Erick Shambarger: Making Milwaukee “Water Centric”

Meet Erick. Erick Shambarger is the environmental sustainability director for the City of Milwaukee and leads its Environmental Collaboration Office (ECO). “Being a water-centric city is really central to the identity of Milwaukee,” Erick says. “We are a coastal city. We are a freshwater city. Because of our proximity to Lake Michigan we want to do as much as we can not only to build a global brand for Milwaukee around water, but also to make real improvements to the water quality and to our way of life.”

Erick earned a degree in social philosophy and writing from Marquette University and then a master's degree in public affairs and public policy from UW-Madison with an emphasis on energy policy. After graduation Erick started his career in the city budget office where he helped Mayor Tom Barrett write his original green team report. Then he helped to grow the department he now leads. He describes a lifelong interest in the environment and was inspired by innovative water and green infrastructure practices advanced by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, which has articulated an ambitious goal to capture 740 million gallons of stormwater with green infrastructure by 2035.

While aspirational goals can help motivate change, it takes a lot of detailed work to actually make change happen within institutions. Erick helped adapt city processes to promote green infrastructure across many different city departments.

“Green infrastructure has [now] become a standard practice in city construction projects,” he says with pride. “We have a comprehensive green infrastructure plan that requires green infrastructure on large developments and our streets. We’ve got a great partnership with Milwaukee Public Schools and the Green Schools Consortium of Milwaukee to take out pavement on schoolyards and replace it with green infrastructure. So, a lot that’s going on.”

Anna Ostermeier: Switching From Single-Use Plastic Helps Our Water

Meet Anna. A job in water drew her from Madison to Milwaukee. Anna is an Americorps member serving as the nonprofit Milwaukee Riverkeeper’s sustainability coordinator. In that role she organizes the Plastic Free MKE coalition, where she coordinates volunteers and conducts public education in order to reduce single-use plastic consumption in the Milwaukee area. Single-use plastic includes things like packaging, water bottles, take-out containers—anything designed for us to discard after just one use.

Single-use plastic is wasteful from a resource perspective because we use these products only once yet they may last for a thousand years. The petrochemical industry saturates our society with plastics, converting fossil fuels extracted from the planet’s crust into a sheen of synthetic materials resistant to degradation and reintegration by biochemical processes. That leaves plastic wastes building up everywhere, and our lakes and rivers are reservoirs that collect the pollution with harmful consequences for life and health.

The Plastic Free MKE coalition brings together nonprofits, public entities, and motivated community members to change the norms around single-use plastic.

Learn more at plasticfreemke.org.

Steve Servais: Designing and building with environment in mind

Meet Steve. Steve Servais designs and builds custom homes through his business, Common Advantage. He designs with the environment in mind, considering how a structure relates with energy inputs and outputs—especially free energy from Earth’s Sun. “I do a lot of my own design work,” he says. “I try to build about one custom house per year. But my philosophy with green building is that you definitely want to sail your house and not just hook it up to a more efficient outboard motor.”

In winter 2020-’21, Steve teamed with artist Sarah Gail Luther to explore the Harbor District as part of WaterMarks. He brought his environmental history and design perspectives to bear as a witness to what the pair termed the “heart of Milwaukee’s infrastructure.” “As someone who’s lived in Milwaukee nearly all of my life, I think of the Harbor District as more of an idea than a place—at least I did. It was invisible to me, both in my mental map of the city, but also it’s not a place that I would go, or I think a lot of people go…” Steve says. “But it’s a place that is undergoing a new revolution in terms of bringing people back, bringing institutions back. Such as Komatsu and also the School of Freshwater Sciences. A lot has come from conservation efforts with both the land and the water. I think having a cleaner environment is a huge part of that.”

Karen Dettmer: Her Job Is Delivering Clean Drinking Water

Meet Karen. Karen Dettmer is superintendent of Milwaukee Water Works, the publicly owned utility responsible for delivering clean drinking water to over 860,000 customers in and beyond the City of Milwaukee.

