Susan Rieff Interview, Part 2 of 2

DT: I think earlier you mentioned that one of Governor Richards' proud accomplishments was to try to merge these disparate agencies that were taking care of different aspects of the pollution problems in Texas and-could you talk a little bit about the merger and what-what that meant in an on-the-ground way?

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SR: Mmm hmm, I-I ca-I can and-and I need to say, too, this-this idea was also promoted by Lieutenant Governor Bullock-Lieutenant Governor Bullock at the time. There had been this infusion of proposals and pressures to build and to accept more hazardous waste facilities in Texas. And it had come from-from in-state producers of waste, it had come from out-of-state companies that wanted to build facilities here and bring in different kinds of hazardous waste from around the country. One of the things that became a huge controversy was when a New York firm actually, on a train, moved sludge from New York City all the way out to West Texas to dispose of this in far West Texas. It was the Merco Project. And suddenly there

00:02:53 - 2393 was this feeling that Texas was in-at risk of becoming sort of the dumping ground for the country because of our lax laws, our lax regulation. And Governor Richards had had sort of campaigned on that issue a little bit because she was sympathetic to the concerns that had been raised again by neighborhood groups op-opposing some of these in more urban areas. The Merco Project sort of came out of nowhere, was approved probably without adequate attention and stirred up just all-all kinds of controversy in Texas. Those things were-were dealt with one, through this Hazardous Waste Bill that she was-that she was behind and then ultimately passed. But it also, I think, sensitized everyone to the fact that in Texas, environmental

00:03:47 - 2393 protection responsibilities really were spread across a number of state agencies. Solid waste management was in the old health department and water issues were in the Texas Water Commission and air quality issues were dealt with by the Texas Air Control Board. And other kinds of pollution issues were at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. And then water project permitting was at the Texas Water Development Board. And pesticides were at the Agriculture Department. This made it hard to-to-to-to make sure that all aspects of a problem were studied. It-there was very little coordination really between the agencies. They all had different mandates; they all had different constituencies in the legislature. And it put Texas really in a different category than most other states because by then, all states were moving in the direction of having a central environmental agency, sort of state Environmental

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Protection Agencies modeling the federal agency. So we began the process here and I'll never forget the first meeting. We had this huge meeting with all the people from different agencies who weren't necessarily keen on this idea because, of course, they had their own structures and their own levels of authority and their own budgets. But nonetheless, we started working toward what-what would be the best way for Texas to start pulling that together. And so we really started with the proposal to just bring the Air Control Board, the Water Commission and the solid waste functions from the Health department together. And that was finally achieved. And the worst of it was the acronym that came out of it because the first thing it was called was the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission. And the reason

00:05:43 - 2393 for that was that the Texas legislature doesn't like the word-word-didn't like the word environment and they didn't like EPA. So they weren't going to call it Texas, you know, EPA. So it was Texas train wreck for many years and that was probably not a bad moniker for it. But I don't know, not too long ago it was changed and now it's the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which still isn't environmental protection but it's a step forward. So now Texas, like most states, has a central agency who can-who can at least in theory look at some of those problems more holistically.

DT: Maybe you can talk a little bit about specific examples of how the environmental regulatory apparatus would gin up for different issues. I mean, there were a number going on back then. I mean, you mentioned Hunter and the Merco Poo Poo Choo Choo [municipal sludge train] and then the...

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SR: (Laughs) Yeah, I couldn't think of what that was called.

DT: I think Winona had problems as well. 00:06:46 - 2393 SR: Yeah, I-I won't be able to recall them but these-these...

DT: What-what has really got the Governor's attention?

