TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEWEE: Alma and Earl Burnam (AB, EB)
INTERVIEWERS: David Todd (DT) and David Weisman (DW)
DATE: October 13, 2000
LOCATION: Fort Worth, Texas
TRANSCRIBERS: Lacy Goldsmith and Robin Johnson
SOURCE MEDIA: Mini-DV
REELS: 2100 and 2101

Please note that videos include roughly 60 seconds of color bars and sound tone for technical settings at the outset of the recordings. Numbers mark the time codes for the VHS tape copy of the interview. “Misc.” typically refers to miscellaneous off-camera conversations or background noise.

(misc.)
DT: My name’s David Todd. I‘m here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. And it’s October 13, year 2000. And we’re in Ft. Worth, Texas, at the home of Alma and Earl Burnam. And they’ve been kind enough to spare some time today to talk about their work on conservation on a number of topics in Texas. And I wanted to thank you both for doing that…thank you.
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EB: You’re welcome.
DT: I thought we might get started by talking some about how you first got interested in the outdoors and in environmental issues. And maybe Earl could begin.
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EB: Well, when I was a little boy at—up at Chillicothe, Texas, my dad and I used to walk out to Wanderer’s Creek. We didn’t have a car in those Depression days and—about a mile out and fish with our cane poles or willow poles. And, so, we would enjoy nature going out there. And I guess it kind of caught and, then, that was enjoying the outdoor nature. And, then, as far as the environmental concerns, it came along when my oldest son was in high school. He started pointing out to us that we ought to be concerned about what’s happening to the environment, all of the pollution and everything, we ought to be looking into it and paying attention. And, so, we started and he kept bringing information to us. And then, I believe it was his first year in college, well, he bought us a membership to the Sierra Club. That was early ‘70’s. And, so, we kind of had the opportunity to learn more things and—after joining the Sierra Club and becoming more and more concerned and—kind of drifted into the environmental or conservation movement.
DT: What were some of the early issues when you first joined Sierra in the early years of the 1970’s?
00:03:39 – 2100
EB: As I recall, we were fighting for—back in those early days—the timing might not be exactly right—for the Big Thicket, and East Texas, and for the Guadalupe Mountains National Park area. And that kind of brings me to another point, one of our sons—our middle son, Dan, had become very interested and capable in backpacking and—and canoeing. And he had kind of got us interested in—more so in the out of doors than we had been—getting us out there where we’d be more concerned with nature. And one of the trips that the local Sierra Club made and, I think, at—at that point they may have been—they originally had been joined with the Dallas group and had separated off by that time. But, they all had pooled together and took a bus trip out to Carlsbad to speak at a hearing. And this outdoors type of Explorers Post that our son, Dan, who was then 14 years old—they invited Explorer Posts to choose a person to go out with them to speak. And his peers chose Dan, our son, to go out. So, our son, Dan, made the trip out to Carlsbad without us, went off with a group people and—and spoke at Carlsbad Caverns to try to…
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AB: Not out at the caverns…
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EB: Excuse me, at Carlsbad, to try to persuade them to not put up a tramway up the escarpment of the Guadalupe Peak area—Guadalupe Mountain area. And that turned out to be a successful endeavor. So, that—the Guadalupe Park situation and the Big Thicket and, of course, there were all s—always concern of the—the clean air and—and water measures. I don’t remember exactly just what the detail was in those days.
DT: How large was the group back then in the early ‘70’s? Was it a small group or a large group in the Sierra and Audubon organizations?
00:06:11 – 2100
EB: Well, there was—actually, both organizations, Sierra Club and the local Audubon grew after those times quite a bit. The—I don’t remember the exact number and you kind of go by the participation by the number of members that attend the meetings. But, there’s a lot more out there that gets the national magazines from Sierra and from Audubon, and gets their—the local newsletters that they put out. So, I would imagine that there was probably no more than two or three hundred at the most in Sierra Club at that time, possibly Audubon. And Sierra Club had grown at one time to be over 1,200. And I’d—I’m not sure what Audubon is. But, probably somewheres in that amount. But, only a few attending and being active, you know, each month. And, then, of those that attend, you might say there’s a lot less that are really active in conservation type of activities in both—both organizations.
DT: Some of the membership in Sierra and Audubon are those who get the magazine or the newsletter, or enjoy the social outings, and there are others that are more into the advocacy and the educational work, is that right?
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EB: Well…
(misc.)
0:08:15 – 2100
EB: Some of the activities of the—is it okay to talk?—of the Audubon group were more local focused. They actually did quite a bit. But, we don’t want to get into that probably.
DT: Sure, please do. Go ahead.
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EB: Is it time now?
DT: Oh, yeah. Go ahead, please.
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EB: Okay, in the early days of Audubon, they—they formed mainly for bird studies, this type of thing. But, also, to try to advocate conservation of—of natural areas for the birds. And they were key—instrumental and key to getting the Ft. Worth Parks Department to establish a nature center out on the Lake Worth area, which was known as Greer Island. It’s about 300 acres out there. And, then, they continued to work and more so with help of a lot of other organizations. But—toward expanding that and it ended up to about—well, about 3,300 acres of Ft. Worth Nature Center and Wildlife Refuge, as it’s known now. And that’s possibly one of the larger urban types of nature centers in the country. Then they—early on—liked to mention a person, Evelyn Edens, was leading them and her suggestion—they persuaded the parks people of Ft. Worth to establish a bicycle trail in the Overton area over on the near south side of town. And that was one of the original bicycle trails, which became a pedestrian and jogging trail and used quite a bit by birders, you know. So, those were kind of local activities they were successful with—with Audubon. And, of course, they entered into many other things. One of the early leaders in Audubon that I should mention is Charles Crabtree, who was—and I’m not sure if it was as Audubon. But, he was a member of Audubon. But, he worked pretty heavily and helped—was quite successful in helping prevent the Trinity River being channelized all the way up to the Ft. Worth area. That was advocated at one time, was proposed. And he worked on that and he’s still—still around. He lives in a little place out on the Brazos River now, and…
DT: Can you tell a little about that controversy? Do you remember, Alma?
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AB: Yes…
DT: Much about the Trinity channelization?
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AB: Yes, they’ve—for many, many, many years they’d talked about channelizing the Trinity River up to Ft. Worth, and using barges on it, you know, as a cheap form of transportation. And they had discussed it and discussed it. And, finally, it was in the ‘70’s that they had a vote. And it was emphatically voted down. And, as he said, Charlie Crabtree was very instrumental in that, and he had worked long and hard. But, another issue that you did not bring up that was an unsuccessful issue, was the greenbelt along the Trinity River, and that was in the ‘70’s, also.
DT: And what was that controversy about?
00:12:25 – 2100
AB: Well, we wanted to establish a greenbelt that would go from—where? From—from…
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EB: Benbrook Lake all the way into the Trinity River that goes…
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AB: Into downtown.
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EB: …downtown. And that we wanted them to not develop the area in the—the watershed area down there in the little area by the Trinity River. The—the Sierra club was more involved in this activity. The Sierra Club used to sponsor Trinity River float In Days every spring. They would have it—they’d get the—the—the corps was accommodating and would let water out of the Benbrook Lake, and give us a lot of water. And everybody would come out all over town with all kinds of floating gear, canoes, rubber rafts, rubber inner tubes and what have you. And everybody had a lot of fun in those days. And there was a—certain places that a—a little small dam that—about halfway down that they had to be careful and help people do the portage over, because it was pretty tricky situation.
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AB: (inaudible)
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EB: And—but, anyway, there—there was that area. And, then, to complement, that could have been a greenbelt in the floodplain—a pretty low floodplain in there. And we lost that battle because—mainly because of the leaders of Benbrook City Council wanted to develop it with—have houses in there, more of a tax base. And, so, that was, oh, quite a few years ago…
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AB: 70’s.
