“Down by the Banks of the River Charles”
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by Richard Maltzman,
Dave Shirley
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Date
I teach graduate level project management at Boston University. During the nicer weather, I like to eat my dinner on the banks of the Charles River. So you can imagine my surprise when I read this op/ed piece from a recent edition of the Boston Globe (10/10/2011) by Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson. I never even thought about the river in a negative way, although I am old enough to remember the 1966 hit by the Standells that had the lines “Down by the banks of the river Charles” and “Well I love that dirty water. Oh, Boston, you're my home.” I guess this is what that song was referring to. According to the Globe piece; “It was unthinkable 20 years ago that the Charles River would ever be clean enough to win the world’s leading environmental prize for river restoration. Back then, human feces lapped at the Museum of Science. It was a river with “belly-up fish and algal blooms making dogs sick,’’ recalled Arleen O’Donnell, former state department of environmental protection acting commissioner.” Further, Jackson states in his piece, “Today, the Charles is one of the nation’s cleanest urban rivers, and recently claimed the International River Foundation’s top award for river management, beating out more than 20 other countries. The award went to the Charles River Watershed Association, which was formed in 1965 to protect the river.”
It is clear what this has to do with sustainability, but what does it have to do with project management? In our book, Green Project Management, we talk about “stakeholder demand” as one of the drivers of the Green Wave, and how project managers should add green (sustainable) project management to their skill sets to take advantage of the Green Wave. This is a prime example of that. “The award provides a great moment to see what can happen when degradation spurs people to action. Former Governor Michael Dukakis remembered last week the collective shrug of the shoulder when Havey Beach in West Roxbury was closed to swimming in the 1950s. “There were no protests, no nothing,’’ Dukakis said. “The city itself was deteriorating. State government was corrupt. It was an angry place. The river was so polluted; it kind of symbolized the time. One by one, people started believing, and we hit that tipping point where people remembered that their grandmothers swam in the Charles and wanted that for themselves again.’’” Stakeholder demand in action.
So what was done to stop the degradation and improve the water quality of the Charles River? Well I’ll tell you. Project management, that’s what happened. ““The state’s environmental secretary at the time, John DeVillars, took reclassification to another level when he became regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. He launched a 10-year mission (project) to make the Charles swimmable by 2005 and began issuing annual report cards on its water quality. “There was something about establishing a goal, timetable, and a measure of accountability that helped turned the tide (our emphasis),’’ DeVillars said.”” Sound familiar? He established a green by definition/green by project impact - project! Yes, there can be some overlap across the green spectrum.
“Towns whose sewage outflows emptied into the river as well as offending corporations were held accountable for violations, most notably the fines levied against Conrail in 1995. Pollution from its Allston rail yard resulted in $2.5 million in criminal penalties, including a record $1.5 million under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. In a move to restore public relations, Conrail also gave $250,000 to CRWA to build a water testing lab. How the CRWA came to be the recipient was a story by itself.”
Project funding, and of course you’d need a budget for this project, can come from unusual places. We know as project managers to be careful of discounting any potential resource. “Bob Zimmerman, executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association says “A snaggle-toothed guy with bad breath came to my office. I listened to him talk about the river for half an hour. I didn’t think anything about it, but then came the Conrail headline and the money for us. It turned out that the snaggle-toothed guy was the fly-fishing writer from Sports Illustrated and he went fly fishing with senior officials of Conrail on the Rappahannock River [in Virginia]. I guess Conrail was trying to figure out what to do and they mentioned this to him and he said, ‘No question you should give the money to these guys.’ ’’”
Again, stakeholder demand asserted itself. ““When we started, the attitude was, ‘So what, even if we fix our pipes, what about the next town?’ Walsh-Rogalski (Bill Walsh-Rogalski, a longtime attorney in the EPA’s New England office) said. “But one by one, people started believing, and we hit that tipping point where people remembered that their grandmothers swam in the Charles and wanted that for themselves again.’’”
We know that a project is not a project without a way to measure its success or failure, and this project is no exception. It needed a metric. “Another visible tipping point of the Charles is the wildlife. The river now hosts otters, beavers, fishers, herons, hawks, herring, and migrating loons. Maury Eldridge, one of the river’s most dedicated kayaking photographers, says it has become more a “national park or wildlife sanctuary than an urban/suburban river.’’”
And as further prove of the effectiveness of project management discipline; “Still, major challenges remain, such as phosphorus runoffs from car exhaust, fertilizers, and animal waste, which can cause toxic algal blooms. But the lessons (learned) of the Charles have inspired and informed river cleanups in the state and throughout the nation. Frymire (recreational kayaker Roger Frymire) is today most frequently at work on the Mystic River, where he says he has seen at least 50 source problems.”
“So long a pauper among rivers, the Charles is now one of the greatest American civic accomplishments of the last 50 years. That in itself is a crowning achievement.” We believe that this is a good example of green (sustainable) project management at work. The effort could not have been accomplished without the acknowledgement of the green wave’s driver of stakeholder demand, and the intersection of the disciplined approach of project management.
Posted
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Dave Shirley
on: October 13, 2011 05:42 PM |
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 | Anonymous |
I have eaten my sandwich by the Charles in both the 60's and the last three years and the difference is wonderful to behold.....and the Boston Strangler and the mob killings also disappeared. It is always pleasant to speak of the good things that happen in our time.
| Anonymous |
One of the key, critical items that too easily could be overlooked in this article was: accountability. Deliverables had to be achieved: or else! People who weren't sure it would pay to participate knew the other stakeholders were serious and would be held accountable. When all is said and done, and all the requirements, plans, processes, standards etc. are in place, the yeast in the bread is the accountability or the project probably will fail to rise to the expectations of its stakeholders.
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