Jacki Zevenbergen interview, 19 May 2022

Abstract

Jacki Zevenbergen currently works in education for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. In this oral history, Jacki discusses working for the National Park Service, American Conservation Experience and her career in water quality.

Interviewee

Zevenbergen, Jacki (interviewee)

Interviewer

Rosser, Arrye (interviewer); Schnack, Erich (participant)

Project

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Date

5-19-2022

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

100 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Jacki Zevenbergen interview, 19 May 2022" (2022). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 343010.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1439

Related Resources

CVNP @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Arrye Rosser [00:00:00] Let me just- I’ll give you a little bit of an overview, Jackie, just so you know where we’re headed. So we’re gonna go. We’ve been following sort of a slightly similar format with a different way. We’re talking about. We’ll talk about your background, sort of, you know, first personal background, a little bit past experiences kind of as your environmental career. Then I’ll talk a little bit about Friends of the Crooked River, and then your, like, your current job, and then some deep reflections at the end, just so you kind of know where we’re headed. So let’s see. This is myself here with Jackie Zevenbergen, Bergen. Oh, my goodness. Jackie Zevenbergen. I’m Arrye Rosser. I’m with the National Park Service doing the interview. Our tech person is Erich Schnack. Our location is Canal Exploration Center, and the date today is May 19, 2022. And we’re recording this oral history. You’re getting the sound and everything? Well, looking good. All right, Jackie. We know each other, but it’s always a wonderful experience to sit down and find out more about somebody that you’ve known quite a while. So let’s start out. Just tell me a little bit about your background.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:01:19] So I grew up in Valley View here, right around the corner from the Canal Exploration Center. My grandparents and actually my great grandparents lived across the street on Canal Road within sight of the Visitor Center on that house up on the hill. And they came here in the early 1900s. My mom grew up in that house over there. And at one time, they actually had a place called. I think it was called the Valley View Inn, and there are pictures. But at some point, it was destroyed. I’m not sure if there was a fire or what happened, but at some point, it disappeared from the landscape. But the original house that they built is still there. When my mom was young, she talks about taking the train to go downtown with her grandmother, and the kids would actually skate on the canal. But by the time I grew up, the canal was just this big, weird indentation in the ground that nobody. You know, people would drive by and go, I wonder how deep that is. Like, they thought it was this huge, huge, deep pit. Growing up in the valley, we were more likely to have flood days than we were to have snow days. So that was often what would happen as Tinker’s Creek would overflow and this area would get flooded here like it still does today. And we rode horses. I lived over on Hathaway Road. That’s actually where I grew up and we. At that time, the park wasn’t here or when it was, it was just in its infancy. And so we rode horses to get to Brecksville Reservation. We would ride down the Towpath or over Terra Vista. So both parts of the park were our access points to Bedford Reservation and all my friends on Tinker’s Creek Road, where most of the horses were and still are today. So that’s my mom’s side and a little bit about me. My dad grew up right off of Tinker’s Creek Road. He was technically in Walton Hills and went to Bedford Schools up on the- Up on the hill across from the Tinker’s Creek Tavern, I think it’s called now. That’s where he grew up. And so, you know, our history is in the valley. My uncle actually owned this building before it went to the park. So this was his. It was not something that was in the family for long. He actually bought it as a rental and was starting to fix it up. I don’t know if he even rented it out before the park came through. So it was. That’s. That wasn’t part of the family stuff, but it was owned by my uncle. And one of the other places we used to ride our horses to was the Rosenlieb Farm, because my one cousin is a Rosenlieb on her mom’s side of the family. So I would ride down the towpath and just up the road a little bit. And if you go over the railroad tracks on the left hand side, that driveway goes up to what used to be the Rosenlieb farm and now is part of the national park.