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EB: …25, in ’70 it was 30 years ago, before the urban sprawl got us, that early even, you know. And, so, that’s was always kind of sickening to us. There was another person that worked with us on that. Well, he and his wife, Mary Harding and Ed Harding, and both of them are deceased now. But they had become good friends and real—they had been real active in the Sierra Club. And a—Bernie Millie(?) had also had been active in Sierra Club and Audubon. And he was the Explorer Post leader that was involved in the—the adventurous activities like that backpacking and the canoeing, this type of thing. So, the Sierra Club would join with his post and co-sponsor this, and those post kids would help people over that dam. And that was a real favorite type of thing to do, a fun thing to do. And that end—that—that area is all been developed—the floodplain—someday, we’ll have a problem there. Then, just to the east of it, there was a big ridge and all of this area—well, when the—before the Explorers would go on one of their backpacking trips, they’d go in there and practice backpacking in the lower areas. And, then, they’d hike up
00:15:38 – 2100
on the edge of the—of the cliff along this ridge and get some pretty good climbing practice in that way, where they’re not rock climbing, but, trail climbing with the backpacks. Now, then, that ridge has all been developed in there, it’s all—the urban sprawl is along Bryant Irwin(?) Road is just—it—it continues to go out. And that’s lead to another problem. The sprawl out there has made it crowded both on Bryant Irwin(?) Road and a—a—another s—almost parallel street not far from there, Hughland(?) Street. The sprawl is terrific. So, the city planners are—they elected—they had to build a new road—it’s referred to as the Southwest Parkway—down through there to relieve the traffic. And, you know, as—as time has proven, build it and they shall come. You don’t really relieve the—the traffic situation in the long run. Of course, we’re—all advocate the public transportation or mass transit to relieve those things in lieu of building the new highways. It’s like when will they ever stop? I’m probably getting into more things than you want here.
DT: No, no. This is helpful. I’m curious if you could speak a little bit about mass transit. Dallas, I guess, now has a pretty…
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EB: North.
DT: … good light rail system and an extensive DART mass transit system.
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EB: It—it—it’s good, it’s a real good start. But, they need a lot more as well as Ft. Worth area and all of the little cities around in here need so much more—need to make it convenient. So people can use it, will want to use it. Because it’s—it’s going to continue to be a problem, the problem’s not going to cease with a few more roads and we just can’t lay blacktop all over the roads.
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AB: I don’t know if you’re aware that they are going to have their train system coming all the way to Ft. Worth. And they opened up part of it—it doesn’t come all the way into the city of Ft. Worth. But, it does come along the north boundaries of—of the area.
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EB: To Haltom City, which is on the northeast side, but…
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AB: and…
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EB: …but—but, it eventually—here’s tracks there to downtown Ft. Worth. And there—they’ll eventually get that (?).
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AB: (talking over EB) But, there was an article in today’s newspaper about their surprise that the number of passengers that are taking that is about 2,000 a day more than they had anticipated at this point. So, I think it may be successful, and…
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EB: In spite of all the naysayers.
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AB: Yeah.
DT: Do you recall when DART was started and why it was begun?
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AB: Oh, they—they had been talking about DART for years and years and years over in Dallas, and finally got—it hasn’t been in existence very long (inaudible)…
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EB: (talking over AB) Well, I would guess a half a dozen years, give or take or something like that.
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AB: Yeah.
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EB: But, there’s always been stumbling blocks and things even since they—they’ve started using it, and….
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AB: But, it’s proved to be…
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EB: (talking over AB) But, it—it keeps it going.
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AB: …more successful than they had thought it would be, too.
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EB: You might learn more about that from some of your Dallas area people I think.
DT: I’ll visit with them about it.
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EB: You’re probably going to talk to Ned Fritz, I’m sure.
DT: Something else I was curious about when you bring up the topic of sprawl, how do you answer people who say, “Well, we need affordable housing and it’s cheaper to build houses in the hinterlands and that that’s just one of the sprawl risks, and costs are just something you have to bear because of that.” What do you say to that?
00:19:14 – 2100
EB: Well, I really haven’t been saying that because I haven’t been asked that question. But, however, I would have to respond that there are a lot of places in the—closer to downtown that need to be rejuvenated. And they could use those and build up. And—although, I—it—it doesn’t delight me to think of living in an apartment. But, multi-story apartments and things like that is one of the answers. And it’s—it’s coming to that, where—we’ll get to that even if we sprawl first and then do that. It’s got the—the multiple family dwellings can help those situations, especially if it’s multiple stories. And there’s so much that’s—that seems to be unlivable that they’re—they—they could renovate and rework or—or, if—if not practical, tear it down and rebuild. And, then, there’s—I don’t know that I’d want a home on a—a—an old brown field or something unless I was pretty sure of what had been there and it was cleaned up or not. But there’s a lot of that type of things around also. I realize it’s a problem. It’s—it’s hard to answer, how do you keep accommodating our population growth, which is a number one big problem, and balance that with—with sprawl. Well, one of the things that you could do, also, on the—on the sprawl, is to try to plan it such that you’re building not only the houses, but, you’re building some of the things that the people would need in those same areas. So they wouldn’t have to go so far and distant to get to work, or to get their groceries, or to do whatever. And, I don’t have all the answers, but—but, some type of planning could give some of the answers like that.
DT: I see, so, having more multiple use planning, rather than having bedroom communities that are many miles from where you plan to work. One other thing I wanted to ask you about that’s sort of related to sprawl—and I think you’ve been involved in air quality issues—and are at least in part related to how many cars are used and how many miles are drive. And maybe you could tell me a little bit about the Tarrant Coalition for Environmental Awareness and some of the work they’ve done on clean air.
00:21:44 – 2100
EB: Well, actually, the Tarrant Coalition for Environmental Awareness is—was originally formed because of the concern for household hazardous waste. And when it had tried to get the message out to people on that, and—which gets the water—then, it was—they expanded from that to be concerned about all the environmental issues, whether it’s Tarrant County or—or even things that effects—people that eventually would effect Tarrant County. That—that could even mean national issues and whatever. So the—it—at one point in time when the North Central Texas Council of Government had formed an Air Quality Advisory Committee—AQAC—after they’d been going about it a year or two, well, TCEA—the—the coalition asked to have someone representing the environmental community on that committee, and they were successful and I was anointed to—to go. So, I spent about five years on that until the—the powers that be decided that really that ought to be looked at by the upper if—echelons of city management and, so, their executive committee was going to get more involved in that, so, they disbanded the Air Quality Advisory Committee. And, that’s—that’s okay, it—it—that—that committee was made up mostly of people that were trying to prev—with commercial interests in mind—trying to prevent sanctions from the Federal Government and there was only a f—a few of us that were always looking at the—more so concerned with the—the health of people. But, I—I—I shouldn’t fault them because they were trying to get the air clean also.
DT: When you mention that, how do you make the pitch for the connection between pollution and public health? Because that seems to come up often and…
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EB: Oh, okay.
DT: …there’s got to be something to touch many people’s lives.
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EB: Well, we kind of looked at American Lung Association for that information, as most major environmental groups do. And they, of course, have information that—that show that the ozone actually harms people. And the thing that they’re—that everybody always quotes in newspapers, talks about being the more vulnerable people being the small children and the older adults and those that already have a respiratory problem. But, that kind of ignores the fact that all people are ex—that ex—exposed to the bad quality air eventually are going to have it effect them over a long haul. People that work outdoors—young, strong people that work outdoors are in this and have to breathe this all the time, and there are people that exercise outdoors, people are outdoors are effected by that. I’m—I’m not saying come in the house because some of the things that are in their house are maybe just as bad, but, we—we would like to have air free of the ozone. But, it’s been the ozone thing in this area that they have been—or, the powers that be are concerned about, because that’s where the sanctions are coming down, but, the small particulate matter is another real problem, and that has been kind of ignored. There may be more problems with the—some of the other pollutants than—than the ozone problem, even though the ozone problem is bad enough, well, we’ll take whatever we can get. We can clean up the ozone, we’ll clean up the ozone and work on the other problems. The—course, the smaller children as the American Lung points out that their—their lungs are—are smaller and—and they work harder outside, running and playing, and they breathe in more. So—and—and they’re growing, so, this is one of the reasons that they’re more affected in the—the older people, usually, it’s the—have been exposed so long. And, for whatever reason, as they age, their—their lungs begin to have a problem. And, as my doctor told me that I had the beginning of emphysema, and I told him, “Well, that couldn’t be because I’ve never smoked.” He threw out, “Yes, but you’ve lived in this polluted area around here for so long, that it can be.” But—but, most doctors would just say that that’s kind of something they’d start seeing with age anyway. So…
DT: Have you been involved in some of the power plants and maybe some of the cement kilns that, I guess, contribute to the quality problems?