00:06:53 - 2393 SR: Well these projects were-were highly controversial; probably Hunter is the one that was most controversial. And the way these were handled is that the agencies would-if-if there was a protest, the agencies would hold administrative hearings on the permits and these were to allow all the parties to present their information, their data and from that, the agency would make a recommendation to the commission. The agency staff would make a recommendation to the commission. Well that whole process of these citizen hearings, citizen participation through these hearings became controversial. And that, I think, was-was a-a theme throughout those years and probably remained so. To what extent do citizens and citizen groups get to be

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part of the decision making about these kinds of-of questions? And, you know, our-in the Governor's office in those days, our perspective was yes, they-they need to be-that needs-that process needs to continue. Parties on the other side for the most part argued that, you know, that was heretical and that those people didn't know what they were doing and it-it-and it took too much time and it was going to hurt business, and hurt jobs in Texas. So a lot of the-the politics actually took place in and around those hearings. And those are quasi-judicial hearings and there are all kinds of rules about ex parte communication and-and, you know, who can say what and when. But nonetheless, you know, there were tremendous pressures applied throughout that. And probably the-the hearing on the Hunter permit

00:08:47 - 2393 for the salt dome injection well was the-the most contested, the most expensive, the longest of those things. But ultimately that permit was rejected. So there were-and-and-there were hearings I think on the-the Channelview Hazardous Waste Facility, on some radioactive waste facilities. It was just-it was-there was a lot going on in those days. And-but I think it really-it-it-it forced attention on an issue in Texas which maybe hadn't been so clear before and that is how these decisions are going to get made and does the public have an opportunity to be in that process and to sort of raise those issues in a public venue. And that was all to the good, I believe.

DT: I think that we had talked about this a little bit off camera about the role that Ann Richards as a woman had maybe moving environmental protection ahead in the state, certainly a lot of the environmental leaders in the state are female and that's-I'm curious if you could speculate about whether it was something unique to her or something that's believed more broadly among women and that-that, you know, this needs to be an issue that should be addressed.

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SR: Mmm hmm. Well, Ann was certainly an environmentalist at heart and she loved Big Bend, she loved being outdoors. She had a really authentic, you know, affinity and sense of stewardship, I think, about-about nature. So that part just came naturally for her. She also was very sympathetic and empathetic toward families that were concerned about their kids' health. And so when she was down in the Houston Ship Channel and hearing from these people about how they were afraid their kids were getting sick because of industrial pollution and they were afraid that these new hazardous waste dumps would endanger their kids, she was totally moved by that. And-and she was smart enough, too, I think, to see through some of the arguments about, you know, the economy of Houston will crash if we don't have

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these two new, you know, facilities here or something. She-she was pretty jud-you know, pretty shrewd that way. But she was very, I don't know, very empathetic. She would go down to the-to south Texas and-and tour the colonias and would come back with a stack of notes for me to respond to and-and take-and things to take care of because she really understood what those people were living with, the conditions under which they were living, and the lack of clean water, the-the-the lack of basic sanitation. And I think if you look even around the country at a lot of activist groups that have-that have sprung up in opposition to a particular project or a policy or something, often it's women leading them and often it is because of what they think is an impact to their children. And if you think about

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Love Canal you-you know, and-and lots of those things. The Channelview Group that fought that project, they were women at the head of them. And I-I don't know why I think it's a-I think maybe it's that sense of empathy. I think-I think children are a powerful motivator for a lot of women who care about the environment and care about what-where their children will live and what their experience will be like. I think maybe it is a-a refusal to accept that econor-economic arguments always should trump these decisions. I-I have observed, too, that sometimes the leaders that emerge from these-from these environmental controversies find themselves being good at that, you know. They end up being good speakers, they end up being

00:13:24 - 2393 good organizers, good fund raisers, good advocates, and that's empowering to people. I'm trying to think of the Formosa-Diane Wilson is another one who's a shrimper and became such an effective opponent of the Formosa Plastics Company down there on the coast. So I think for some women it's a-it's an opportunity to sort of be effective and-and-and-and sort of exercise some power that maybe they'd not had previously.

DT: I-I have a political question I guess as well. You-you've served in a Democratic senator's office, Democratic Agriculture Commissioner's office, a Democratic Governor and it would seem that-that environmental issues are something that touch all of us no matter what our political persuasions are. But it's become a partisan thing and I was curious if you could A, comment on what happened to Texas politics that, you know, Hightower was the last Democratic Ag Commissioner and it's been quite a while. And Ann Richards is the last Democratic Governor here. What happened...

