 180 compacted gallons of garbage versus 35 gallons for regular cans. Checco, a French engineer who came to the Park Board 17 years ago, explains: “Trash collection is frustrating. It’s hard to tell when a can is full, and there are 800 cans throughout the parks. So we asked an intern from UC to find a way [for us] to be more efficient.”

Her solution: Put a solar panel on the can to fuel a battery that will compact the trash when sensors tell it to do so. With additional input from an outside inventor, a wireless signal was built in to alert parks employees when the cans are full. “We now have 10 Big Bellies in four parks with the price for each down to $3,995,” says Checco. “Because each one can handle eight to ten times the normal amount of trash, and with crews picking them up only when full, our efficiency is far greater”—meaning they don’t have to check as many cans as often to see whether they need emptying. Checco thinks 800 regular cans could be replaced by 200 Big Bellies by 2010.

But it’s not just about Big Bellies. Carden says that a dedicated reforestation project involving 4,000 trees per year is designed to “negate the carbon footprint of the Flying Pig Marathon.” Indeed, early this summer, at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mark Mallory received a special mention for best practice in recognition of this achievement. Carden is also particularly bullish on a solar-powered go-cart being designed for the mayor’s youth employment program. “I asked the mayor, if we built it, if he’d take it for a spin around the city, and he says he will,” Carden says. “I think that’s kind of cool!” // Polk Laffoon IV

The Green Machinist
Larry Falkin, director of Cincinnati’s Office of Environmental Quality

Larry Falkin, director of the Office of Environmental Quality and the city’s chief green strategist, has spent the last 10 months developing a citywide Climate Protection Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and set energy efficiency goals. The plan requires the city government’s electrical needs to go down by 4 percent within the next year and 10 percent over the next four years. Approved by council at the end of June, the ambitious CPP forms the core of Mayor Mark Mallory’s mission to make Cincinnati a Midwestern mecca of green living. Falkin, a native of Peekskill, New York, says we must take action now. “I’ve found that most of the people who were reluctant a few years ago now understand that making these changes is necessary for the economic future of our area,” he says. “We’re not a good wind zone and just an OK solar zone, but what we are is a great bio-mass [fuels generated from plants] zone because of the city’s lush green hillsides. You can make motor fuels from things like cornstalks and prairie grass, so the idea that we could develop our own native fuel by planting and harvesting our hillsides could be a great solution for some of our energy needs.” Falkin believes that another part of the solution is as close as that giant landfill northwest of town known as Mt. Rumpke. “Right now our metro area is putting 2 million tons of waste a year into the Rumpke landfill, and about 60 percent of the material is chemically identical to coal,” says Falkin. Converting that waste to fuel would require Rumpke to expand its recovery and sorting efforts and the redesigning and retrofitting of our coal-fired power plants to handle waste-derived fuels. “I know it sounds like a lot,” Falkin says. “But it can work.” // Kathleen Doane

The Cleaner
Lisa Crawford, president of Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health (FRESH)

For years the Fernald uranium processing plant was part of America’s weapon-making industry. But in 1979, 23-year-old Lisa Crawford wasn’t concerned with what was going on across the street from the house she and her husband, Ken, rented in Crosby Township. They simply wanted a home with a large backyard where their son could play. That changed five years later. After 33 years of purifying uranium ore for atomic bombs, radioactive waste from Fernald had leached into the ground water. “Immediately you’re like, ‘How does this affect us? Is it going to harm my baby’s health?’” says Crawford, whose son, Kenny Jr., was then 8 years old. “I was really angry.” Crawford and her husband filed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy and the plant’s operator, National Lead of Ohio, then she assumed presidency of Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health (FRESH). “We spent those first few years just raising holy living hell.” In 1989, the U.S. Department of Energy agreed to a $78 million settlement with township residents, which included a medical-monitoring program. It was a major victory, but Crawford spent another 17 years making sure the DOE and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency actually cleaned up the site. On August 20, the former weapons complex reopens—as a nature preserve. “Fernald will be our legacy,” Crawford says. “I want the preserve to be a catalyst: ‘Look at what we did wrong, look at how we fixed it, and let’s not do this again.’” // Aiesha D. Little

The Guardian
Alan Vicory, executive director and chief engineer of ORSANCO

In 1948, eight governors gathered at the Omni Netherland Hotel and created the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO)—an unprecedented interstate agency that would address water pollution throughout the Ohio Valley. Today, thanks to precedents set by ORSANCO and people like Alan Vicory, the Ohio River safely provides drinking water to 3 million people. “Our accomplishments are world-class,” Vicory says. “Most people are astounded when they see what we do for [such] a small organization. Twenty-seven people, that’s it. But we’re right in the middle of national policy. I was in Munich three weeks ago and now I’m going to Vienna to talk about the stuff we’re doing right here in Cincinnati.” ORSANCO’s chief tasks are basic but huge: setting wastewater discharge standards; performing biological assessments; monitoring the chemical and physical properties of the Ohio and its tributaries. The commission is also responsible for programs like the annual Ohio River Sweep, during which 21,000 people clean 13,000 pounds of trash along thousands of miles of shoreline, and coordinating emergency responses for spills and discharges. While Vicory could, as he says, “go on and on” about ORSANCO, he points to the river as the best evidence. “People have returned to the Ohio,” he says. “We have worked to improve water quality, which has improved people’s lives and protected public health and given them recreation opportunity. And that spurs economic growth. It’s the rising tide that lifts all boats.” // Brent Donaldson