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EB: Well, by involving—involvement—I have, like, written statements for the different groups I belong to. The s—and, then, spoke for myself. I’ve gone to some of the hearings. And—and we’ve contributed a little bit financially to those groups that worked on that. And I—I have not—I was not a—an overall leader as—as much as some of the other areas where you’ve—you’ve probably heard of the Dan Winters group and some of their people that were involved in that. And, then, the Dallas Sierra Club took a pretty good leading role in that, also.
DT: What was your role in and view about TXI and the emissions from the Midlothian plant?
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EB: Well, the…
DT: (inaudible)
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EB: I’m sorry.
(misc.)
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AB: Our view of—of it was very negative. Earl is not a one-cause person. And he’s been involved in almost everything a little bit. We—we were against the TXI, of course, because they were allowed to do things that other plants, who were doing nothing except burning hazardous waste, had strict regulations, whereas the TXI plant did not have the strict reg—regulations. But, Earl receives telephone calls all the time from different people who’ve got a problem. And they want him to work on it for them. And—and nine times out of ten, I get so irritated at him. He drops everything else and goes and takes care of that problem for those people. So, he’s worked on the TXI. He’s worked on just clean air. He’s worked on greenbelts. He’s worked on highways. He’s worked on a little bit of everything. And, so, that’s the reason I say that he’s an all purpose person as far as conservation is concerned.
DT: What do you think the role is for a Jack of all trades, sort of a general layman?
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EB: Can—can we address that TXI in—a little bit more?
DT: Yeah, talk some more about that.
00:28:32 – 100
EB: In—in the incinerators that burn the hazardous waste, as Alma said, they have to use a lot more control measures than the cement plants do, who are exempted from that. And—but, even the—the regular incinerators, who have to be paid to do that incineration—there’s stuff that escapes in the air there. But it’s not nearly as bad as what escapes from the cement plants. The cement plants use this as a fuel. So the hazardous waste can be sent to them to burn at a lot cheaper price. So, that’s where it’s going. And they keep expanding. And this TXI requesting permits to—to expand the use of the hazardous waste, it—this really concerned us. And I had gone to—to Austin to testify against the TNRCC [Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission]. I’m—don’t remember if it was called TNRCC then—TNRCCC at that time, or whether it was still Texas Air Control Board. But, anyway, at that point in time, they reached conclusions that we really shouldn’t be burning the toxic waste, at—at cement plans—plants without them using the same controls that the incinerators had to use. And, then, that was all put aside and they’ve ignored those—that original position so—for reasons you probably wouldn’t want me to mention here.
DT: No, I want (inaudible)
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EB: No—no, it would be political stew.
DT: Maybe you can talk a little bit about your experience in being a minority view or less powerful view when many of these questions become political, and how you deal with playing on that playing field.
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AB: You become frustrated.
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EB: You—you—you just tell yourself you need to keep on trying. I—I don’t know what else to say. Well, you—you—you can also, like the Sierra Club does, work on trying to get the political candidates elected that they feel are more friendly to the environment than the others. Sierra Club is allowed to do that. Audubon is not. They can’t endorse candidates. They’re a 501(c)(3). So, that’s some differences there. Is—is this what you’re looking for?
DT: Maybe we can explore a little bit more going on past TXI and talk about some other air quality issues I think you’ve worked on. Some people are urging use of nuclear power as one way to combat global warming and climate change. And I was wondering if you can talk about your experience with Comanche Peak, and if you think that that is an option that should be explored?
00:32:52 – 2100
EB: I think there are too many concerns there for that to be an option. First, the—the—the mining situation. They—they haven’t taken care of those problems that they’ve caused in the mining of the Uranium. All the transportation that needs to be done, but—and, then, the actual operation itself at the plant. Then, the big problem is the stories of nuclear waste. Once it’s—once it’s happened, what do you do with it? We have that problem with our military as well as the nuclear power plants. But, why should we add to it with generating more of the radioactive waste at the nuclear power plant? So, I’m very much opposed to it. As you’re aware, we never have reached any conclusions as what we can really do to store the things safely. And, there’s so much of it that it’s just not a practical solution. You don’t—you don’t try to go with something that could be even a lot worse, that lasts for so many years to solve another problem when there’s other ways of solving it. The ways of solving the problem, of course, is alternate energy sources. But, that could be solar energy. It can be wind energy. As far as the automobiles, which do most of the polluting in this area—the air, the—we can look forward to maybe fuel sales driven cars in the near future. You know, like they’re all trying for, the hydrogen and oxygen to make a little bit of water but a lot of energy. That—and I—I shouldn’t be getting into technical things, I’m not that smart on the technical stuff. But, there—there’s lots of options out there to nuclear energy, and I’m—I’m very much opposed to nuclear energy. In fact, I guess I was probably instrumental in—quite some time ago getting the local Sierra Club to develop a position station—statement opposing the nuclear energy. And we worked on that awhile, and—and we—we would speak. Course, we took advantage of the trip that then Texas Electrical it was called, Texas Utilities made free trips to go show us their nuclear power plant. And, then, taken—took us on down to the lignite plants—generating plants run by lignite down in East Texas. And—but, you see what the enemy is doing, I guess, to—if they’re offering it, well, so you’ll better understand what, maybe, you can do.
DT: Could you talk a little about some of the lignite plants you visited? Maybe Big Brown?
00:36:00 – 2100
EB: This—this is a long—this was quite some time ago. And, of course, I—I feel like that they should be gas powered rather than powered by lignite coal. Because natural gas is a much cleaner type of thing. And coal is pretty polluting type of a—of energy source—fuel. So, I can’t talk much more than that on it. I—I—I’m—I’m not sure what you’re—you’re looking for there.
DT: Maybe you can tell me a little bit about how you’ve tried to teach citizens and directly teach legislators about some of these options that you think are more sustainable than nuclear power, or fossil fuel building, or sprawl, or whatever the environmental push there might be. And I understand you’ve been very active in trying to promote lobbying and advocacy, and maybe talk a little bit about your efforts there.
00:37:06 – 2100
EB: (talking over David) Well, of course, most of my activities in lobbying is going to the—to the—the organization—local organization meetings and talking to them and providing handouts that they can use with the information of how to contact our legislators, or city officials, or whoever—state officials, whatever. But, along the way I have been asked by people to, well, “Why don’t you try to teach more of us about this?” And, like, invited by a man that—one of the naturalists out at the nature center to hold a—a workshop out there. And, in doing that, I knew that I was not qualified to talk about anything. But, I could kind of pick some people to help on different aspects of it. I chose a—an Audubon member, who was also a government teacher in—in high school to talk to them a little bit about the Texas legislature and the—and the Congress—Federal Congress—and teaching things there, what—what goes into passing a law. So, they know a little bit about that. I got a man from—that worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to—to talk to them. I got different people with different talents to do different things. And, so, we—we talked about letter writing, how to write letters and what have you. And I would choose someone that could talk better than me and—and probably provide them in—probably provide information that showed them what they should be telling the people. But, we—you know, I had a—at least a dozen different people that would work on these different things. And eventually we talked about—after teaching them how and whatever, we’d take whatever it is, talking about some particular issue at that time that we wanted them in and try to get them to get busy on—on that particular issue. I had probably at least—maybe not the same type of event, but, different things, we—possibly earlier than that, we had organized a—a smaller type of workshop at the downtown library and invited people into that. And I got different people to talk there and—and try to teach them how—we’d—seems like I may be going backwards here. At one time we had organized an air quality group. One time we organized—zeroed in on pesticides, which is such a polluting type of thing. And I don’t remember where we had that. But, we—I re—I remember we had an awfully big crow—turnout on that. And I had worked with that on a—mainly on—with a—a young man who was going through what we called TCOM at that time, Textiles(?) College for…
00:40:28 – 2100
AB: Osteopathy.