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SR: Right.

DT: (Inaudible) could move from a Democratic regime to Republican and secondly why the environmental initiative didn't carry over into the Republican column so well?

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SR: Well, I-I'm probably-let me go back for a minute, David, to my earlier experience in the U.S. Senate. And even in the early eighties when the Senate had-had become Republican and Ronald Reagan was in the White House, there were still then a lot of moderate Republicans mostly from the Northeast, not totally, Midwest, that we worked with on environmental issues very well, people like Robert Stafford and John Chafee and Senator [Charles] Percy from Illinois, Howard Baker, others like that. And they were very progressive in their environmental thinking and-and legislating and it did not seem as

00:15:46 - 2393 polarized, at least immediately then. As you know over time, there are fewer of those people and the national politics have-have become more polarized. In Texas, I don't know that I can add anything to that except the business lobby is so powerful and-and I-I think there are a few things maybe that-par-particular to this state. One is the fundamental lack of public lands here. It's very much a private property way of thinking and a kind of a exclusive way of thinking. And so to argue that you need environmental policies that protect the common good which, you know, most effective environmental strategies ha-are-are trying to do that in some way, that's a difficult argument to make here, I think. And it's-I think it's because of just the Texas mythology that there's unlimited land and unlimited space

00:16:53 - 2393 and-and if you want to be outside, go to your own ranch. And in this, you know, what we have in reality is a very urban state with a lot of typical big city pollution problems. But we don't really have the political culture I think to-to deal with that. Good example is just the pressure for more park land, more open space, more urban parks, trying-it's taken a long time through the efforts of people like George Bristol and Bob Armstrong and many others to-to try to gain some political consensus that that's a worthy thing for the state to invest in, necessary thing for the state to invest in. So I think it's-it's-it's a long history in Texas that way. It has seemed that most of the environmental sup-support for environmental causes and issues in the state legislature has come from more urban members of that body

00:17:55 - 2393 and yet the leadership has been dominated by rural interests. That may be changing but that's historically been the case. And so it's been tough to make progress on things like agricultural practices that may cause environmental problems, restrictions on land that may be necessary to protect endangered species. Those things kind of run counter to-to Texas culture. That's my-that's my observation as a-someone who did not grow up in Texas.

DT: Well maybe we can leave Texas for just a little bit as you did. And-and I understand that you-you had-a time in Washington again when you went back to work for...

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SR: I did.

DT: The Department of Interior again (inaudible).

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SR: I did. I did another term of duty.

DT: What were some of the issues that were high on the list while you were there? And particularly are there any that might have affected concerns here in Texas?

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SR: Well, I-I did go back up and worked for three years in the Clinton Administration as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Interior Department to Secretary Babbitt. And the immediate connection here was again the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. And I feel like I have been involved in that project my entire life because it got started, I think, or somebody-it started kind of filtering up and I was at Parks and Wildlife and then when I was in the Governor's office, when it all sort of, you know, exploded around that. I worked on it with people from Babbitt's office and then when I got up there, I kept working on it. So that was-that was one-that was interesting kind of being-being part of that from that stage instead of from here. I was kind of-I was really lucky because I was sort of a utility player up there and so I got

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to be involved in lots of things but again, I-I focused mostly on western lands. And the Clinton Administration was trying to again sort of correct the excesses of the previous administration on things like how public energy resources, especially, could-were-were being sold or leased to private interests. And so we were working a lot on coal leasing and mineral leasing standards, worked a lot on something that I guess will be with us forever and that is the 1872 Mining Law. I've worked on that with Senator Bumpers, I worked on that some when I was back in Washington and it still remains today this abomination of-of law-of law. It's just ridiculous. But the most fun I had, the most interesting thing I did was that I was asked to really implement

