By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Clearly, Laurie Stevenson got the memo.
The director of the Ohio EPA and Bowling Green State University graduate delivered an address to graduates Saturday morning that echoed President Rodney Rogers’ theme song.
Since Rogers took over the presidency in January, 2018, he has reiterated his belief that BGSU is “public university for the public good.”
In her address to graduates from colleges of Arts and Sciences and Education and Human Development, Stevenson made “a not so subtle plea for all of you to enter public service” in whatever field or in whatever manner they could.
BGSU held two commencement ceremonies this weekend, honoring 1,047 graduates.
Stevenson’s public service has been with the state EPA, which she joined not long after graduating from BGSU in 1988.
“Public service will not only change the lives of others, but I guarantee you it will change your life as well.”
Stevenson recalled that 50 years ago the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was on fire — the 13th fire on the river in a century. The image of the burning river spurred the passage of the Clean Water Act that resulted in improvements in water quality across the nation.
Now the Cuyahoga is a recreational resource, she said. “Today people who catch fish from the river can eat what they catch.”
Still looking back to previous generations shows that history is a constant tug-of-war between advances and new challenges.
Now Ohio’s waterways are “plagued by harmful algal blooms, threatened by invasive species, and choked by plastics,” Stevenson told the graduates.
This is what she faces, continually balancing the need for environmental protection and economic growth.
In addressing those problems, she urged the graduates “to be patient” with veteran public servants like herself. They have lessons to share, much like the graduates’ parents, and though young people may think their elders don’t know what they’re talking about, often they do.
A particular focus for Stevenson is providing safe drinking water supplies to the state’s residents. Even now, she said, too many in the state lack that basic service. Some are in cities where the water systems are old and decrepit. Others are in rural areas too remote to be served by public systems.
After giving a speech on the water needs of the state in March, three months after she was appointed director by Gov. Mike DeWine, Stevenson received a note from a member of the EPA staff.
He thanked her for bringing this to light. He wrote that he grew up in a rural part of the state, and though his family was better off, he knew many who struggled.
The staffer recalled hauling cisterns of water to rural homes and supplying a change of clothes and sanitary products to other students who did not have indoor plumbing at home.
This, Stevenson said, was the real purpose of public service “to help people live their lives to their full potential.”