00:40:28 – 2100
EB: …Osteopathic thing. He was—he was interested in it and he was able to get some of the professors out there to come and talk. And, also, with one of the leaders in the Sierra Club that had the three of us kind of got—got this thing going. It was a pretty good success. And the—I have helped organized air quality committees for certain things, like when the Clean Air Act maybe was going through one of its phases. And I use all those contacts at—at one point in time to—to help get people interested in coming together to form this Tarrant Coalition for Environmental Mana—Awareness that you asked about earlier. And the—the Scotts were very instrumental in—in that. I—mainly—my contribution, mainly, was getting people there and—and going to—to get them organized. The Scotts did a lot of work—I should mention Bob Scott, too. He came along a lot later—or a little bit later than—than I did. But, he met me in—in Audubon and listened to me. And he started backing me up. I was getting pretty worn out and kind of am I going any place? And—but, when he came along, it helped kind of spur me on it. And someone else was—was he—willing to help and—and get busy with it. So, Bob Scott is really worth—has been a great friend. And—and very important to me in this, and he’s the current President of the Tarrant Coalition for Environmental Awareness. And he takes on the water qualities. And he’s very good. He’s a lot more technically astute than I am. He was a chemical engineer. And that guy, he worked with an aircraft industry. And he worked as—as an engineer—a—a metallurgical engineer. And what it is, as I worked in administration in—in the engineering department. So…
DT: Have you found that it’s difficult to recruit people to become politically active and lobby their representatives and contact the media and so on?
00:43:03 – 2100
EB: Well, we like to think that—what—the first answer is yes. It’s very difficult. We like to think that we reach some of the people. And some of the people seem responsive at the meetings. And we like to think that these newsletters that are put out. We get articles in there, and asking them to lobby. And we like to think there’s a lot of people that are not able to come to all the meetings that write the letters out there. We don’t know that. We—that’s the way we encourage ourselves. There’s a lot of people out of there.
00:43:37 – 2100
AB: One of Earl’s major activities is writing for the newsletters of these various organizations and having handouts at meetings. And sometimes when we would go to events that were not even scheduled by the Sierra Club or the Audubon, well, Earl would have handouts. And somebody made the comment, “One of these days, we’re going to go to the Pearly Gates, and there Earl Burnam’s going to be with his handouts before we can get in the gates, visit with St. Peter.” Because he always has handouts on a topic that he needs somebody to work on.”
DT: And what sort of reaction do you think you’ve had either directly or through the people you’ve taught about lawmen from state Senators, state Representatives, local council people?
00:44:37 – 2100
EB: You mean results? Not a lot of results. Things don’t normally go our way, especially in the last several years in the Federal legislation. You know, things had been kind of turning around in the Texas legislation and kind of trending toward recognizing environmental causes. And, then, a few years ago there was all of a sudden the big concern for private property rights that someone—it could have been a former Vice President of the United States—helped organize out in the west, and they spread the word of private property rights. And people got to thinking like they did back in the Civil War, you know, “We’re fighting for our rights.” And, so, private property rights became a big issue and the Texas Legislature began to go back on their environmental thing. It’s—it’s really gone downhill, and…
DT: And what was there fear and what were the issues? Was it about endangered species?
00:45:47 – 2100
EB: Yeah, that was—at—at that particular time that—that—that caused that change—it was their fear of an—not being able to do something because of an endangered species being on their property or…
DT: Don’t you think it was a realistic fear?
00:46:03 – 2100
EB: I’d—I don’t—maybe there was reason for some concern. But, I don’t think it was as bad as it—as it looked. I think it was a cry wolf type of thing. People—because, ex—excuse me and—and—and not just the endangered species, but, when you start doing things on your property, you effect things downstream as far as water flows are concerned. When you have pollution on your property, it doesn’t stay on your property. So, you know, where does your private property rights begin and where do they end? It’s kind of like, oh, forgive me, the old grade school principal would tell us that, “Your freedom is great, just remember that your freedom ends where the other men freedoms begins.” So, kind of similar to that in my opinion, that…
DT: Well, maybe part of it is that it’s difficult to educate some of these people about where, you know, freedoms start and responsibilities begin, and that you have start educating people earlier. And I was wondering if Alma, as a long time school teacher, could talk a little bit about efforts to expose kids to environmental issues and concerns maybe at an earlier, when they’re a little bit more open.
00:47:41 – 2100
AB: Well, in—if you have a teacher who’s so inclined, that’s the key point right there. I know we received some materials in our school that were put out by a group of people who thought they were being very helpful. And I was teaching Texas—the unit on Texas. And they provided this information about farming and ranching in Texas. And they had a lot of real good activities in there. But, then, they also talked about the value of pesticides. And, you know, dusting the fields with the crop dusters and things like that. And I just—I just put that material aside. I would not even use it in my classroom. Because I don’t think there was that much value in spraying pesticides in the air. So, you have to be careful. One of the things that I would kind of sneak up on them about is that I would maybe introduce an issue in—in—with small children, if you’re talking about animals and birds and fish and things like that, you can usually get their interest. And I would point out a problem that—in some particular area or something. And, if possible, we’d have a little filmstrip or video about it. And we would talk about pros and cons of the particular issue. And we’d list those on the chalk board and talk about it. And, then,
00:49:12 – 2100
one of their assignments would be to write a letter. And this is something that fit right in with working on the TAAS test is they have to be able to write persuasive. And, so, then I would have them write a per—persuasive letter to a legislator, either for or against that particular issue. Well, the kids just ate it up. Because they were writing a real letter to a real person on a real issue. And it wasn’t a made up issue of how do you persuade the principal to let us have chewing gum in the cafeteria or something like that. And the children would discuss those issues, and they would look at them from both sides. And I would tell them very emphatically that, “You can either write for it or against it.” And, you know, that nearly every letter that they would write would be wanting to protect those animals or—or whatever it was we were talking about. So, children can make a decision. And you can influence them in a sly way if—if you want to. But, the curriculum is such today that you really have to work to be able to get something like that in, in a day’s, you know, in your lesson plans. Because we’ve got to get back to basics. And you hear that, and we’ve got to pass the TAAS test. And you hear that over and over and over. So—but, children—if we could have really environmental education in our schools, it would be great. Earl and I visited New Zealand here about three or four years ago. And one of the things that I noticed about New Zealand is that they have environmental classes. And Friday is their environmental class day. And we would see groups of children on Fridays out in the countryside. And they might be digging, looking for rocks or something like that. But environmentalism is included. It is mandated in their curriculum. And it’s a Friday lesson.
DT: What do you think the reason for the resistance here to including environmental education through teaching about all of our outdoor…
00:51:35 – 2100
AB: I don’t know that there’s really a resistance. It’s just that it’s not mandated. And we’re going to teach what we have to teach. And all the emphasis is on the basic skills and passing these TAAS tests. And, when that’s what’s—the pressure’s put on the teachers to pass those—pressure’s put on the principals first of all. Your school’s got to be an exemplary school. And the principals put the pressure on the teachers, your class has got to pass these tests. And the teachers put the pressure on the kids. And—because it reflects on—on the schools. And they don’t include environmental testing on the TAAS test. And, so, it gets left out.
DW: What grade are we talking about with these students?
00:52:28 – 2100
AB: I was talk—I taught fourth grade.
DW: So they were 10 years old. One, did any of the legislators you sent letters to ever write back to the class? And, two, did you ever get a kid’s parent call you later and say, “What the heck is this you’re having my kid talk about in school?” And you can direct the answers to David Todd.
00:52:47 – 2100
AB: The children who wrote these letters were very excited. Because they would nearly always get a response from the legislator. Now, I felt real sorry for the legislators, I mean, we mail in 30 letters to them, you know, four or five a day on this issue, and their staff has to send out replies to all those letters. But, the children were just absolutely thrilled. And they would bring their letters to school to show me that they’d had an answer. And they were so proud of those letters. The parents never objected to what I was doing. I’ve had some parents tell me that they liked what I did. But, I think one of the reasons I never had any objections, was because I didn’t tell them, “You have to write this way, or you have to write, you know, certain things—request certain things.” I left that up to the kids. And if they’d been opposed to it, and wrote a letter in opposition, I would have sent that letter in for them also. But, it was—it was a tremendous experience, I think, for the children. And I’ve had some of them come back to me in later years and mention some of the things that we did like that in class. So, I think it made an impression on them. Also, one year I was teaching a fifth grade Social Studies class. And I kept talking about different things that were involved in the environment, and pesticides, and such as that. And we have the adopt a school program. And we were—had been adopted by an industry in the area. And, so, the next year, when these fifth graders, of course, were going on into middle school, but, this next year, we went to the—that industry for a tour—the teachers did—prior to school opening to—to look at it. They were our adopt a school, we needed to—I mean, they were sponsoring us; we needed to know a little bit about them. And the man who was leading us on the tour says, “You know, you really have a great, inquisitive bunch of students out there at that school,” said, “When we had them here, they had the fifth graders here last year, they kept asking us about our use of pesticides and how—how we disposed of things and such as that.” And I just kind of crowed, you know, to myself. Because I thought, hey, I really did get through to those kids and they questioned those people about what they were doing. So, that wasn’t in the curriculum, though, and, unfortunately, it was something that I did on my own. So, how will they ever get it into the curriculum, I don’t know.