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the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This was a-a big statement that the White House had made. President Clinton named this wonderful area in southern Utah as a national monument. And following that, he named several others. He named, I think, 50 million acres as national monuments but this was the first one. And it was a big surprise. I was not very involved in everything that led up to it but it's a fantastic area in southern Utah. It's in the area that's around Arches National Park and Canyonlands and Zion that really-that red rock country that's so spectacular. And when the President made the announcement, of course environmentalists around the country thought this was great, and everybody in Utah thought it was the worst thing that could possibly have happened. And the private

00:21:46 - 2393 property rights groups and interests were just on fire and the local officials were un-I mean everybody was unhappy in Utah. And so my job was to make this work. So I ended up spending the better part of a year and a half-a lot of it in southern Utah in small towns. And it was fascinating because of the history of that area, relationships between people living there, people working in the agencies and-and that relationship back to Salt Lake City. Fortunately, Mike Leavitt was Governor at the time in Utah and Governor Leavitt saw the value in this even as he didn't like the way it had happened. And Utah has a funny tradition, not a funny tradition, interesting tradition of land use planning. And it goes back to the Mormon settlement of the state. And he had already launched some interesting planning activities and

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so we worked a lot with his office. But I got to be immersed in the culture of southern Utah. And this place is big. The-the monument is almost the size of Yellowstone National Park. And so we were doing assessments out there trying to really see what was there. I mean no one had paid any attention to this piece of land. And archeologically, culturally, biologically, geologically it was just a-a masterpiece of nature, really, really was and is. And that was a-a great opportunity also to see how something that's really a stroke of the pen decision by a president translates on the ground to the lives of people living in and around a place like this. These are all small towns. They were often opposed to it vehemently, just ideologically and at the same time saw

00:23:58 - 2393 tourism benefits, you know, saw some recognition for their area, you know. How-how could we sort of let everybody hold their ideological positions but-but get practical about how to make this work? So that was, you know, that was a great and very interesting time and it opened the door to more of these designations and I-I-I feel strongly that anytime you get a chance to preserve land, do it. You won't get a second chance.

DT: This might be a segue into your work with, I guess, your next step.

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SR: Yeah.

DT: A long, illustrious career. You went back to-you have-to non-profit world...

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SR: I did, I did.

DT: And-and the National Wildlife Federation doing land stewardship work there. What-what did that entail?

00:24:52 - 2393 SR: Well, I had-I'd decided that, you know, like everybody else who lives in Austin, I wanted to come back home. I never intended to stay long in Washington the second time. And I had an opportunity with the National Wildlife Federation to take a job that would allow me to live here and-and I thought that was worth trying to do. And so I came here first to set up a regional office in Texas that would be a multi-state office. And then was able to hire someone to run that and I became a Regional Vice President. And then a little bit later became the Director of Lands Programs for the Federation nationally. What was great is that I'd worked with National Wildlife Federation forever, knew a lot of the people, had an appreciation for their ki-kind of history and close association with hunting and fishing groups. And I

00:25:54 - 2393 understood that in part, having been at Parks and Wildlife, and so that was not a reach for me. I mean they're different from a lot of environmental groups in Washington in that way. So that kind of interested me. And-and I wanted to come back here and I'd never really been in a non-profit organization. So I had a great six years learning that business. And NWF had-goes back to the thirties. It's got this wonderful, wonderful history, and has really been able to claim some great legislative victories over the years. But it's-it-it-at the time it was kind of struggling, I think, to figure out where it fit in the sort of whole universe of environmental groups. And it-it was kind of interesting in that way in that you now have so many groups especially in Washington and I think there's a sort of sorting that's going out. But NWF I think has its-has its-a strong position as still

00:26:58 - 2393 representing that kind of Teddy Roosevelt type of conservation. So I learned a lot there. It also let me kind of get back to my interests in public lands so I spent time and we dealt with lots of endangered species issues in the west, prairie dogs and wolves re-reintroduction and-and really kind of looking at issues from a wildlife standpoint, which usually takes you back to habitat, which usually takes you back to how are you managing the landscape.

