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Ogden Doremus
- David and Olga Chesakov and Patricia
Burke
 Ogden
Doremus
Mettier, Georgia
Georgia Chapter Vice Chair
“Georgia’s coast is the least developed in the nation,”
declares retired state court Judge Ogden Doremus with more than
a touch of pride. Indeed, while it is far from immune to development,
Georgia’s coast is still characterized by long stretches of
tidal marsh rather than hotels and condominiums. Doremus, 83, is
largely to thank.
Doremus co-founded the Izaak Walton League in Georgia in 1950,
was among the first trustees of the Georgia Conservancy in the 1970s,
and co-founded the Georgia Center for Law and the Public Interest
in 1992, where he still serves as director.
In 1970, he helped plan the Georgia Marshlands Protection Act,
which declared Georgia’s coastal salt marshes to be state
property. He organized public support and lobbied a joint House-Senate
committee to support the bill, which passed after what he calls
a “bloody” fight. On his 75th birthday, the Georgia
General Assembly honored the judge with a resolution calling the
Marshlands Protection Act his “crowning glory.”
But the fight is ongoing, he says. “Developers see the Act
as an impediment. The business world considers land something they’re
simply entitled to use.”
Doremus laments that environmentalists have been fighting defensively
of late, but he feels the pendulum will swing back. He cites as
positive signs the recent defeat of water privatization in Georgia
and the election of slow-growth commissioners in suburban Atlanta.
“Ultimately, the environment’s biggest threat is population
growth,” he says. “Look at any statistics you want and
you’ll see that we’re going to have to deal with more
people. If we don’t set up some safeguards, the march of time
and population growth will take an inevitable toll.”
 David
and Olga Chesakov—
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Allegheny Group volunteers
An avid hiker and kayaker in his native Russia, David Chesakov
first learned about the Sierra Club while researching environmental
issues and social initiatives during the perestroika era. “I
saw so much environmental damage in Russia,” says Chesakov,
an engineer. “Northern forests were being cut, waters were
being polluted, 18-wheelers were tearing up the landscape bringing
supplies to oil rigs. It was painful to watch.”
He and Olga met on a backpacking trip in the Caucasus Mountains.
“We were at 12,000 feet,” Olga recalls, “looking
at gorgeous views of snow-covered ranges—and rusty tin cans,
leftovers of previous expeditions. On the way back David and I picked
up full backpacks of metal. Not everybody in our group could understand
what we were doing.”
In 1992, the couple moved to Pittsburgh, where they had relatives.
Upon buying a new home, the first person to knock on their door
was a young Sierra Club volunteer, wanting to talk about clean water
issues. “This was very meaningful to us,” David says.
“To have a live person come to our door to talk about something
important like clean water gave us the spark to join the Sierra
Club.”
Last year he and Olga became two of those live persons knocking
on doors when they participated in several Sierra Club community
walks, talking with neighbors about the importance of keeping the
Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act strong. “There’s an
obvious difference in the way people are responding compared to
last year,” David says. “They’re saying, ‘Yes,
we’re interested in what you’re doing’—maybe
because it’s an election year. Being involved with the Sierra
Club helps us feel that we’ve really become Americans.”
 Patricia
Burke—San Juan, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico volunteer
When the Sierra Club Board of Directors meets in Puerto Rico this
February, Club members there like Patricia Burke hope that their
bid to become the newest chapter will be ratified. A passionate
environmentalist, Burke has been a major force behind the nascent
chapter’s growth. A resident of San Juan, she also teaches
English to German students.
“Patricia’s just amazing,” says Sierra Club staffer
Camilla Feibelman, who has worked with Burke to coordinate chapter
efforts and a partnerships program. “She’s been a major
force in building membership, and it’s incredibly hard to
grow an organization from nothing. She stuck to her vision all the
way.”
“I’ve always been involved in environmental issues,”
Burke admits. “I’ve had the opportunity to live in California
and Germany, and in those places you can really see what’s
possible. It’s not the same for Puerto Rico yet.”
One local issue that’s close to Burke’s heart centers
on the Northeastern Ecological Corridor, which is under threat of
serious development. “It’s a rare and ecologically important
place,” Burke says, “and it would be an irreplaceable,
devastating loss.”
Burke finds ways to bring people together over such causes. She’s
manned booths, mailed letters, gone door-to-door, and most recently
she helped draw the largest crowd ever at one of their monthly Club
meetings.
“Forty people came,” Burke recalls with amazement. “Students,
adults, Boy Scouts. One woman drove three hours one-way!”
Such are the tangible results of Burke’s energy and mission.
“Everyone is an environmentalist at heart,” she says.
“That’s something I first learned from the Sierra Club.”
— profiles by Tom
Valtin and Caroline
Kraus
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