DT: Seems like the kids when their ten and eleven are quite receptive to environmental issues…
00:55:46 – 2100
AB: Oh, they are.
DT: …and to animal concerns and, then, as we get older, seems we become less interested in politics and less concerned about environmental issues. What happens?
00:55:59 – 2100
AB: Well, you take a little group of little boys and then you give them a bunch of bugs and things like that to play with, they’re delighted. But, you take these 18 and 19 year olds and give them a bunch of bugs to play with; they’re not very delighted. Their interests just change entirely. You give them—18 and 19 year olds are more interested in the girls than they are in the bugs, and it’s just as—as they grow older, they just lose that interest—most of them do.
(misc.)
DT: Speaking of kids and how they change, you’ve raised three boys, I believe?
00:56:39 – 2100
AB: Yes.
DT: And each of them seems to have had an environmental interest, but have taken different approaches to that interest, and maybe we can talk about one of the boys on this tape and then we’ll pick up with the rest on the other. How did you raise them? What sort of interests did they take?
00:56:56 – 2100
AB: They raised us. No, really and truly, as Earl had mentioned earlier, Lon is the one—our oldest—is the one who got us started in being more aware of our environment and in the issues and things like that. Dan comes along, and he gets us more involved in the out of doors and in camping, and in getting out there and seeing what’s going on. And, then, when Bob, our youngest, comes along, he gets us involved in birds. Bob loved the birds. And he—he was working on a—a scout merit badge on birds, and he’d sit out in the backyard for hours at a time, studying that one particular bird out there for his merit badge. So, they’ve all three come at it in a different way. They’ve all three influenced us to be—to have different awareness’s and interest also.
00:57:53 – 2100
EB: When Bob would talk about the birds, we’d get interested…
00:57:55 – 2100
AB: Yeah.
00:57:56 – 2100
EB: …and we became more interested.
00:57:56 – 2100
AB: Uh huh.
00:57:57 – 2100
EB: Eventually became involved in…
00:57:58 – 2100
AB: And I’ve had people say, “Well, how did you raise this child to be like this?” I don’t know. If—it just—who raised who? It was just one of these things that th—they developed that way. Now, Bob is building an environmentally friendly house up in Colorado. And he uses recycled materials. He uses cement. He has done everything to that house that’s been done. He did the electrical wiring. The house is not within the city limits. But he has county codes he has to abide to.
00:58:37 – 2100
EB: Then inspectors.
00:58:38 – 2100
AB: Inspectors. He did the electrical wiring, it took him so long to get it all in that they had rewritten the code, so he had to do the entire wiring system again. So, he wired the house twice. But, he’s—he goes about things in that way, whereas, our oldest son looks at laws and working with agencies.
DT: This is Lon Burnam?
00:59:04 – 2100
AB: Lon, yes.
DT: A local state representative.
00:59:07 – 2100
AB: Right.
00:59:09 – 2100
EB: And Bobby, the youngest, at his houses he uses the—the solar energy.
DT: Is it entirely off the grid?
00:59:19 – 2100
EB: Yeah, it’s—it’s off the grid completely. Both the house he built and what they refer to as White Hog, just north of Benton, which he now rents out. It’s—it’s completely with solar energy. And the one he’s living in in—as he fit—completes the building of it up in Colorado is solar powered and actually he—has the feral cement that they use. And his—he had to use what he was building at Benton as part of his project. He—he—he got his degree in, I think, the last degree they gave over at North Texas State in…
01:00:06 – 2100
AB: Industrial Arts.
01:00:07 – 2100
EB: …Industrial Arts, and that was a—a part of that. Course he—so, he was living up there in it—camping mostly, while he was finishing up his degree.
DT: And what sort of solar energy…
(misc.)
End of reel 2100.
DT: Alma, we have been talking about your and Earl’s children, and your oldest boy, Lon, has been in state politics since ’96 now, is that right? And ran a number of years before that.
00:01:52 – 2101
AB: Yeah.
DT: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how he decided to run and how you helped him in his numerous campaigns.
00:02:02 – 2101
AB: Well, Lon has been very interested in politics ever since he was in elementary school. And one of his—the persons who inspired him to a certain extent was Jim Wright. And he had heard that Jim Wright was going to make a speech one night at the elementary school. And so he asked his daddy to take him up to hear Representative—Congressman Jim Wright. So, that more or less got him started. And he—he would make yard signs and put up in our front yard for people that he liked and such as that. And, then, he actively worked in campaigns when he was in junior high and high school. And, at that time, they could go around and put fliers on people’s cars in the parking lots. And, evidently, that’s against the law or something now, because they don’t do that anymore. But, he used to go to the parking lots and put out fliers and such as that. Well, Lon lives in a district that was represented by a person who had been in—down in Austin in the—as both Senator and Representative for many, many years. But, that was the district Lon lived in. That was the district he decided to run in, to represent. So, he ran twice in ’92 and in ’94 against that person, who, as I said, was an incumbent. In the ’96 campaign that man did not run again because of his age, and he supported another candidate. And they were—in fact, I believe there were five candidates in that particular race in—in ninety s…
00:03:41 – 2101
EB: In the primaries in (?)
00:03:42 – 2101
AB: …uh huh. And it was a hard fought race. But, it came out that there was one—one other candidate and Lon had to be in the run off for the primaries. Because they were—all of them who were running were Democrats. And Lon won that run off—primary. So, he did not have an opponent in the general election. He did not have an opponent in the next general election, nor this year, he has not had an opponent. So, this will be his third term to be down in Austin as a State Representative. Lon’s primary issues are welfare for his constituents, the environment. And he—he has worked very hard on the environmental issues down there and has lobbied his other representatives and s—you’d think the lobbying would be over once you’re elected. But, he—he lobbies the other representatives, too. And he has worked on many environmental issues. He continues to work on them, even though legislature’s not in session, Lon’s working on those issues. His campaign in ’96—okay, I’m getting my years right—was a—a hard fought campaign. But, it was a fun campaign, too. I mean, I worked in his office—his campaign office—every day. And he had a campaign manager, so, I was not the manager. But, I was down there doing all the little dirty work jobs, you know, that nobody else wants to do. And I carried the checkbook. So, if anybody needed anything
00:05:27 – 2101
it was my duty to go get it and pay for it. But, it—it—it was a very exciting time in—in the night of the election—the run off election—when we found out that he had won was an extremely exciting time, one of the most exciting times I’ve ever had. Now, that—we were going to go down for the swearing in. You know, that was to be a big event. And, you know, we never have snow storms or anything like that here. And that was when we had the bad snow storm, and in Austin it was—some of the Representatives didn’t even get there for the swearing in because of the snowing. So, we didn’t get to go to his first swearing in. But we did make it for the second one. As I mentioned, I carried the checkbook. I took care of all of his financial affairs that are related to the campaign aspect. He does have a very competent staff here in his district office, as well as in the—the state office in Austin, I think. But, I do the things that they’re not allowed to do because they’re considered to be campaign, such as go make payments on—if they res—reserve a room for a meeting or something like that.
DT: Speaking of campaign monies, can you talk a little about how Lon manages to raise money, because I understand his district is not the most wealthy?
0:06:54 – 2101
AB: Lon gets most of his money from his friends, who are environmentalists. He has—he has a strong support system. And those who—most of those who worked in his campaign when he was elected were from out of the district. But, they realized that Lon would be working on environmental issues and pushing them, and they supported him along that line. He has his—what he calls his birthday party fundraiser and, so, every July he has a big fundraiser. And that’s the primary source of his contributions, from that.
DT: Does he get many contributions from industries or special interests that have ideas that they’d like him to carry for them?