DT: What you-you mentioned wolves and their reintroduction I guess in-in Yellowstone? Is that (inaudible)?

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SR: Yellowstone? Mmm hmm.

DT: Can you talk about some of the-the political controversies and some of the ecological aspects of it as well?

00:27:47 - 2393 SR: Mmm hmm. Yellowstone's a fascinating story and I can't begin-to do it justice. But wolves had long been removed from-from the Yellowstone, Greater Yellowstone Basin, Greaterstone-Yellowstone ecosystem. And they are the top predator in that system. And for a long time, biologists had wanted to reintroduce wolves there because they knew, they believed that with the right kind of wolf population, you'd see a balance reestablished in the bison population and the elk population. You know, if you go to Yellowstone now, or at least the last time I was there a couple of years ago, you can't get through the parking lot for the elk standing around in it. Well there's been no

00:28:31 - 2393 predation really. So the-the wolf was on the endangered or threatened list I can't recall and after a lot of negotiations and dec-and analysis, Secretary Babbitt decided to reintroduce the wolf into that ecosystem. And literally went out there with wolves in cages, you know, and-and took them out and let them go. And it's been a great success in terms of bringing down the-the bison herds which were getting too large and certainly the elk herds. I mean there really is this kind of ecological balance that seems to be tilting back as it should be. But the other side of this is the wolves, and this was the concern always of the ranchers, the wolves don't stay in the park necessarily. And there's great fear that they would, you know, just savage the local ranchers' cattle and-and sheep herds, and that's just an

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inevitable tension. I don't think that has been as serious as was feared but there certainly have been incidents and I think there are programs in place to actually reimburse ranchers who lose livestock to the wolves. Similar situations come up with bison getting outside the park boundaries. And that's been especially difficult. Everybody loves buffalo, there are lots of them out there and they contract brucellosis which is a disease that's fatal to cattle. And when the bison herd would start to veer outside the park boundaries as they often do, especially during the winter looking for food, the ranchers want to shoot them because they fear that the bison will transmit that disease to the cattle. Well, long story short, I mean here's the bison herd which is just iconic in America, you know, everybody loves buffalo and

00:30:30 - 2393 as soon as they cross the park boundary had ranchers shooting them like, you know, like any other kind of game. And they have rights to do that on private property and even the state of Montana was authorizing that. So that's a continuing issue and the science there doesn't-is not persuasive. There's no evidence, for example, that-that that disease actually can be transmitted from buffalo to cattle but that makes no difference in a political, you know, an emotionally charged kind of world. So how we bring-it's really a-the, you know, the-the pilot or not the pilot project but the best example of how trying to bring back these wildlife populations and-and restore ecosystems really doesn't work. I mean the political boundaries don't line up with the ecosystem boundaries or with the watershed

00:31:28 - 2393 boundaries or with the management boundaries. You can't-it's not a perfectly clean situation. And those human-animal conflicts are-are hard to deal with.

DT: Let me ask you a-a question about National Wildlife Federation that-that maybe a little-a little closer to-to Texas. If I remember, National Wildlife Federation was part of a consortium of groups here in Texas - Sierra Club, Environmental Defense and Texas Center for Policy Studies - that worked on something called the Living Waters Initiative. And I think that that started during your tenure there. Is that right?

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SR: Right. DT: Can you talk about what the source of that was and what sort of accomplishments (inaudible)?

