One can make a difference

One can make a difference
Rice lecturer works to save the environment

BY DAWN DORSEY
Special to the Rice News

Jim Blackburn would be the first to tell you one man can’t save the environment. But if there is a short list of people who are working — and really making a difference — on a number of fronts, he has to be on it.

Photo by Jeff Fitlow

As a teacher, lawyer, writer and an activist, Jim Blackburn, lecturer in civil and environmental engineering at Rice, takes on issues most people merely contemplate.

No pie-in-the-sky misty-eyed idealist, this lawyer, writer, teacher and tireless campaigner actually does something — whether teaching environmental law at Rice, speaking on a local radio show or protecting citizens in court — about problems many people only ponder.

Growing up in South Texas hunting and fishing the rich Rio Grande Valley, Blackburn has respected and enjoyed being surrounded by nature. When he found himself at the University of Texas law school in the late ’60s, it didn’t take long for him to realize something was missing.

“I got about half of the way through law school and realized I didn’t really like it,” he said. “It was too gray; I needed to be attached to something.”
While in law school, he wrote a paper — idealistic maybe, but strong nevertheless — proposing that oceans be made into nations so they could litigate.

Needless to say, the premise wasn’t too popular with his professor, who was a former Humble Oil attorney, and he was rewarded with the worst grade in the class.

Those days few laws — let alone academic specializations — pertaining to the environment existed. The Environmental Protection Agency wasn’t created until 1970.

Undaunted, Blackburn entered the paper in the American Trial Lawyer’s first national competition for environmental law writing — and won the $500 prize. Encouraged by his success, he won a fellowship at Rice, where he got a master’s degree in environmental science.

Part of his early education on the job was as a member of The Woodlands’ original environmental planning team. With this solid background, he was in demand as a consultant and soon became involved with the Rice Center for Community and Urban Design.

“We were way out in front of everyone,” Blackburn said. “We were looking at environmental impact studies of long-term economic development on the Gulf when no one else was. It was a great interdisciplinary team.”

Blackburn was slow to move back into law — he had no formal training after law school. But when he began to see no one was protecting citizens and the environment, he started to represent clients fighting permits for environmentally sensitive projects.

In the mid-’70s, Blackburn began teaching at Rice. Then he completed the picture by operating an environmental planning firm in the ’80s.

“My career has been about one-third teaching, one-third environmental planning and one-third law,” said Blackburn, lecturer in civil and environmental engineering.

These days, his focus is mainly law, fighting to protect the environment and working with citizens against the government, developers or business interests. Cases include assisting a small nature society in Galveston in a fight against a large developer, helping groups and cities stop a huge container port on Galveston Bay and representing around 300 White Oak Bayou flood victims in a suit against Harris County.

Teaching at Rice keeps him fresh, Blackburn said. While he teaches the same classes, “Global Environmental Law and Sustainable Development” and “U.S. Environmental Law,” he rethinks them each semester.

“The students respond to enthusiasm,” he said. “Nothing turns them off more than someone who is tired, and I think they appreciate that I am passionate and like what I do.”

Last year, Texas A&M University Press published “The Book of Texas Bays,” Blackburn’s 300-page book of photographs and stories of the plants, animals, people and legal battles of the fragile Gulf Coast bay system. In his spare time, he often kayaks and fishes the bays.

Blackburn said it’s gratifying to be part of wide-sweeping changes through litigation and affecting legislation, but often the small, personal victories mean the most. After reading his book, two friends learned newfound respect for the bays and were inspired to take up kayaking. That type of personal connection reaffirms Blackburn’s convictions and makes him feel better about the future, he said. Maybe one person can’t change the world, but he hopes to make a difference.