00:07:47 – 2101
AB: Yes, he does. And he’s very open-minded, he’ll accept money from anybody. But, that doesn’t mean he’ll vote like they want him to.
00:07:55 – 2101
EB: He may not get it the second time.
0:07:57 – 2101
AB: He may not get it the second time. But, yes he does, but…
00:08:03 – 2101
EB: Is it PACs that he gets the money from, or industry itself?
00:08:07 – 2101
AB: It’s the PACs that he gets the money from.
DT: How does he remain independent when I’m sure that many of his donors expect a quid pro quo?
00:08:24 – 2101
AB: Well, in the first place, he doesn’t get any huge donations. But, most—as I said, most of the people—he gets a lot of money from the doctors and the dentists, the nurses, that those are issues that he can support. So, now, he doesn’t get any tobacco industry or oil industry contributions. So, most of his contributions are from issues that it’s easy for him to support.
DT: What have been some of his favorite environmental issues?
00:09:01 – 2101
AB: Well, for one thing, he was very much against the Sierra Blanca nuclear dump down on the—what is it? Southwest?
00:09:12 – 2101
EB: Hudspeth County, I believe…
00:09:13 – 2101
AB: Hudspeth County. Yeah. He worked very actively against that and…
00:09:20 – 2101
EB: One of the few successes…
00:09:22 – 2101
AB: Yeah.
00:09:23 – 2101
EB: …another temporary success.
00:09:24 – 2101
AB: And, of course, that’s an issue that we started talking about back in the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s when I was chair of the—the—the state chair of the Sierra Club. We had a person come talk to us at that time about that particular issue.
DT: Can you explain a little bit about what the controversy was about?
00:09:48 – 2101
AB: Well, Texas had gone into a compact with Vermont and one other state—I don’t remember the other state…
00:09:55 – 2101
EB: Maine.
00:09:56 – 2101
AB: …Maine. And, under this compact, we were to be willing to take their nuclear waste and dispose of it here in Texas. And the place that they chose to place this dump was in Hudspeth County, which was down very, very close to the Rio Grande River, which was very upsetting to the Mexicans also, as well as the people—the citizens of Texas.
00:10:24 – 2101
EB: In violation of the p—La Paz agreement that we had.
00:10:26 – 2101
AB: Uh huh. And…
00:10:28 – 2101
EB: …putting the stuff that close to the river.
00:10:30 – 2101
AB: …and, so…
00:10:31 – 2101
EB: A Federal agreement.
00:10:32 – 2101
AB: …this would have been waste being transported—nuclear waste being transported all the way from Vermont and Maine down to the southwest part of Texas to be disposed of. And, in addition to having the dump itself there being so repulsive, the idea that it would be transported right through the Dallas, Ft. Worth area was a little upsetting, too. So, we were very much opposed to that issue. And Lon was also.
DT: And how do you think that one of these rare victories on environmental issues came about?
00:11:12 – 2101
AB: A lot of people fighting against it. It—it was very—that was—had strong work against that issue. Besides that, as—as I pointed out, we had people from Mexico going to Austin to protest it. And I think that had quite a bit of impact. When you’re playing along international lines and—and doing something that is so objectionable to another country, you’d better watch it, so…
DT: You mentioned a moment ago that the Sierra Blanca issue arose while you were chair of the Sierra Club’s ExComm [Executive Committee] for Lone Star Sierra.
00:11:56 – 2101
AB: Right.
DT: Can you talk a little bit about your experience in trying to manage the club’s finances and its policy directions while you were on the ExComm?
00:12:08 – 2101
AB: I had some real good people working with me as—I was chair for two years. And we had some really good people working with us. It’s not easy. When you’re out begging people for all of your money all the time to keep an organization going, it’s very, very difficult. And if we’d have a special lawsuit or something like that come up, you’d have to ask for money for that in addition to your regular money that you needed to—to keep the office going and activities goings. Now, there’s—first of all, Texas being the huge state that we are, it’s not very convenient for people up in Amarillo or, even in Abilene, to run down to Austin to lobby. And in order for the Sierra Club to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish in the form of getting bills passed and—and monitoring the agencies and such as that, we had to have somebody there locally to do it. And that meant hiring someone there to stay there and maintain that office. And we were very fortunate and are very fortunate to have Ken Kramer. And, then, he had Scott Royder working with him, also. And they—they were very good, and—and we would have to tell people we’ve got to have the money in order to support their office in Austin and the staff there. Because we can’t afford to be missing work and running down to Austin to lobby. So, that was a difficult task to do to take care of. And we just—we were constantly talking about budget, how much are we spending and such as that. And we had a volunteer treasurer at that time, it was hard the first year I was there—I was chair—it was hard to get a hold of her to get her to write checks that needed to pay the bill, and everything was just one big mess. The second year we had another treasurer who was very good about paying the bills. But, he also realized that we were not going to be able to continue as we were financing as it was. And it—so it—one of the last things that I did as chair—or, that was passed while I was chair—was to make it such that Ken Kramer ran the show basically. He was made the Executive Director. And that ga—and we turned the checkbook over to him. So when he had a bill, he could pay for it
00:14:41 – 2101
right then. And I think that helped to get things on a better keel. But, at one point, we had a part time person working for us that Ken really did like and really appreciated his work. And he was doing a good job. We didn’t have the money to pay the fellow with. And, so, we had a vote whether to keep him on or let him go. And the board voted on it and it was split. And that was the one and only tie vote I had to break. And I had to vote to let the person go because we just flat didn’t have the money. And I received letters of complaint from members as well as people from other organizations. And they said, “You can’t dissolve the office, we rely too heavily on Ken Kramer.” And my response would be, “I know you do. Ken is wonderful. Help us keep him. Send us money.” But, of—if—if—you know, whether that ha—they every said anything…
00:15:44 – 2101
EB: Of course this wasn’t Ken that was being—it was a—a lawyer that was working at the time.
00:15:48 – 2101
AB: Yeah. Working part time.
00:15:49 – 2101
EB: (talking over AB) It was in order to be able to keep Ken.
00:15:51 – 2101
AB: Yeah, because we had to keep Ken.
00:15:53 – 2101
EB: They wanted to keep Dan McNamara also. But, couldn’t.
00:15:57 – 2101
AB: But, it’s very trying. And I had people ask me over and over. And the one person who repeatedly asked it was Jerry Acres, who was the conservation chair during that time. He said, “How do you manage to be a chair and work full time at teaching and bring all your teaching stuff home?” Well, it wasn’t easy. But, it—it was rewarding, too. So—and I enjoy it. But, two years was enough.
DT: How do you think environmental groups, which almost are always strapped for money and short on active members, can deal with such big social problems like those that cause environmental impacts?
00:16:46 – 2101
AB: Well, you have to rely on the volunteers to—to—to help. And it’s this letter writing. If you have issues, it’s those letters that are being written that really pay off, I think. Ken can go down in to the l—legislature and—and lobby to the world’s end. And if he doesn’t have some back up support in—with letters and people saying, “Listen, we do want this issue and we are in favor of it, and we want you to pass it,” or, “that’s a no no,” those letters are important, too. So, you need the money to have the organization, to keep it going. But, you’ve also got to have the volunteers doing their share.
DT: Do you think that some new technology like faxes and e-mails have made it easier to solicit people’s interests, since it takes a little less time to contact them?
00:17:47 – 2101
AB: Well, that’s what Earl does full time. He goes in there every morning and he takes about 10 to 15 emails off. And he responds to them. And he dis—disburses them out to other people. And he spends an awful lot of time at the computer. And it’s nearly always on email. So, yes. Definitely. And the, you know, faxes also. But, the email has really helped because you can get to the individual volunteer more quickly and get it out.
DT: Do changes like that make you optimistic, Earl, about environmental lobbying and advocacy for the future?
