Debra Shore and Doug Taron. Taron's photo courtesy of Lori Geller
With April being Earth Month and, more specifically, April 22 being Earth Day, Windy City Times is profiling two members of the LGBT community who are doing their part to keep Chicagoland green: Metropolitan Water Reclamation District ( MWRD ) of Greater Chicago Commissioner Debra Shore and Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum biologist Doug Taron.
The Shore thing
Shore has been interested in the environment for decades.
"From a young age I enjoyed being in nature," Shore said. "My best friend's family was very active in the outdoors. We went on camping trips and, spurred by my friends, I participated in an Outward Bound [ wilderness expedition ] program when I was in college—hiking and camping"
That fascination with the environment has propelled her to volunteer to assist in restoring the forest preserves along the North Branch of the Chicago River in Cook County for the past 15 years. Shore also is a founding editor of Chicago Wilderness Magazine, and she served on then-President John Stroger's Community Advisory Council on Land Management from 1997 to 2007 and is a founding board member of Friends of the Forest Preserves.
Shore decided to run for a MWRD commissioner's post—and won in 2006, becoming the first lesbian to hold a county position. The staff of nine commissioners is in charge of over 2,000 employees and the district serves 5.1 million people in an area of 872 square miles that encompasses Chicago and 124 suburban communities. And, if those numbers aren't impressive, consider that the treatment plant in Stickney—one of seven owned and operated by MWRD—is the largest wastewater treatment plant in the world.
The MWRD is constantly dealing with issues that could impact millions of individuals, including disinfection of Chicago's waterways. "We need to protect our waterways," Shore said while providing a detailed history of the treatment of various channels and canals. "Because we do not return the treated wastewater back to the lake [ because it eventually ends up to the Gulf of Mexico ] , the district has not been required to treat it to the same level as drinking water. As a result, there's still a fair amount of bacteria in the wastewater we discharge into the rivers and streams.
"The Illinois EPA [ Environmental Protection Agency ] has proposed some new water-quality standards for Chicago's waterways, and said that these are suitable for recreational contact [ along ] some stretches. In order to protect those uses, the Illinois EPA said that the district must disinfect the effluent [ liquid waste ] at its three largest plants. ... These standards are the subject of rule-making hearings before the Illinois Pollution Control Board and, at some point, the board will issue its regulations.
"The issue of disinfection is that there are human pathogens in the effluent; they don't make fish sick—but there's the potential to make humans sick. One of the questions is that we don't know if people are getting sick, so the district is spending $8 million to support a study of the Chicago waterways and recreational use of these waterways to find out. That study is underway, and if anybody wants to participate we'll pay you $50; the UIC School of Public Health is conducting this and the acronym is CHEERS [ at www.cheerschicago.org ] ."
Another issue that's close to Shore's heart is what is called the "green infrastructure"the network of open spaces and natural areas that manages stormwater, cuts down on the possibility of flooding and improves water quality. "How do we think about and manage rainwater? We try to get it away from us as fast as we can and, yet, fresh water is the substance on which almost all life depends, and for which there is no substitute," Shore said. "Things people can do [ include ] having a permeable driveway made of gravel instead of having an asphalt one; they allow rainwater to enter the ground, recharge the aquifer and stay out of storm sewers. Another option is to install a rain garden that absorbs water; I heard that a 10' x 10' rain garden can capture 750 gallons of water in a single [ rainfall ] ."
Shore and her partner, Kathleen Gillespie, live in a home in Skokie that "is on the path" to being green. "We did replace our toilets with dual-flush toilets, which are much more efficient. We also have compact fluorescent bulbs, and I have a rain barrel to capture rainwater. We also have a compost heap."
Shore added that people can buy compact fluorescent bulbs ( "They are efficient and save money" ) , do their own energy audits and take public transportation. She suggested using manual items such as can openers and even pencil sharpeners, as opposed to their electrical counterparts. Shore added that people can purchase rain barrels through the district at www.MWRD.org . Her last suggestion is one that has special resonance: "Elect better leaders."
However, when asked about what she thought her biggest accomplishment is so far as a commissioner, Shore actually cited something that has a lot less to do with the environment than it does with family: " [ Being part ] of the movement to have health benefits to domestic partners of our employees was really important to me."