The Web Spinner
Brianne Fahey, founder, www.livegreencincinnati.com

All it took was a sixth-grade field trip to Rumpke’s recycling facility to spark Brianne Fahey’s environmental passion. “I was fascinated!” she says. “I thought, why would you ever let things go into the trash if there are a million other uses for them?” Decades later the environmentalist and LEED-accredited professional took recycling beyond plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and newspapers, and decided to recycle her wealth of eco-knowledge on the Web. The 29-year-old founder and lead contributor to www.livegreencincinnati.com publishes articles on the site daily about green goings-on that she thinks could be implemented on a larger scale, plus tips on sustainability, eco-jobs, and resource guides. What began as a blog in March 2007 has now become a bustling Web site with more than 20,000 unique visits each month. Fahey gets e-mails from people who want to know where to buy a rain barrel, small business owners looking for advice on sustainable materials, and groups looking to have their earth-friendly event posted. Recently, someone contacted her for advice on where to find dual flush toilets. Though she might not have an immediate answer, she always tries to dig up a solution. “I want to build awareness by planting an idea in someone’s brain,” she says. “Over time it might work up to bigger things.” Her positivism offers an antidote to stories about the oil crisis and drowning polar bears. “Everything I do matters. Everything you do matters,” she says. “Changing one lightbulb might not seem like a big deal, but when there’s 200 of us doing it and Duke’s meter starts rolling backwards, that’s huge.” // Katherine L. Sontag

The Sage Counsel
David Altman, attorney

“It’s hard to take,” says attorney David Altman, “but companies, and even government at times, can be callous in their disregard for the health and safety of the most vulnerable people.” Case in point: the former Elda Landfill in Winton Hills, one of the city’s poorest areas. In the mid-1990s, Altman represented the community in a lawsuit against landfill owner Waste Management to stop a planned expansion. For more than two decades, noxious gases had escaped, polluting the air and sparking complaints from the nearly 2,000 people who lived along its borders. “We were able to stop the expansion, and document a lot of information regarding the health of the residents,” he says. Over the past 39 years, Altman has worn the green of Robin Hood, stepping in time after time to speak for the socially and environmentally oppressed, first as a community activist while a student at the University of Cincinnati, and during his 34-year career as a lawyer. Three years ago, Altman was asked by councilman David Crowley to chair a task force to create the first municipal environmental justice ordinance in the country. The ordinance, still in draft form, would regulate certain types of new development (mainly industrial) in designated environmental justice areas. “We’re not forbidding additional industry from going anywhere or existing businesses from expanding, but if they have the potential for pollution, we’re asking that they disclose [that] and how they plan to control it,” he says. “At the end of the day, there is no substitute for people learning, and organizing if necessary, to protect their property, their children, their lives. It’s what we do in a democracy.” // Kathleen Doane

The Good Neighbor
Jim Schenk, founder, Imago

It’s a balmy spring day, and visitors to the Enright Ridge Urban Eco-Village Home and Garden Tour in Price Hill are crammed into the narrow, slant-sided greenhouse that forms the entrance to the home of Jim and Eileen Schenk. Jim Schenk is explaining that version 1.0 of his greenhouse used recycled glass patio doors for the walls, but they leaked; version 2.0, which we’re looking at, employs fiberglass to minimize incoming water. But really, if he had to do it all over, he would have built the whole thing with straight walls, not sloped ones. “It’s a real pain,” he says matter-of-factly.

It’s not customary for a homeowner to give such a frank assessment of a DIY project, especially when the homeowner in question is an eco-idealist trying to promote energy-efficiency in others. But that’s Jim Schenk: Living green is a work in progress for him; some ideas succeed and some don’t. But he keeps trying because that’s what it will take if our species is going to survive.

Thirty years ago, Schenk, a former seminarian, and his wife, Eileen, founded Imago, a program committed to educating people, especially Cincinnatians, about their relationship to the Earth. Today, their corner of East Price Hill is a nexus of green initiatives and spiritual exploration—and a neighborhood for those who hope to leave behind a smaller carbon footprint when they go off to meet their Maker.

Imago itself is a 16-acre wildlife preserve and education center where the 63-year-old Schenk was, until three years ago, the executive director. The program sponsors workshops, discussion groups, and a film series. But the center’s continuing goal is to preserve wilderness in an urban setting—a place where hikers, families, scout troops, and schoolchildren can come to explore and to understand a bit more about what it means to live in concert with nature. The land that Imago sits on is down the block from the Schenks’ house on Enright Avenue, where Schenk and some like-minded neighbors have formed a self-described “eco-village.” That is, a place where residents are actively seeking to reduce, reuse, and recycle; where friends swap sources for recycled lumber; where a solar hot water heater, or an organic garden, or a clothesline, or a greenhouse addition like Schenk’s aren’t regarded as eyesores by the neighbors.