00:32:18 - 2393 SR: I can-I can talk about the origins of it and some of the accomplishments but the real accomplishments have come after I've left. It's a great project. What happened was that about the time I got down here and-and even before I came back, Texas had passed statewide legislation setting up these planning districts to look at water needs around the state. So, I forget what they were called but the-the planning areas for the different watersheds. And there's a lot of fear, well placed fear in the state about water supplies being inadequate and the need to have some kind of systematic way to think about allocating those resources and building new projects. And the Water Development Board was empowered to set up these-these

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different committees, looking at these different areas and charge them with coming up with a plan. And people were appointed to the committees mostly representing development interests and local officials to come up with plans. Well there's a lot of competition between the plans, first of all, who would get the limited water. But what was clear to us at National Wildlife and throughout the environmental community is that there wasn't enough water to satisfy what everybody wanted and that nobody was going to be speaking for fish and wildlife or environmental needs, both in the rivers and also in the bays and estuaries that were at great risk of not getting any water. The hoses would run dry before they even got to the coast.

00:33:54 - 2393 And so we at National Wildlife started talking about what this would take. And we teamed up with Environmental Defense and Texas Center for Policy Studies and Sierra Club and TCONR [Texas Committee on Natural Resources, later called the Texas Conservation Alliance] and lots of people and just sort of crystallized the thinking, I think, that-that we-all of this could happen and we would end up with dead rivers, dead rivers and dead estuaries. And that there had to be recognition by the state that water was important also for the environment and that that needed to part of this legal allocation process for those-for those limited supplies. And what's followed has been this expansion of a project that I think has really forced the legislature to pay attention to that, to make some acknowledgement of it, it's far from perfect yet as I understand it. But it has changed the dialogue, I-I think, about how-about the need to-to-to be stewards of some of that available

00:35:07 - 2393 water. And it has energized people on the coast to sort of speak up and say we have to make sure a certain amount of water gets here, too. It's been-it's very difficult and it's-it's the issue of the century, truly is.

DT: In what sense? Why do you rank it so high?

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SR: I think the population growth in Texas is-is tremendous. It's been a while since I've looked at projections but there's-it's going to be very hard without some changes in behavior conservation, in finding other ways to do things to satisfy just the demands, urban demands for water, industrial demands for water, the way we have in the past. And one remnant, for example, is the law of capture for ground water. That's another antiquated policy in Texas and it is-I think most water experts would say it's-it-it's not workable, it's not, you know, we can't we-we can't continue to do that and yet there's great resistance to changing it. So I'm really grateful and happy that the Living Waters Project has continued so well. I think it's just-it's critically important and they're doing great.

DT: This might be a chance to-to move on to a-a-a last or most recent segment in your career. (misc.)

DT: Susan when we left off you were at the National Wildlife Federation but in 2004 you came to your current job at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

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SR: I did. DT: And it's-the-the name is certainly true that you all have taught people to love wildflowers. You've also, I think, educated people in a lot of research and the virtues of-of native landscape more generally. And I was hoping that you might be able to talk about a couple of the programs here that you're most excited about. You-I think you-you'd mentioned earlier the LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] certification program for commercial landscapers of this building. It's just such a great example of sustainable building. But you're thinking more now about the-the landscape that might surround a sustainably built (inaudible).

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SR: Very much, you know, people think of us as-as the wildflower place and we are and we-we've-by having these display gardens and being a botanic garden, we try to, you know, show people what's possible with native plants and get them to appreciate native plants. But the mission's really a lot bigger than that and one of the things I did when I came was I went and read a lot of what Lady Bird Johnson had said in speeches and books. And she was really a far-sighted, wise person. She was talking about sustainability twenty years ago. She was talking about global warming twenty years ago, thirty years ago. And so what we've done with the Wildflower Center is try to sort of capture that larger vision. So while we have the regional botanic

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garden here, we're doing research, we're doing land restoration. We are reaching a national audience because of-through this database that we're doing. We do consulting work. But let me talk about some of the spec-specifics.

