Pam’s deep connection with the natural world, particularly water, began in the swamps of Jersey and has continued throughout her life. In 1990, she started working at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Philadelphia, where she handled complex civil and administrative litigation matters, mainly under the Clean Water Act and Superfund. She stayed for 33 years. In 1994, she moved to Central PA and began writing a novel, Oil and Water, putting her long commute on the train to good use. It was her first real foray into using fiction as a teaching tool.
Pam believes that if we start with two essential premises: 1) we are all drinking dinosaur pee, and 2) everything we do ends up in the water, we might stand a chance of turning the tide on our current State of the Planet, but we need to start with the end goal in mind, and that means accountability at all levels (think globally, act locally). Plastics, PFAS, pharmaceuticals, arsenic, lead, nitrates, and nitrites (fertilizer), organic chemicals like glyphosate (roundup), and trichloroethylene (used to make refrigerants and degreasing solvents) are just a few examples on an agonizingly long list of harmful contaminants, all of which ultimately end up in our rivers and streams, all of which are cruel to our aquatic systems and crueler our bodies. According to the UN, over 85,000 children worldwide die from diarrhea each year due to a lack of access to WASH — water, sanitation, and hygiene. According to USGS, microplastics have reached the world’s most remote places, from the deepest parts of the ocean to the highest mountains on Earth.
Pam believes we do this work because our children and their progeny deserve to inherit a planet free of environmental contaminants where they can drink the water, breathe the air, and eat the food without worry. It’s possibly the most critical work of our time. What do you say we create a space where we and the planet can flourish together?