Arrye Rosser [00:04:34] Wow. I spelled that Rosenliebe because I haven’t heard that name before. Oh, really? But I don’t know this northern section as well. It’s always Rebecca Jones Macko that knows it so well, so I’m less familiar with it.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:04:48] So it’s R, O, S, E, N. I don’t know if it’s L, I, E, B or L, E, I, B. I could look it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:04:58] I was just kind of curious about it. Yeah. That’s so cool. Jackie and I, for whatever reason, I never knew your uncle owned this building.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:05:04] Yeah, it’s actually when we were digging through the records, he actually. So that was in the early days when the guy that was here was the whole generations thing. And he was very pushy and my uncle just wanted to get a good price. He didn’t care. Like I said, it wasn’t a family wasn’t- There was no sentimental value attached to it, but he had bought it, he had traded somebody something and that was worth a certain value. And then he had done some work in it, put some money into it and he didn’t like the price they were offering him. So they actually went to court to get an agreed upon price. And it’s actually in one of these books here because I didn’t even know that. That whole little backstory about the price. 

Arrye Rosser [00:05:53] Yeah. So this would have been the mid to late ’70s, that time frame.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:05:57] Yeah, I think he bought it in the ’60s.

Arrye Rosser [00:06:00] Oh, before the.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:06:01] Yeah, so because he bought it about I think 13 years before the park came in, something like that.

Arrye Rosser [00:06:06] Was he living in the building or was it just a-

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:06:10] So my uncle owned several rental properties himself in Valley View. And my fam, my dad and my uncle and their brothers actually had a little company, I guess you call it a company where they had a business where they owned things together. This is one of the properties that was owned six separately by my uncle. There’s one on Hathaway Road that up until very recently was still in the family. It’s a big huge. The property is fairly large. If you were coming from here, it would be on the right hand side. And it’s a four unit house. You can tell that it’s an apartment, but it’s old. It’s a wooden. It’s very nice, but it’s wooden. Anyway, there’s owned that together and there were several other ones throughout the valley that they owned as a family. But my uncle only owned this one.

Arrye Rosser [00:07:10] What do you remember about this property from that early time period?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:07:15] Not much. I was really little, you gotta remember. So I was born in ’60. So when he would have bought this, I can remember maybe tagging along with my dad when they were working on it or something because I can remember being in it, but only vaguely. And by the time I was even a teenager it was gone. You know, the park had purchased it.

Arrye Rosser [00:07:42] The reason I ask is this. I’ve seen some historic photos from sort of ’60s and ’70s. For whatever reason, this property tended to get photographed. There was all the bubbles in the lock and sometimes the bubbles on the road. Do you have any memory? There was like a detergent thing that would build up and you’d get just this like, you know, it’s like giant bathtub kind of effect.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:08:07] I do remember bubbles in the canal sort of vaguely, but I don’t remember why.

Arrye Rosser [00:08:13] And then sometimes it would slough off into the road. There’s some dramatic photos of the cars can’t pass because there’s too many bubbles. Like I only remember like myself one incident that happened in my time period.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:08:27] Well, keep in mind that up until they changed the rules about phosphates and detergents, everybody down here. The whole reason that the park was able to buy everything on the cheap in the valley was we had no septic. I mean we had no sewers and very few people had any city water. So back then everybody’s septic tanks, if they were washing with a phosphate detergent and every person in the Valley’s septic was then discharging unless it got caught in their leech field would go into. So it doesn’t surprise me that there would be that kind of bubbly stuff. But yeah, so that’s what I remember. I remember it flooded. Everything flooded. My brother, I think one of the times I came down there might have been with my brother because they. I’m pretty sure they had a boiler system in here and my brother was in heating and air conditioning. So I think he- That my uncle might have had him do some work. Pretty sure he had him do some work on the boiler. But yeah, that’s. I don’t really remember a lot about it.

Arrye Rosser [00:09:39] There was, I’ve seen aerial photos from the mid-’70s of a giant tire dump that was just on the other side of Hillside. But I don’t know if anyone, I don’t know why anyone would know about it though. But unless you were just the other side. It’s right along the river. I’ll show you something.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:09:57] Oh, okay.

