Chemistry CareerView

By Cynthia Washam

Chemistry for a Cause

For some chemists, doing what’s right, and not what’s easy, can lead to a rewarding career in public advocacy.

Monona Rossol (ACS ’96) knew as well as anyone that artists and scientists have different views of the world. But she never imagined artists would consider it their right to work with toxic compounds like toddlers work with Play-Doh.

“People were using chemicals in the art department like there was no danger,” she says of her days as a graduate art student in the 1950s. “They were putting people and the environment at risk and felt they had the right to do it.”

As a chemist, Rossol knew better. She gave lectures alerting art students and professors to the hazards of etching solvents, cyanide glazes, and leaded paints.

“People walked out,” Rossol says. “They said, ‘Don’t interfere with my creativity.’”

Their ignorance inspired the New Yorker to devote her life to interfering. As the founder and president of the nonprofit Arts, Crafts and Theater Safety, she teaches studio and theater directors about workplace safety and stands up for artists who’ve been harmed at work.

Wilma Subra (ACS ’74) also knows the frustration of trying fruitlessly to protect people from dangerous exposures to known toxic materials. After finding arsenic and other toxins in the layer of sludge Hurricane Katrina dumped on streets and lawns along the Louisiana coast, Subra implored the Federal Emergency Management Administration to remove the sludge.

“The Feds said, ‘We’re not going to do it,’” she says. “Privately, they tell me they know it’s a health threat.”

Chemical engineer Don MacKenzie faces the same sort of roadblocks when he lobbies Congress to improve the fuel efficiency of cars. MacKenzie works for the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists.

“There’s been very little progress,” MacKenzie says of the Union’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions. “It’s frustrating.”

All Work and Little Pay

Frustrations abound and victories are rare for Rossol, Subra, MacKenzie, and every other chemist out to change the world. Workdays are long, and paychecks are small. As if that isn’t enough to send every bleeding-heart lab rat scurrying for the security of corporate America, advocates face criticism from relatives, neighbors, and even fellow chemists who don’t share their point of view. Yet chemists who choose to work as advocates wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“Making money was never one of my priorities,” says Pat Costner (ACS ’94), an environmental consultant and former Greenpeace chemist. “Living the way I live was always my priority.”

Well, almost always. The 66-year-old Arkansas native did start her career as a research chemist for Shell Oil in Texas. She also worked briefly for Colorado’s Arapahoe Chemical before her rural roots drew her back home. “I wanted my children to have woods and creeks and dogs and chickens,” she says.

Costner soon saw that the once-pristine springs that were so much a part of the place she called home had been fouled by sewage. Her concern led her to open a wastewater-analysis lab, establish the nonprofit organization National Water Center, and write a book titled We All Live Downstream: A Guide to Waste Treatment that Stops Water Pollution.

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved a hazardous-waste incinerator in her neck of the woods, Costner shifted her focus toward dioxins. She proved that the incinerator in Jacksonville, AR, was emitting 400 times more dioxin into the neighboring community than the agency considers safe. Her analysis was critical in persuading the agency in 1995 to shut the incinerator down. Like Costner, MacKenzie could have had a lucrative career in industry. He worked for ethanol producer Syntec Biofuel before joining the Union of Concerned Scientists three years ago.

“I’d been very much of a technology guy,” MacKenzie says. Working as an advocate “was a little bit of a risk. But jumping into this policy world was the best decision I ever made.”

More Than a Head for Science

For chemists who want to reshape the world, opportunities abound. The Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Environmental Working Group are among the major nonprofits that hire scientists.

Advocacy demands science as precise as that of industry and academia. Anything less would be an easy target for opponents.

“I’m known for looking at every reference on people’s published papers to see if they actually support what [the authors] say they support,” Costner says. Indeed, she’s caught highly respected scientists falsely suggesting that certain studies supported their findings.

MacKenzie goes out of his way to talk to fellow scientists and engineers who might dismiss an environmental lobbyist as a fanatic. “It’s important for me to talk to people so they see we’re not chaining ourselves to Hummers,” he says. “We’re looking at rational, science-based policies.”

Scientific know-how is just the foundation for a career as an advocate. A crucial skill is the ability to explain complex issues in layman’s terms. Independent advocates, such as Rossol, also need to understand their clients’ legal rights. When she sees noxious solvents being used in poorly ventilated studios, Rossol knows just what Uncle Sam requires the owner to do.

She says that she is well-versed in the regulations of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “You’ve got to know the rules, so you can go after them legally.”

Labor of Love

The most important quality every advocate must have—the desire to do what’s right, not what’s easy—can’t be picked up from a Web site, chemistry class, or Toastmasters group.

It’s what drives Subra to work 12–15 hours a day, often for people who can’t pay her a dime. The independent environmental consultant informs Louisiana communities of the hazards of factories and waste sites in their backyards. Her efforts were rewarded with the prestigious MacArthur Prize in 1999.

She explains that when government agencies make decisions about plant locations or waste location sites, “the poor and disadvantaged communities are not included in the process. I try to give them a voice.”

Her compensation is the satisfaction she gets from helping David fight Goliath. “We’ve had a lot of success stopping proposed facilities in inappropriate locations,” Subra says. “We defeated a lot of landfills. We also worked with existing facilities to reduce emissions.”

In the three years he’s worked for the Union of Concerned Scientists, MacKenzie has never known that sense of satisfaction. Congress and the Bush Administration have failed to address fuel economy. Yet MacKenzie persists, hopeful that the 2008 election will turn the tide.

“We have the public on our side,” he says. “The vast majority believes we should require more of auto manufacturers.”

At 70, Rossol is too busy to give retirement a thought. On a weekday in December, she was compiling information for a lawsuit over paints falsely labeled “nontoxic,” investigating the nature of theatrical “fog” that sickened a stage technician in Los Angeles, and heading to the Metropolitan Opera to inspect a shipment of imported costumes that smelled bad enough to send one worker to the hospital. “I’ve had such a good and interesting life,” Rossol says. “I would do this if there were no pay.”

Cynthia Washam is an independent Florida writer saving the world with her organic diet, compact car, and well-used clothesline.