Tipping the scales:

How one urbanite turned an epiphany into action

By Lisa Capone

HAD SHE SPENT her youth in a leafier place, Roseann Bongiovanni might have grown up a fervent tree hugger. But, hailing from urban Chelsea, Massachusetts - hardened by highways, housing projects, and oil tanks, Bongiovanni became a different sort of activist.

“I would not call myself an avid environmentalist,” said the 29-year-old Chelsea native who is serving her second term on the City Council.

Yet, as director of a non-profit devoted to a healthier environment for Chelsea's more than 35,000 citizens, Bongiovanni's accomplishments are clearly victories for the planet. And while she might balk at giving herself the title of “environmentalist,” an influential federal agency recently went further - naming Bongiovanni an “Environmental Hero” for her leadership in restoring a half-acre salt marsh tucked between an interstate highway and a Home Depot parking lot. She was one of ten people nationwide to earn the coveted National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) award last April.

“I felt really humbled by it because it's not just me,” said Bongiovanni who went to Washington, DC to accept the award from NOAA's top brass. “It's an award on behalf of the whole community, which is very significant.” As a girl, Bongiovanni recalls that her level of involvement with the local environment amounted to “none.” What is now the Parkway Plaza parking lot was “literally my backyard,” and she took little notice of the sediment-clogged Mill Creek and overgrown salt marsh just beyond the pavement. At 18, she enrolled at Boston University as an Italian Studies major, keeping the old neighborhood on her radar. During her freshman year, Bongiovanni said she was “looking for something to do in Chelsea,” and took a community organizing job with the Chelsea Green Space and Recreation Committee. It was then that her environmental epiphany came - and it arrived with a vengeance.

“I saw there were so many environmental justice issues. There are a lot of rich industries that are dumping on Chelsea and that's not fair. That's not justice,” said Bongiovanni who, more than a decade later, is still with Chelsea Green Space - now as the organization's director. Located three miles from Logan International Airport, Chelsea suffers a profusion of environmental insults. The familiar list rolls off Bongiovanni's tongue like water. She notes that tanks containing more than 70 percent of the Boston area's heating oil - as well as all of the jet fuel used at Logan Airport - are sited in Chelsea and neighboring Revere and East Boston. There were four oil spills in Chelsea Creek (the river into which Mill Creek flows on the way to Boston Harbor) between December 2005 and last July, she said the topic of a meeting she's scheduled with oil company officials, the US Coast Guard, and the Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection.

In addition, Bongiovanni said, Chelsea harbors dozens of state-designated hazardous waste sites, as well as a towering pile of cyanide-laced salt used to de-ice the roadways of 250 New England communities. Rounding out the roster of environmental abuses is a foul-smelling animal skin tannery, which the Chelsea Board of Health declared a public nuisance following community activism organized by Chelsea Green Space and others.

“I strongly believe in environmental justice issues. Communities like Chelsea, Roxbury and East Boston shouldn't be bearing the burden for all of these regional benefits, and then also bear the burden of elevated (rates of) cancer, asthma and other illnesses,” she said, referencing a study by two Northeastern University professors that ranked Chelsea among the most environmentally-overburdened Massachusetts communities based on the cumulative impact of polluting land uses and facilities.

Driven by a desire to tip the scales of environmental justice in the favor of Chelsea residents, Bongiovanni has accomplished much in the past decade. Earning two degrees from BU - a bachelor's in Italian Studies with a minor in environmental policy and analysis, and a master's in Public Health, she made her first run for the Chelsea City Council at age 24. Beating an entrenched incumbent by one vote and then losing the recount by the same margin, Bongiovanni said she “felt like Al Gore in Florida.” Undeterred, she ran as a write-in candidate two years later, this time easily unseating another long-time incumbent. Now in her second term, Bongiovanni serves as the city council's vice president and chairperson of the Subcommittee on Public Health and Education.

“She is an incredibly energetic and involved community leader,” said Aaron Toffler, director of the Natural Cities Program at Boston College's Urban Ecology Institute. “Any project that happens in an urban environment needs buy-in from the community, and she is critical in that.”

Toffler worked with Bongiovanni on the Mill Creek Salt Marsh Restoration project, which involved dredging about 1,500 cubic yards of contaminated sediments at the head of Mill Creek, and removing invasive Phragmites (common reed) from the adjoining half acre salt marsh. With conditions to support a salt marsh restored, Chelsea Green Space and other Chelsea Creek Restoration Partnership members planted 7,500 native Spartina grass plants in June. What had been considered “a mosquito pit” by neighbors at Chelsea's Locke Street housing project (one of five public housing developments along Mill Creek), is now a restored salt marsh that prompts calls to Bongiovanni's office from residents who regularly spy great blue herons, egrets, small fish, and crabs. A quarter mile walkway connects residents with the stream and marsh.

A companion project to restore another nearby salt marsh and develop an environmentally-themed park with bird observation decks and interpretive signage will unfold over the next two years, Bongiovanni said. NOAA, which partially funded the initial salt marsh project, plans to remain involved in this second phase, said Eric Hutchins, NOAA's Gulf of Maine habitat restoration coordinator.

“She's stalwart about standing up for her hometown,” said Hutchins, who nominated Bongiovanni for the NOAA award. “Chelsea was one of the more difficult and complex projects I've yet to work on in the Gulf of Maine - and it's one of the smallest projects. Finding a local sponsor with the drive Roseann has is often the limiting factor in habitat restoration projects. When you find a person like Roseann, you stick with her.”

Lisa Capone is a Massachusetts-based freelance writer, specializing in environmental topics.

© 2006 The Gulf of Maine Times