You mentioned the-the landscaping standards. Especially in Austin but in cities all over, you know, the voluntary LEED standards for-for green building have become very well known and very widely accepted and in places like Austin, in certain areas, you can't even get a permit for building unless it's going to meet certain green standards. The irony of this is that in-in many cases, you can walk outside those buildings and the landscaping is environmentally disastrous, too water consuming, using heavy pesticides, lots of, you know, power generated equipment needed for maintenance, those

00:39:17 - 2393 kinds of things. So what we are doing is working with the U.S. Botanic Garden and the American Society of Landscape Architects to develop a set of standards and guidelines for landscaping for this kind of large scale landscaping that is like the green building standards. So it will provide the same kind of incentives and help in measurements for people to incorporate that kind of green thinking into the whole site, not just the building but the whole site. And it would apply very well to things like parks and college campuses and corporate campuses and roadsides, any place where there's a substantial amount of this kind of planned landscaping. So it's just an example of how we're trying to demonstrate and encourage not just appreciation for native

00:40:08 - 2393 wildflowers but for the role of vegetation in maintaining a more sustainable environment. We do that through research that's letting us help people restore degraded landscapes like we find a lot of in the Hill Country, you know. We are finding through our research that some of the ways that ranchers around here have historically tried to get rid of cedar and bring back native grasses, in fact, don't work very well. There's some of this sort of, you know, folk lore about how to do that isn't really the best way to do it. And we have places here where people can come and actually see for themselves what works best and what doesn't. We're looking at green roofs using at-using native plants because we think that that is another way to address energy problems and water problems and global climate change by putting

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vegetative material on rooftops. Steve Windhager on our staff likes to say what we're trying to do is use native plant to solve environmental problems, not just because they're pretty, not just because they have cultural value, but also because they have ecological value that we need to take advantage of. So that's the broader message really that we're involved in now. And it's very exciting. And I think it is the fullest expression probably of what Mrs. Johnson was thinking of twenty-five years ago when she founded this place. At the same time, we really understand the need to create the next generation of people that you'll be interviewing sometime. You know, we do that through (laughs) through a variety of education programs. We're about to build a new children's garden which is very exciting. We reached however through our internet website and databases more than 6,000

00:42:03 - 2393 people a day trying to access information from us. So we have a-a national presence as well. Again, promoting the idea that-that the vegetation around us everywhere we are, we should not be blind to, that it's critically important. It is a portal, as Mrs. Johnson would say, into the full array of environmental stewardship needs and that it's inherently regional. And what is of interest and local to us is not the same if you live in Connecticut or Florida or California and our database and information we can put forth is trying to get that same kind of enthusiasm for native plants and what is-what are their native plants - created in those places. So we have a pretty broad spectrum of things that we're doing.

DT: I-I think it's interesting that-that-that maybe what a lot of us see when we're driving through the state and the city where we live seems to be usual and common but may not be native. And I was wondering if you can give an example of some of these exotics and invasives that have become part of the landscape that we may assume or-are something that fits but maybe it's been shuffled from some other part of the globe and doesn't really fit.

00:43:30 - 2393 SR: Oh, there-there are lots of them. And one story I-I recall hearing was that when Mrs. Johnson was fist promoting beautification in native plants and native wildflowers that several states got on board and started planting flowers along their highways. And Georgia, for example, was very enthusiastic and planted California Poppies all over its roadsides which were beautiful but were not native to-to-to Georgia. The ones around Austin that are of most concern are things like ligustrum. Many people buy, plant ligustrum because they are fast-growing shrubs. They become big invasive trees if not controlled. Bamboo is one that a lot of people are familiar with. And I remember Molly Ivins saying (?) to two pieces of advice and of course the first

00:44:29 - 2393 one I'm not going to remember but the second was never plant bamboo. Chinese tallow, chinaberry, these are kinds of examples. Of course the ones that-that are becoming critical in Texas are things like kudzu, which is a terrible problem and almost a freakish problem in large parts of the south. Crepe myrtles, they're widely used in landscaping here, they're not-there's nothing wrong with crepe myrtles, they're not invasive like ligustrum but we encourage people to think about and-and experiment with native alternatives like Texas persimmon which has a lot of the same features of crepe myrtles. So what we do know is that invasive species are the cause of a-a b-a large part of the cause of extermination or-or eradication of native

00:45:24 - 2393 plants. And while in a limited space, they might not be a problem but the continued sort of importation of those and propagation of those really does put the native plant biodiversity at risk.