Arrye Rosser [00:09:58] There was a big, big.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:10:00] I know there was a brick factory down on Stone. Like if you cross where if you were on the towpath and then you turned left on Stone, there was like a brick factory or something back there on the right hand side. Now that’s all closed off, but-

Arrye Rosser [00:10:17] Do you remember, I’m not geek off on this other little tangent, but I’m curious, like do you remember any of the old train stations here?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:10:25] Like no, but I think my brother might have found some historical pictures of them. Like, like we’ve got pictures of what we think we’re not sure we think are my great grandparents. Maybe they’re like engagement party or something because there’s like them and they are, you know, real young and they’re standing on the locks. We assume it might have been this one, it might have been one farther down, but this is close to where they live all in their like Sunday finery type of thing, you know. So we find old pictures but a lot of times we don’t know, you know, who’s in them? Or maybe we recognize the people in them, like one or two people. But it’s typical. Like if your kids saw you and your friends when you were 20, they probably wouldn’t necessarily know, especially if it was your grandkids or something.

Arrye Rosser [00:11:20] Yeah, sure. It gets lost-

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:11:22] It gets lost.

Arrye Rosser [00:11:22] Yeah, it gets lost really quick. The only other more recent oral history I’ve done is one of the Delgado family that lived at Rockside. But they’re like a generation older. But the son, Stephen Moss, works for ODNR. He’s a fish specialist if you ever met him. But he grew up in this area too. But it was his grandparents that lived in there and it was his mom and him that we did the oral history with.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:11:47] Some things got lost too, because my grandfather, my mom’s father, that they were across the street. Initially it was Yingling was their last name. And then my great grandfather died and my great grandmother remarried, and for some reason. It’s just very strange to me that someone would adopt a 13 year old. But they adopted my grandfather and changed his name to Aubrecht. So it’s Aubrecht that we’ve always. It actually was difficult for us to find the correct spelling of Yingling.

Arrye Rosser [00:12:20] Like the beer.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:12:21] Yeah, well, there’s so many different. There’s just with a Y and then there’s with the J. I think it was with the J, but I’m not sure. But yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:12:28] Oh, that’s not that. Thank you for sharing all those things. Do you- before we totally leave that far past, do you have memories of the river in this section?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:12:37] More of the canal and less of the river? Because the- the only time the river was so, it wasn’t a place where people went like it was dirty. It was smelly. It was not- I can remember kids getting, you know, everybody was like, oh, you should not put a canoe on there or something. And sometimes people would. But it wasn’t a place where people hung out. I do remember the part of it that I would see was coming down the canal because as you know, it’s very narrow in through right around this area. So as you’re riding your horse, you have to be careful because there comes a part where one side of it is the river and the other side is the canal. Like you don’t- It’s just the Towpath. There’s not a lot of room. The other thing that was, once in a while I would ride all the way to Brecksville Reservation because that was the path you take to Brecksville. And then you had to go over the towpath where the- trying to think. The Towpath goes over the Tinker’s Creek. Yeah. Tinker’s Creek comes under, goes- How does that work? It goes over the canal, but under the towpath. I think. 

Arrye Rosser [00:13:59] Well, you’ve got the aqueduct. 

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:14:00] It’s weird.

Arrye Rosser [00:14:01] You’ve the aqueduct and it sort of carries on the Towpath over- 

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:14:04] And then you have a little bridge. And that was always scary. I just remember that.

Arrye Rosser [00:14:09] And this was all before the renovation of the Towpath, so.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:14:13] Oh yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:14:14] Surface was like a dirt path.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:14:16] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:14:16] But.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:14:17] And, and I remember at one point because back in the day, steel and wire, they were very dependent on the towpath and the canal. So they maintained it. And I remember at some point they dredged and they would just dump all the stuff right on the Towpath, that stinky muck and it would take a while to actually drain out and it. And I can remember that because my horse would get all filthy, you know, as I go down there. But see, there is no. You had. You couldn’t go down Canal Road. Canal Road was always a busy road, even you know, in the 60s and 70s. So that was the way to go. You know, I actually crossed at Stone and went on the Towpath.

Arrye Rosser [00:15:07] But what was your horse’s name? Jackie?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:15:09] Tabano. Tabano. Skip.