Find out more about the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago at www.mwrd.org .
Buggin' out
You know you're in Taron's office at the Lincoln Park museum when you see the sign on his door of a caterpillar and the phrase "Frass happens" below it. ( "Frass" is the technical term for insect excrement, and the sign is on the inside part of the door, where the kids can't see it. )
Conducting a personal tour of the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Taron ( a curator of biology at the museum ) is in his element, as he proved by providing more facts about the 40 species of butterflies fluttering about than one might read in a day. ( By the way, there are birds such as button quail milling about as well. ) "Sometimes I do come in here before the museum opens," Taron admitted. "It's really nice being here."
He said that he received "his first butterfly net from the Easter Bunny" at the age of six. "I would out butterfly collecting with my dad in Cape Ann, Mass. It was just part of growing up."
Taron moved to Chicago for graduate school, eventually obtaining a Ph.D from the department of biochemistry and nolecular biology at Northwestern University. The transition to butterflies came as he worked in the biotechnology industry. "I was working at the Nature Conservancy's Volunteer Stewardship Network—and this is something that I and my partner have been involved in," he said. "In the late 1980s, the conservancy started a program called the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network. Immediately, I signed up to be a monitor; I really wanted to be a monitor of Bluff Spring Fen [ a 100-acre nature preserve in Elgin ] . A year and a half later, the person running the program got very busy and they asked me if I would consider running it, and I did. It was a very successful endeavor—it grew from seven in 1987 and there are about 150 today.
"Because the program experienced so much growth, I started becoming known as somebody who did work with butterflies. Just around the time of my midlife crisis, I met Paul Heltne, who was then the president of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, our parent organization. When they were building the museum, Paul contacted me and asked if I would comment on the design for the new butterfly exhibit. I wasn't happy in my position, and about three weeks after our conversation, I noticed that this museum was being built and I thought that a butterly conservation exhibit would be very attractive. I called Paul and said, 'My first comment is: Are you staffing?' About a month and a half later, I started working here."
Taron is particularly excited about a new lab at the museum that he hopes will help restore the populations of rare butterfly species. "We have been doing this butterfly conservation program with a half-dozen species of regionally imperiled butterflies," he said. "We're taking small numbers of females from the wild, bringing them into the lab, letting them lay eggs, raising caterpillars and using them to start new populations on prairie-restoration projects." Taron also talked about how beneficial this lab environment is for butterflies—even down to the carpeting ( which can contain harmful molds and spores ) that has been removed.
The aforementioned prairie restoration also stirs his passion. "Illinois is called the Prairie State, but there's almost no prairie left," said Taron, who has a prairie in his yard at home. "It turns out that 99.93 percent of the prairie has been destroyed in Illinois, so those little remnants we have left are incredibly important. They're part of our national heritage and they're rich repositories of biological diversity. A lot of people in the Midwest are trying to protect, preserve and, in some cases, re-create these ecosystems."
As previously mentioned, Taron's partner is also into conservation. " [ He ] was the one who actually introduced me to Bluff Spring Fen," Taron said. "It's a joint project that we've done over the years, and it's a very rewarding experience."
When Taron is asked what the public can do to help save the environment, he immediately responded, "Oh, there's a whole bunch of stuff. One of the best things [ people ] can do is get out and visit some of these natural areas or remnants of native ecosystems, such as Bluff Spring Fen, North Park Vilage or the Peggy Notebaert Museum. There are all kinds of projects around the city and suburbs that use volunteeers; people can go out on a Saturday and volunteer to cut brush, gather seeds and improve the health of these ecosystems.
"People can also support at the political level. Please let political officials know that ecosystem restoration is a good thing."
Although the topic of preservation is a serious one, Taron laughed when asked about his favorite insect. "I love all my children just the same," he said with a smile, although he added that the swamp metalmark and the Baltimore checkerspot have special places in his heart. He associates the latter species with his childhood, but it's also at Bluff Spring Fen.
Find out more about the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon at www.naturemuseum.org . Read Doug Taron's blog, Gossamer Tapestry, at gtapestry.blogspot.com .