00:18:31 – 2101
EB: Yes, I think that the word will—will be getting out to more people eventually. I’m—I’m reserving my optimism, though, for a while. It certainly makes it easier for me to get the word out to more people on a timely basis. Because so often that when we rely on our newsletters or our meetings, time is already gone, we find out about something that’s about to happen in a day or two most of the time, maybe a week or a little more. And it—it doesn’t fit in with waiting for a general meeting or a—a newsletter to come out. So, we’re able to reach a lot more people this way. And that’s—that’s in our favor. But, also, there’s a lot of up—anti-environmental things that can go by the electronic mail also. And that is happening. That probably started happening before the environmentalists got smarts and said, “We need to do this too.” So, that — at — at least it’s—well it’s easier to communicate now. And, perhaps, the people will—that gets both messages, might try to pay attention to who’s sending this message and why. And the only thing I can hope is that they s—they say, “Who’s wanting it for economic reasons? And who’s wanting it because of their beliefs in conserving our natural resources for future generations?”
DT: Speaking of future generations, do you have any sort of message that you’d like to pass on to your children and grandchildren and children and grandchildren of other people as well? What might be important to you that you think should be important to them?
00:20:27 – 2101
EB: Well, what comes to mind is the—is the fact that we are defeated so much we tend to give up. And my advice would be to feel that obligation to keep plugging regardless of—of how bad it seems—the situation—we’ve got to keep working toward saving our natural resources for not only our f—what we would call our grandchildren, but beyond that. And with the population coming as it is, we’ve—we’ve got to try to take care of things, conserve things as much as we can and keep from polluting. I—the—the main concern is the—is the health of the people. Sure, I like to say the—the habitat is for the wild things and for—for both the—the plants and the animals—the wildlife—we—that’s very important. But, I guess I always go back to the first important step is taking care of our health, which is air quality and water quality. I—maybe I’m getting too—it’s hard for me to pin down some particular issue. There’s so much that are—that’s important there. We’re making some—gaining some grounds on air quality and on water conservation. That’s—that’s really going to be an important thing. You know, we’re—we’re consuming so much water. And—and we got to keep what we have, a finite amount of water, we’ve got to keep from polluting it. It’s going to be more costly to clean it up than it would be to keep it clean in the first place. And, in order to keep it so we will have adequate water, conservation has to be a—play a big part. That can’t be all of it. But, maybe elucidating more than you wanted, you know, where we need to develop technologies for desalinization—getting the salt out of the sea water to make water more abundant. They have that technology. But, it’s not an economical thing right now. And the more we get into these things we’ll be able to do it more cheaply, you know, the more the technology is developed and get into it. It’s just like the technology for the energy, that’s such an important—plays an important part in every aspect I think. The energy—we mentioned some of this before, some of the energy things about the alternate energies that we have, the renewable energies are so important. Because that helps prevent pollution of the air and the water, as well as giving us energy to use to keep us warm when we need it, to keep us cool when we need it. I mean, like, you know, in—in Texas you can believe since we’ve gotten used to air conditioning, we almost—it’s almost mandatory that—we’ve lived without it in the past. But, it—it’s hard to go back to—to those days.
DT: Well, do you think that the more promising solutions for the future are technical fixes in a sense? That to have an air conditioner that runs more efficiently? Or social fixes where we learn to do without having the air conditioning set so low during the summer or set so high during the winter?
00:24:08 – 2101
EB: Can I ride the fence?
(misc.)00:24:13 – 2101
EB: I’m sorry? Well, I’d like to ride the fence there. I think both are very important. We’ve done so much with technology so far to go the other way, that—that we’re at the point now where we’re going to have to depend on technology to help overcome these problems. And whether—you can’t say all technology is bad. I’ve been mentioning some things that we need to technology. And we—but, we s—the—the—the social attitudes, that’s what you’re meaning? That’s got to change. We’ve got to be willing to accept things. The—they—they’re both equally important as I see it.
DT: Sort of a false choice, I guess.
00:25:01 – 2101
EB: Sir?
DT: It’s a false choice in a way between the social fix and technical…
00:25:04 – 2101
EB: Well, I don’t think there is a choice between them and I think you’ve got to have both.
DT: Alma, what do you think about the challenges and the future and…?
00:25:10 – 2101
AB: Well…
DT: …the challenges and the message?
00:25:13 – 2101
AB: …it’s a challenge alright. But, you know, I—I get real discouraged sometimes. And then I go outside, and out here in my driveway that’s cement there is a crack. And there’s a little weed growing up in that crack. And I think that weed’s not supposed to be there, but, here it is. I mean, it’s growing. And I think that nature can overcome an awful lot. The—it’s—it’s awfully strong, and if we just step back a little bit and leave nature alone, our problems wouldn’t be quite so big.
DT: You think it’s pretty resilient.
00:25:52 – 2101
AB: Yes, I do. And it’s—it’s amazing, you go out to where they—at the forest, where they’ve had a bad burn, and you see things coming back alive. And I think—I think there’s hope—I hope there’s hope.
00:26:10 – 2101
EB: Would this be a good place to talk about the Luddites?
DT: Sure—sure, what do you think of Luddites?
00:26:17 – 2101
EB: I think it’s a matter of the way you want to look at it. I think that the Luddites are the people that spoil all our natural areas and p—pollute our water and pollute our air. I mean, I—I—I’m only using that term because, yes, the term is used. There are a f—a few environmental type of groups that go out and destroys things. And I don’t—I don’t go for that, and it gives a bad name to all environmentalists. And I think that—that the—especially the—the anti-environmentalist looks on the environmentalist as—as Luddites. But, I also look on them as Luddites. If—maybe not destroying man made stuff, like the—the original Luddites were. But, destroying what God has given us, all of our natural resources.
DT: Well, speaking of that, I think before we went on…
00:27:16 – 2101
EB: Now, you mentioned Luddites is the reason I brought it.
DT: Right, right, I follow you. You had talked about people sort of wantonly destroy things like the turtles, can you tell about that story from out west and maybe speculate a little bit about why?
00:27:31 – 2101
AB: Well, this—this man is very fond of guns and hunting, and…
(misc.)
00:27:50 – 2101
AB: I went to a—a reunion—a class reunion out in New Mexico. And this man, who has been a friend of mine ever since we were in high school. And I con—still consider him a—a good friend, even though he and I disagree on everything. But, he was telling—I had asked him what he had—how he had spent his free afternoon while we were out there at the reunion. And he said, well, he had gone down to the river and gone hunting. And I asked him what he was hunting. “Well, I was killing turtles.” “You were killing turtles? Why were you killing those turtles?” “Just wanted to shoot at something.” So, he went down to the river and was just shooting these turtles because he wanted to shoot at something. It wasn’t that there was any need. There was no purpose, or anything else. Now, I think that’s ridiculous. Back to my school adventures. Well, I
00:28:52 – 2101
had—had a little boy in my class one year, who’s father was a taxidermist, which really made things tough for me. Because I—I had told him, I just, you know, unless you need food, I do—I don’t see any point in killing animals. But, if you’re hungry and you need food, that I could go along with. So, we were in a port—one of these portable buildings outside. And somehow or another a—a daddy long legs spider got into our classroom. And the little girls were all upset because the daddy long legs were in there. And I said, “Oh my,” and I went over there, and picked up the spider off the floor, walked over to the door, and put the spider outside. And the little boy, whose father was a taxidermist, said, “You really don’t believe in killing anything, do you?” And I said, “Why? Why do you kill something needlessly?” And that’s the way I felt about this man who went hunting and shooting turtles. Why would anybody go out and shoot a turtle? It’s not hurting a thing. But he just wanted to kill something. So, that’s the kind of person who really upsets me.
DT: Earl, why do you think that people maybe pay less attention than you would hope to some of the environmental things that you have been lobbying for?
00:30:17 – 2101
EB: Is the term inertia—is that—or—they have other things that they’d rather do or fool with. They’d rather plan their outings. Or they’d rather just study the birds and look at the birds. I don’t know if this answers your wanting, but that’s…
DT: As a representative, when you make your pitch to them, do they say they’d rather be out hunting turtles?
00:30:47 – 2101
EB: No, of course—of course not. They always give some kind of a story of how great they are at doing something other than what I’ve asked them to do. It—it’s kind of like that. It’s not—no, they—they say, “Well, we’re concerned, too, and this is why, but, we think that such and such…” No, I thought you were talking about the—the people that I try to get to write letters (inaudible– talking over David)
DT: (inaudible – talking over EB) how people deal with competing issues and what their priorities are.
00:31:23 – 2101
EB: But, there are very few politicians out there and—and elected officials that—that listen to you and—and try to do it. But they’re—they’re in the minority normally and it doesn’t happen.
