In 1969, Al Smith was a young chemist working in the Great Lakes region when the Cuyahoga River caught fire and became the symbol of a polluted nation.
The event spurred the creation, a year later, of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Smith would spend the next 35 years rising in the agency’s ranks as a regional judicial officer.
“It was just one of those moments in history, everything was coming together – Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring,’ the fire,” the 74-year-old Smith said. “Those were very exciting times.”
When Smith retired last month, he was the only person at the EPA’s Denver office to have been among the agency’s original hires.
“Al’s an icon around here,” said Tina Artemis, Smith’s longtime clerk. “It’s hard to imagine the place without him.”
During Smith’s tenure as regional judicial officer, he oversaw some of the most contentious environmental battles in the West, including the siting of a low-level radioactive-waste dump near Carlsbad, N.M., and the failed proposal to build the Two Forks dam south of Denver.
As an administrative judge, Smith had the job of making sure hearings on even the most controversial proposals proceeded decorously, with all sides getting their say.
“Al’s a real pussycat,” said Tom Speicher, former regional counsel. “But when you get in front of audience, it’s very important that you command respect and control. That was one of the things Al always did very well.”
Smith got his start working for one of the EPA’s predecessors, the federal Water Pollution Control Administration in Ohio. That’s where he got the call about the Cuyahoga River, which had caught fire after a spark ignited its oily waters.
“I remember going down with the Coast Guard to take water samples, not really realizing at the time what a significant event it was,” Smith said.
Inspired by the civil-rights movement, Smith decided to get his law degree, so he attended Cleveland State University at night while working for the EPA.
He arrived in Denver in 1976, a newly minted lawyer, and was quickly promoted to chief of the Water and Hazardous Materials Section. In 1990, Smith became the agency’s first regional judicial officer.
One of the most raucous hearings Smith presided over concerned the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
Smith recalls throwing one environmental activist who was dressed in a burlap bag in jail after he became rowdy during a hearing.
“At the break, a bunch of environmentalists came up to me and said, ‘Judge, he’s really a nice guy, and he wants to come back to the hearing. Can he come back in?”‘ Smith recalled. “I said, ‘OK, he can come back in, but if he acts that way again, I’ll throw him under the jail.”‘
Former colleagues said that outside the courtroom, Smith wasn’t tough at all. In fact, his office was a place where young EPA employees would go for mentoring.
“It really struck me at his retirement party how many young people got up and said, ‘You know, when I first started at EPA, people told me to go talk to Al,”‘ said Bob Ward, regional counsel for the Denver office. “He’s just that kind of sage.”
Now enjoying retirement, Smith said it was easy to leave the EPA knowing that the agency had made a difference over the 35 years that he worked there.
“There’s no way you can say the water isn’t cleaner or the air we breathe isn’t better,” Smith said. “It is.”
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com.