Karen earned her undergraduate degree in architectural engineering and her graduate degree in environmental engineering, both from Milwaukee School of Engineering. A self-described “Jill-of-All-Trades,” Karen learned and worked in multiple facets of engineering and development in both the public and private sector before heading up the Water Works in 2019.

She’s taken a client-focused perspective to her role as a public servant. “As a consultant, you have clients, and you're working for the best interests of your clients…” Karen reflects. “…it’s very, very easy for me to work for the citizens of Milwaukee, see them as my clients, and work hard for those individuals—work hard for those citizens.”

Karen credits the over 300 Milwaukee Water Works employees as the system’s often unsung heroes. “The passion and the pride that I have seen in every level of staff at Milwaukee Water Works is just exceptional,” she says. “The pride that we all have in delivering clean drinking water, the source of life, to 860,000 customers is just apparent in every level of staff.”

Jim Wasley: A passion for designing urban waterscapes

Meet Jim Wasley, a professor of architecture at UW-Milwaukee who describes himself as an ecological designer. He is one of three artists or designers who will engage the public along E. Greenfield Avenue.

For more than a decade, Jim has studied and promoted green stormwater infrastructure across Milwaukee from the UWM main campus to the Harbor District. His urban design work has spanned scales from individual buildings to whole neighborhoods. His current work zooms out even further to the citywide scale, considering post-industrial redevelopment opportunities that integrate water across multiple Great Lakes port cities including Buffalo, Cleveland, and Toronto.

Jim considers cities as tapestries whose design benefits from a balance of elements—including nature-inspired green space and smart water management—at multiple scales.

“It’s more about the city as a whole, and the desire to re-weave ecological processes into the city, to make rivers healthy. The idea of rivers being fishable and swimmable—which was articulated in the 1970s and [is] still a kind of dream we're marching toward and still haven't achieved in cities like Milwaukee...”

Sarah Gail Luther

Meet Sarah, one of the artists who will engage the public along E. Greenfield Avenue for WaterMarks.

A sense of urban exploration and discovery characterizes Sarah's approach to public art projects. Her practice considers the pattern of human movement in our city, drawing our attention to boundaries that divide us and unappreciated spaces whose value can be revealed if we slow down enough to see it. Though she delights in the role of an artist to share such precious moments, she is very conscious of her white privilege in framing those experiences.

"I have this ability to be a part of the city and to go to any neighborhood. What do I do with that ability that helps more people have that sense of empowerment or that sense of ownership over public places and understanding where they live and exploring and observing and being a part of the city--trying to connect with the city that they live in?"

Pancho Casarez: Food, Fellowship, & Fishing from Walker’s Point

Meet Pancho. Musician. Gardener. Gourmand. Husband. Father. Neighbor.

Longtime Walker’s Point resident and anchor to Milwaukee’s Santana tribute band Abraxes, Pancho Casarez has called the neighborhood home since he was a young child, growing up near 3rd and National and now proud owner of his family’s home near 4th and Mineral.

He’s witnessed the neighborhood evolve from the 1960s. Pancho remembers his dad would volunteer Pancho and his siblings to do odd jobs for an older generation of Polish and Serbian neighbors, including “older ladies with bigger houses.” “They always gave us food,” Pancho recalls. “My dad, my family would never ever take any money. They would always pay us with some kind of dish. I learned about soda bread. Cabbage rolls. Corned beef. We didn’t have that kind of food. We were eating basically traditional Mexican food. It was something very new to us. We enjoyed it. The community coming together.”

Pancho has always loved good food—and he is mindful that clean water creates it. During summer, his Facebook profile teems with photos of fresh vegetables plucked from his Walker’s Point yard garden—sumptuous melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, leafy greens, and more. Later in summer, the photos include delicious-looking grilled meats and Mexican dishes garnished, topped, or stuffed with the vegetables. The secret is out about Pancho’s yard garden. Friends, family, and neighbors have descended for “Build Your Own Salsa” parties to share in the bounty.