DT: You-you had said earlier that-that one of the roles that the Wildflower Center plays is to educate people. And you mentioned the website and certainly a lot of people come to the Center itself. If-if you had your druthers, what is the message that you'd like to give these people, maybe not so focused on wildflowers or natives but more broadly about the environmental challenges and-and opportunities that-that we all face?

00:46:11 - 2393

SR: It's, you know, it's always a hard thing to sort of distill that. I think we look for a unique way to make people think about environmental stewardship through the lens of plants. Other groups do that by appealing to peoples' love for wildlife, you know. Other groups do it by appealing to great scenery, you think of Sierra Club calendars. And all of those are-are-are wonderful. Our particular portal is plants and particularly native plants. And it's very much tied, for the Wildflower Center, to this idea of a sense of place, that the plants around you, whether you're paying attention or not, they-they often define those spaces. Texans have a, wherever they're from in

00:47:13 - 2393 Texas, will have a notion of what that-what that world looks like around them and that is very much drawn by the plants around them, by the trees, by the shrubs, by the wildflowers. If we can do that, we sensitize people to the role of plants in a healthy ecosystem and through that to this broader sense of stewardship for the natural world. So, you know, some people care about whales, and some people care about, you know, protecting a wilderness, some people are concerned about hazardous waste dumps. I mean in my career, I've been concerned about all of those things. Our-our piece of this is through plants and it's a-it's a harder sell sometimes certainly than whales and koala bears but I think as people are getting more knowledgeable about science and thinking about things like climate change and-and-and water scarcity, it's becoming a message that's

00:48:26 - 2393 more important, especially as we can show that there are ways using native plants to address some of these issues. For example, we're doing research now on the ability of native grasses to sequester carbon especially in urban areas. And there's evidence that they're-that grasses may be able to do that better than trees. It-you know, I'm not saying that this will solve the problem of climate change but it is our-our part of that-of that problem to study, I think, the same with green roofs using native plants. We're approaching this in lots of different ways but that-that is our piece, that's our contribution, I think, to an environmental ethic and we do that every way we can think of.

DT: One last question.

00:49:22 - 2393

SR: Okay.

DT: You had said that-that you're interested in trying to bestow this idea of place. What-what makes one spot unique and special? Is there a place that you like to visit?

00:49:35 - 2393

SR: Oh, yeah.

DT: You know, maybe, I don't know, that gives you some sort of spiritual connection (inaudible)?

00:49:42 - 2393

SR: Yeah, and I have this theory.

DT: What's important?

00:49:44 - 2393 SR: I have this theory that people just like ducks are imprinted by the place where they grow up. And so if you grew up in-in the Hill Country, that probably looks like the right landscape to you. And I've heard people who grew up where there are lots and lots of mountains and trees maybe or denser spaces like in New England and they move to Texas and they say they feel so exposed, you know. And I grew up in the Ozarks with tall, you know, hardwood trees and beautiful falls and lots of grass and more rain. And when I moved to Texas, to the Hill country. But this is-the trees grow sideways and everything here sticks you, you know. Over time I've grown to love it but I-I think people kind of inherently have that affinity for-if not for where they grew up for where they have spent time and-and loved it. And I

00:50:39 - 2393 think I still feel most at home in those Ozark kinds of-kinds of forests, those sort of Appalachian kind of ecosystems although I've been all over the country and I, you know, I love the west coast, I love the redwoods. But it's that kind of pastoral, rolling hills area that speaks to me. I bet it's different for you.

DT: Oh, well thanks...

00:51:05 - 2393

SR: Yeah.

DT: For speaking to us about-is there anything you'd like to add? I guess we're going to start wrapping up.

00:51:12 - 2393

SR: Mmm mmm.

DT: Well, thank you very much for your time then.

00:51:15 - 2393 SR: Thank you.

DT: It's been a pleasure.

00:51:16 - 2393 SR: Thanks David.