By Rob Zaleski
"Why
would I be intimidated? The corporations aren't rooted in anything.
They're mostly fluff, and I don't see that as real power."
- Melissa Scanlan, in 2001 interview
The story's been told before, but bears repeating.
In
1999, just a few years out of law school at the University of
California-Berkeley and after a brief stint with a Washington, D.C.,
law firm aiding victims of toxic pollution, Melissa Scanlan decided to
start a nonprofit law center in Madison to assist small towns and
grass-roots groups in taking on corporations and/or big government.
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Photo by Henry A. Koshollek/The Capital Times
Melissa Scanlan, head of the Midwest Environmental Advocates.
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In
other words, to help fill the void that had existed ever since Gov.
Tommy Thompson and the Republican-controlled Legislature had gleefully
dismantled the public intervenor's office in 1995.
Great idea,
her environmental colleagues told her, but you'll need about a $2
million endowment just to get off the ground. It simply wouldn't be
possible, they insisted, on the $60,000 in grant money she had.
But
the plucky young woman from Darboy - a farming community near Appleton
- forged ahead anyway. She opened Midwest Environmental Advocates in a
windowless office on State Street and, along with a college intern,
immediately began seeing clients.
Flash forward to today and
Scanlan - who at 35 could still pass for a college senior - is feeling
pretty darn good about how far her nonprofit has come.
She's not gloating, mind you. But she says her firm has accomplished exactly what it set out to do.
Remember,
for instance, when a ragtag group of local citizens stopped Perrier
(now Nestle Waters North America) from building a $100 million bottling
plant in Adams County? Scanlan played a major role in that effort.
"I
never had any doubts, even at the beginning," she said in an interview
last week. "I don't know where the calmness or the confidence came
from, but I just knew it was going to work. And it's really been
exciting to go from being the only one in the state practicing
full-time the public interest environmental side of things to having a
whole cohort of colleagues now."
At the same time, "I also feel
the pressure every day of all the unmet needs that are still out there.
I mean, although we've grown a lot, we're still very, very small
compared to the law firms representing companies that are violating the
law or rewriting the laws so they can put out more pollution.
"So it's still very much a David vs. Goliath fight on everything we do."
Last
week, Scanlan took perhaps her boldest step of all. She hired two new
attorneys, Betsy Lawton and Laura O'Flanagan, and a managing director,
Pacyinz Lyfoung, which means the nonprofit - which recently moved into
a 120-year-old building at 551 W. Main St. - now has six people working
on environmental law issues. (Lyfoung is one of the first two Hmong
women to graduate from the University of Minnesota Law School.)
Still,
while her staff is even larger than the public intervernor's office at
its height, Scanlan says there's no question the public intervenor is
still sorely needed.
"Being part of state government, they had a
special seat at the table in drafting rules and creating legislation,"
she notes. "And they were able to stop a lot of bad ideas before they
really saw the light of day."
Unfortunately, the likelihood of
the public intervenor being restored any time soon is virtually nil,
Scanlan admits - even though Gov. Jim Doyle claims he supports the idea.
"He
could push it harder," Scanlan says, "but it's something that probably
would just die on the vine." And that's largely because big business
special interests continue to control the Legislature, which makes it
almost impossible to pass pro-environment legislation, she says.
Which
is more than a bit ironic, she adds, seeing as how a Republican
governor, Warren Knowles, created the intervernor's office in 1967.
And,
sad fact is, there's a "real disconnect taking place," Scanlan says.
"Because I work with community groups across the state that are made up
of just as many if not more Republicans than Democrats. And they
understand the value of clean water, and that's what they're working
for in their communities.
"So I think when you get down to the
person to person level, it is a nonpartisan issue. But somehow the
message gets scrambled on its way to the Capitol. And it's ignored."
That's
why it's imperative that her nonprofit continues to grow, Scanlan says
- so that grass-roots organizations that don't have the resources to
battle big-money corporations have someone to turn to.
Her ultimate objective?
To help achieve some of the unmet goals of the clean water and clean air acts of the 1970s.
"Where
people go to the beaches and not be greeted by a sign that says, 'No
swimming, contaminated water," she says. "Where people can turn on
their taps and not worry about the water coming out making their infant
sick. Where we see asthma rates going down in low-income communities
that are hardest hit by air pollution in urban areas.
"The ultimate goal, I'd say, is to see that vision implemented."
And as anybody who's been paying attention knows, "we've got a long way to go."
E-mail: rzaleski@madison.com
Published: August 7, 2006