DT: One last question I often try and ask people is many people have wonderful times outdoors. And that’s part of what gives them some passion and compassion for the environment. I was wondering if each of you could tell us about places in the out of doors that are special to you and why? Alma?
00:32:09 – 2101
AB: Big Bend National Park. About every—about every two years I have to have a Big Bend fix. And—and we have to go down to Big Bend. And we’re to the stage in life now that we can’t canoe the river down there, or backpack like we used to. In fact, we—our camping now is c—confined to a motel room. But, we went down there this last spring. And it’s terribly dry, very bad. But, we just went around to the different places down there at Big Bend, where we had been before. And—and it was a walking the memory lane trip. And we talked about, “Remember the time we came here and so and so did such and such?” But, I don’t know. I—I grew up in the desert. I wouldn’t want to live there again. It’s the last place in the world I’d want to live. But, there’s something about going back to Big Bend. It’s special.
DT: And Earl?
00:33:15 – 2101
EB: Well, I—I can remember lots of places that are—that I’ve enjoyed and—and can remember, like the Pecos wilderness, backpacking and even routinely down here along the Trinity River. Of course, even though I took a paved walk now. I used to walk it when it was just dirt along there. We enjoy walking along there and—and taking walks along there. But, I have to go with Alma on my favorite place is also Big Bend. And I’ve lived in Texas, not west Texas, but, up near the panhandle, which is pretty dry. But, found my wife in the desert out in Artesia, New Mexico. And I’d work the summer out in Arizona in a—in a mine out there, and visited my brother, who had lived out there several times. I—I love the desert country too. And—and Big Bend is also my favorite place. I—I probably kind of hold her back now because I can’t do the things that I used to do at Big Bend. And I think she could probably go ahead and get some of them done. But, not as easily as she used to either. But, there are some things that I—I would just be too slow at anymore at Big Bend.
DT: Can you explain a little bit about what it is about the desert that appeals to you? Because I would think many people would see there are not many trees, the animals aren’t as evident, the grasses aren’t as green, it’s a pretty harsh environment. Yet, there’s something that appeals to you. Can you explain what it is?
00:35:05 – 2101
EB: Well, I think that the—the people haven’t gotten out to look at that detail, or that small stuff that there is there and appreciate it. And they haven’t probably gone to the areas in the—in the desert country that—where you find an oasis. That gives you a delight, coming from the desert into a—an oasis. Like at Big Bend, as the park rangers there told us, “Well, we don’t talk about this place, because we don’t want everybody visiting there.” But, you know, if you’re out there a lot, you—you learn about these places where waterfalls and all kinds of flowery growth and ferns and everything growing. Of course, that’s not at all surrounded by a desert. You—you camp out in the desert and you go to these places, and you find it. Then, of course, being able to go down the river and—and get so far lost from any access to the outside world is—it just—of course, we were talking about desert and not the river, but—and, then, Big Bend and the—the desert type of country. You can appreciate the—the beauty of the mountains, though they be small, and the rock formations and things like that more so than you can looking from a forest, you can’t see very far. But, you can see a long ways on the—on the desert. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love the forest too. But, if you know what I mean, it—it’s the—I’m not sure why that I enjoy the desert so much.
00:36:54 – 2101
AB: At one time you could say that it was the clean desert air. That’s no longer true in Big Bend. I mean, Big Bend has their air pollution problems now also. But, it’s still…
00:37:08 – 2101
EB: Transported from other areas.
00:37:09 – 2101
AB: Yeah. So, that’s—that’s something I would like to see happen in the future. I would like the air pollution problem to be taken care of enough that such remote places as Big Bend are not affected by dirty air. But, that—it has—you wake up in the morning and there’s just a different aroma. And it’s so refreshing.
DT: Alma, could you mention any of your memories of some of these canoe trips that you took on the Rio Grande through the canyon?
00:37:48 – 2101
AB: You want me to talk about my very, very first trip? We went through at the canyons and took out at San Ale—and went through Santa Elena Canyon. And it was about 50 explorer scouts and leaders. And most of us were in rafts instead of canoes. And we did a lot of walking. That was the time I hiked the Rio Grande River.
DT: It was a little low.
00:38:14 – 2101
AB: It was a little low. But, most of—most of my canoe trips—all of my canoe trips on the Rio Grande have been with Explorer Scouts. And, so, my—my experiences and memories are mingled not only with the—the outing itself, but, with the companionship of those kids. They were a great bunch of young people and just a lot of fun to be with. But, we did the—the lower canyons. And, of course, that’s—you’re on there for about five days with no contact—outside contact at all. That’s the exciting thing. Well it—it’s up to me. I’ve got to make it through this. You know, it’s a challenge. But, it’s—it’s just a—a neat place. Enjoyed.
DT: Well, I think we’re probably drawing to the end. But, do you have anything that you might like to add? I’ve probably asked altogether too many questions.
00:39:20 – 2101
AB: Write your legislators. I don’t know that I have anything to add.
00:39:29 – 2101
EB: Well, you had—prior to the session you had alluded to some questions about how do we think that the local activities with the groups in conservation compares to what the state level is like. I’d like to respond to that that I feel like that sometimes the local groups leaves it up to the state organizations to do more of it. I—I feel like that they’re—the—the state organizations are really more concentrated for both Audubon and Sierra Club—concentrated more toward conservation than they are doing like the—the local groups do, which is the—the outings for the Sierra Club, the backpacking and canoeing and whatever, and the—and the Audubon people, their—their birding trip—field trips. And in—in comparis—comparing the local organizations with each other, now, the—I feel like that the local Audubon did probably have a lot of more successes in their—what they were trying to do in the early on, and I think there were a lot of people that were r—in Audubon because of, not just the bird, but conservation. And they did a lot of activities that were successful and I—I really admire what those people did. I’m kind of sorry that I came in after all that good excitement, good things were—were happening. And as far as the Sierra Club is concerned, I think their activities weren’t as much local. But, it concerns me quite a bit that the Audubon—current Audubon mix now seems to be more with the popularity of birding that has come along. And they’re—the membership has really grown and those that attend the meetings, it seems to—they’re paying a lot more attention to birding and field trips situations than they are conservation measures.
00:41:49 – 2101
And as far as the Sierra Club is concerned, they are dedicating a lot more of their newsletters to the conservation measures and allowing a lot more time at—at the—the meetings. Their attendance of meetings in the Sierra Club is probably down from what it used to be. And I don’t know what the membership—that’s possibly down too. I don’t know. But, what total Audubon membership might be down or it might be up due to popularity of birding. But, as I—as I see the two local groups, the Audubon has, and rightly so, been more concentrated toward preserving habitats for birding and other wildlife. And they do address air quality problems and water quality problems, also. Well, of course, one of the water quality problems has to do with wetlands, which is very important habitat. But, it also—the wetlands have been, you know, 50 percent been destroyed since we—white man set foot on the area. It’s so important to habitat. But, it also cleans the water, takes toxics out—toxic chemicals out. And it—it helps control flooding and it helps replace the groundwater. But, seem like the—the—the main thing there is—is—with Audubon—is it’s for the habitat, which it’s very important and we agree we need those things. The Sierra Club really delves in onto a more cross section. Everything is their concern. And I really tend to appreciate that quite a bit, because they get more involved in the air quality, you’ll see much more response—more response to the water quality and—as well as habitat. And forests are a big thing with the Sierra Club. You know, if it’s a forest to anybody, and some of the politicians, they think that’s all we need to about. You need to worry about all—all things. And I think the Sierra Club worries about all things. Some of the pre-information you would see at—had asked
00:44:10 – 2101
about this. And I’m not saying that the—that the local Audubon people are not concerned about the en—environment. They just—I’m afraid that they’re getting more oriented toward just the birding. And it’s hard to g—on the Sierra Club side, it’s hard to get some people away from their outing planning and their outings to pay attention to conservation.
DT: Well, I guess it’s like an ecosystem, it takes creatures in every single niche and groups and every single role to make some of these things happen. I sure am glad that you’ve worked so hard—both of you in your different capacities. And thanks very much for spending the time today to talk about what you’ve done.
00:45:06 – 2101
AB: It’s been our pleasure.
DT: Well, thank you.
(misc.)
End of reel 2101.
End of interview with Alma Burnam.