Still Waters
Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Heather Dempsey ’97 always had a passion for nature and the outdoors, an awareness of the environment and a familiarity with activism.
She always knew she wanted to return to that area and make her life there. But she never imagined she would one day lead an effort to take on the city of San Francisco in a battle to protect a river and a region she loves.
As Bay Area program director for the Tuolumne River Trust, Dempsey leads a coalition of environmental groups that has been fighting to stop the city of San Francisco from building a $500 million pipeline and taking 25 million more gallons of water per day from the Tuolumne River. The city already relies on the river for more than 85 percent of its water. Diverting more would damage important fish and wildlife habitat and lead to less fresh water flowing into the Delta and San Francisco Bay. Dempsey and other environmental leaders argued that the city and its 2.5 million customers do not need more water from the Tuolumne because the area has yet to implement aggressive conservation measures or water recycling.
Their bid was successful. Not only did the city abandon the pipeline proposal, it sided with Dempsey’s coalition, deciding to pursue more sustainable and economical means of delivering water. “This is the Bay Area, where we like to tell everybody else in the world how to be good environmentalists,” Dempsey says. “We need to show everybody there’s no reason to jeopardize the river or build expensive new pipelines. We can be just as innovative in our water use as we are in our microchip industry.”
Because of the threat posed by the pipeline and new diversions, the Tuolumne was placed on the list of America’s Ten Most Endangered Rivers of 2005. “The responsibility of stopping this threat and trying to protect the river is pretty daunting when you’re up against the politics of urban growth,” Dempsey says. “My way of approaching problems is to propose an alternative solution and look at something balanced so everybody gets something of what they need and the river can survive.”
Balance is both what led Dempsey to Willamette and what she found when she got here. The University was neither too close to home nor too far away, yet it opened her eyes to entirely new viewpoints. She recalls a class discussion about logging and old-growth forests. “Coming at it from the Bay Area perspective, I would have said they should stop logging,” she explains, “but then I got into classrooms with students who grew up in mill towns that were totally depressed because of changes in the timber industry and environmental regulations. It made me realize there were larger consequences to being an environmentalist. There’s a human element that must be considered.”
That interaction was pivotal in shaping how she approaches environmental issues today — by trying to find a balance and getting others involved. It’s an approach she began honing when she helped other environmental science students start ECOS, the Environmental Career and Outreach Society, which quickly became one of the largest and most active student organizations on campus and remains so today.
Before heading to Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies for her master’s degree, Dempsey worked for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and mentored several WU students. “Heather continues to be an inspiration to our students,” says Joe Bowersox, associate professor of politics. “She is always ready to meet with them and talk about their studies and graduate or career goals.”
“Heather has a wonderful ability to sense where something is needed and act in a way that fills that need,” explains Karen Arabas, associate professor of environmental and earth sciences. “Where she sees a need for conversation, discussion and contemplation of an issue, she makes it happen, as with the Dempsey Lecture Series.”
Dempsey established the series in 2001 to raise awareness and inspire students to get involved. “Environmental issues really lend themselves well to the liberal arts education and interdisciplinary learning. Today’s students are often dedicated to something larger, something beyond themselves.”
Dempsey’s other goal in creating the series is to increase the profile of the University — something she cares about not only as an alumna, but as a member of the board of trustees and the University’s Sustainability Council. “A lot of my motivation was to help make Willamette a leader on the landscape of strong liberal arts colleges in the West,” she says. “It deserves to have big names coming to campus, especially in the environmental field, which is where I wanted to contribute.”
“My way of approaching problems is to propose an alternative solution and look at something balanced so everybody gets something of what they need and the river can survive.”
While Bowersox and Arabas help her plan the lecture series, Dempsey is most excited about the involvement of students in the endeavor. “Every year the students take more of a leadership role, and hopefully that will get some new and exciting speakers to come to campus,” she says. “I’ll never be that charismatic public speaker type of leader myself. I’m better at creating energy around an issue that then makes other people want to get involved.”
“Heather saw a huge need for students to be engaged by people with experience beyond our campus,” Arabas explains, “so now we are able to bring in experts on a variety of topics and issues, not just for a public lecture, but to spend time in class, at lunch, over coffee with our students.”
“The Dempsey Lecture Series has become a signature event for the University,” Bowersox says. “It has enhanced our outreach to the community and made us a focus of sustainability. Most important, the unique structure of the series has had a tremendous impact on our students. Getting to talk one on one with the chief of the forest service, the secretary of the interior or the founder of conservation biology can be a life-changing experience.”
Even after winning the battle to protect the Tuolumne, Dempsey says, “I’m still finding my skill set and developing it, and it’s great practice for the future. Learning about yourself is an important part of leadership, and our students do that every day. They learn to build coalitions so change is possible. It would be great if every student left Willamette with the realization that there are things about the world they love and there are things they hate, and that through their education they would feel empowered to change those things.”
Note: The 2006 Dempsey Lecture will be held Thursday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. in Hudson Hall. This year’s lecturer is Robert Costanza, an expert in sustainable economics. As director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, Costanza is best known for his pioneering work on ecosystem valuation, e.g., putting a dollar figure on the services ecosystems provide to the continued functioning of the planet.