The Eco-Warrior of Burlington

THE ECO-WARRIOR OF BURLINGTON

Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (Napanee Beaver)

Friday, July 13, 2007 (Picton Gazette)

The year was 1982, and my wife and I had decided at the last minute to attend the evening banquet after all at this three day conference. My colleagues at Glenora Fisheries where I was employed that year assured me that the guest speaker was one I shouldn’t miss since he was a well respected scientist with the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW), in Burlington.

Upon introduction, the guest speaker suddenly appeared from another room, or, I should say, sprinted out with the energy of a high school athlete. Strapped securely to his back was a world globe, and in his right hand was a plastic spray bottle. As he interacted with the audience in a manner of no other guest speaker I had ever before experienced, he gave the sprayer a few lusty squirts of mist over the audience, and enthusiastically declared, ” We put it into the air, now we are getting it back!”

He was referring, of course, to acid rain, and this was my introduction to Dr. Jack Vallentyne. Known to his fans as “Johnny Biosphere,” Jack devoted his life to changing people’s cavalier attitude about the environment, and what we were putting into it. “You and the environment are inseparable. One cannot exist without the other. You not only have a right to be here, you have an obligation in self-interest to protect the planetary heritage left by our kin.”

Vallentyne did not approach the issue as an alarmist, but rather, realistically, if not calmly, assuring audiences that their hair wasn’t going to fall out from acid rain or their arms won’t start to peel. However, he pulled no punches when he said acid rain does hurt us in other ways. As examples, he cited cases of now fishless lakes in North America where the effects of acid rain have upset the ecology of these lakes. “Is there anyone here who likes pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast?” he’d ask. “Well, the maple trees are dying. There are many causes. One of them is acid rain.”

Dr. Vallentyne had a way of communicating with his audience, but it didn’t come easily. Despite his familiarity with and usage of scientific jargon among his colleagues, he went to great lengths to translate all this into a language that kids and the general public could readily understand. As one adult who attended a presentation concluded, “Johnny plants the seeds of environmental awareness in each classroom he visits, spraying students with ‘acid rain’ or feeding a plant potato chips and a cola as he talks about acid rain or proper food and nutrition.”

Dr. Vallentyne early on became frustrated with bureaucrats and adults, and channelled his efforts toward teaching children about protecting the biosphere. His message touched over 20,000 kids a year as he travelled around the world communicating these important scientific principles to children because he believed they were the key to the future of our planet. He could not understand, for example, the length of time it was taking to regulate detergent phosphates that were discharged into the sewage systems and which fed the growing mounds of dead and decaying algae on treasured beaches. Even after progress had been made in the 1970s to regulate laundry detergents, he found it mind boggling that in these regulations, Canada had failed to regulate the phosphates in automatic dishwasher detergent, when environmentally friendly alternatives are available. His efforts though earned him the Rachel Carson Award 15 years ago for his role in reducing the level of phosphates in heavy duty laundry detergents in the 1970s, and for promoting the ecosystem approach to environmental management into the Canada and United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978.

When Dr. Vallentyne wasn’t busy on the road, he was employed by the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW), actively promoting the ecosystem approach to research, environmental conservation and education. He passed away late last month at the age of 81, and still had so much more to do. He had been co-authoring a book on eutrophication and was scheduled to address the annual meeting the International Society for Limnology, in Montreal, next month, in a final effort in urging Ottawa to regulate dishwasher detergent. For school kids whose lives he touched, they will miss the Mr. Dress-up of Science, who dedicated his life to the continuity of the biosphere.

I feel privileged that I had the opportunity, however brief, to meet this man who was doing so much to raise public awareness of what to him seemed so obvious. It was only after I was purging some old files last week, that I came across the registration to this convention that I had saved for some many years in my filing cabinet. It brought back a lot of memories. It wasn’t until I searched the Internet, seeking an update on Dr. Vallentyne, when I learned that he had passed away from colon cancer only a week earlier. In that information, it was learned that his ashes would be scattered over the Great Lakes which he loved and cared for immensely.