Word: gearheart
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...common sense. But Arcata (pop. 14,600), a timber and fishing town in Northern California populated by a curious mix of rural curmudgeons, refugees from suburbia, and college students, often thinks differently about things. Pennisi and his companions, Humboldt State University professor George Allen and HSU environmental engineer Robert Gearheart, are showing off an environmental vision they and others championed for more than a decade: a wildlife habitat and public park that help dispose of the city's sewage...
...knew vaguely that wastewater had some environmental pluses. Humboldt Bay oysters fed on its nutrients, and Professor Allen, a likable tinkerer whom Klippity Klopp calls Crazy George, raised salmon fingerlings in a mix of sea and wastewater. Other ideas emerged. HSU biologist Stan Harris was for a bird sanctuary. Gearheart came in as an expert on oxidation ponds...
City-hall workers naturally dubbed their new professorial task force "Fishy" (Allen), "Tweety" (Harris, the bird man) and "Blue Eyes" (Gearheart). Another nickname mattered: an abandoned dump near the oxidation pond was called Mount Trashmore. No one put it all together until Allen probed his students one day. A student "who slept all the time" raised his hand. No problem, the student said. "Just run it ((the wastewater)) around Mount Trashmore...
...board demanded a feasibility study of Arcata's proposal in three weeks. "That was war," recalls Gearheart. Such studies normally cost thousands of dollars and take months to produce. But three weeks later, after Gearheart wrote and volunteers made copies all night long at city hall, a Greyhound bus $ took the study away at dawn. The board promptly rejected it. Allen, Gearheart and Councilman Hauser spent nearly two years flying to regional meetings to counter further state objections while they appealed. Finally, the city, through some adroit politicking, won permission from state officials for a pilot project...
...worked. The combined marsh and disposal plant finally opened in 1985, costing $3 million less than Arcata's share of the megasystem's original budget. "We declared victory and withdrew from the war," recalls Hauser. Since wars require monuments, the sanctuary has ponds named Hauser, Allen and Gearheart. A saltwater slough where pelicans and cormorants gather is called Klopp Lake. Mount Trashmore has evolved into a wildflower-rich meadow. Standing by his pond, Allen recalls that first day he and Gearheart tramped through the mud with the idea exploding in their minds. "We flushed a deer out of that spot...