Arrye Rosser [00:15:13] That sounds wonderful. I’ve now got a whole new image of you as I think about that time period on your horse.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:15:19] It was a lot of fun. But yeah, so that’s. And you used to be able to go. You could go up to Schreiber from Hathaway and where my family had that four unit apartment, I could go up behind there. So all those houses on Hathaway, then the backs of those properties go up to Schreiber and so I could go up to Schreiber, cross that and then go across, you know, sort of where Morningside is now. That wasn’t there. That development was not there. So you just go across that. And then they used to call them the sand pits, like Terra Vista. I don’t. You know, some of those things get. You just get the bits and pieces. Like you remember what people called things, but you don’t really know why.

Arrye Rosser [00:16:09] You know, what was Terra Vista like?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:16:14] Well, so that I think is. I think what is now Terra Vista was the sand pits.

Arrye Rosser [00:16:20] Like what they do you remember big giant sandpits.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:16:23] I just remember that it was like barren and not. I don’t remember it being like forested or I seem to remember it being more like shrubby, not very open, you know. But like I said, that was a long time ago.

Arrye Rosser [00:16:43] I’ve seen historic photos like when they were building Pleasant Valley Road or doing. Maybe they were putting the bridges in on Pleasant Valley kind of over the Cuyahoga. Oh, yeah, that was all just like topsoil harvested all through there. It’s just all bare earth. I don’t know if you have any memories of that. [00:17:04] I’m not remembering the time frame, but

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:17:06] we never really went.

Arrye Rosser [00:17:07] Maybe.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:17:07] It’s funny how there’s certain places you go and certain places you don’t go that just. I had no reason to go that way. 

Arrye Rosser [00:17:15] Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. Well, let me, let me sort of back up a little towards your early career. Were there any early experiences that kind of led you later into the direction of environmental career?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:17:28] So when I was in high school, my biology teacher knew that I liked being outdoors. I was in the outdoor club so that just getting outdoors can get you interested in environmental stuff. So he suggested that I applied for the Youth Conservation Corps. So the Youth Conservation Corps at that time was run by the state. It took place in the state parks. You were actually working for state parks. That’s where you’re getting your paychecks from. I think we made like two bucks an hour or something like that. And I went to Wilmington College. They actually had the Youth Conservation Corps, volunteers, employees, whatever you want to call them, they lived in dormitories on colleges and they had four or five different regional places where they had them. So I was in that southwest region. We stayed at Wilmington College and it was- we had the girls down, boys down in the basement. The- all the counselors were in the first floor and then the girls were upstairs in the dormitory. We had one dormitory all to ourselves. And then every day they would take us out in vans and we would go to a variety of different state parks and do like trail work. They didn’t do invasives. I mean, that wasn’t even in people’s thought process. So it was mostly clearing brush, cutting in trails, cleaning up trails, things like that. And I really enjoyed that. That was, I think, a four week program. And then the following year that sort of led me into learning about Student Conservation Association. And back then they had high school work crews. I went to Arches National Park and I was in a backcountry crew with kids from all over the United States. I think there was about eight of us. And Arches was acquiring a lot of property back then, I think from the BLM. And so it was property that had been, ranchers had been using. So as their leases were- were expiring. Then they. I think they were adding it to the park. So what we were doing, they would just leave everything. You know, they. Their lease is up. It goes back to the park. They take their whatever and they go. So there was a lot of barbed wire fence. There was- It was really remote. There was a lot of trash. One time we found this little, like, cabin that was falling down, and it had newspapers from, you know, World War II, you know, news about Hitler and stuff, and little, like, a pair of old shoes. And just really, it was just something that was. At some- at one point, somebody had lived there, but now it was in the middle of nowhere, and it was very much back country. We slept either in tents or sometimes we’d sleep right on the rocks and stuff, because they get warm during the day. It was in the spring. It was in April of my senior year. So it actually was a time of year that in that area, it’s very warm. It can get up to 90 degrees during the day and then just plummet down to, like, 30 at night. It’s just. It’s a timing. It’s so clear that it just- The temperature just leaves, you know, it’s gone. So I did that. I think it was like three and a half weeks we were out there, and we worked for the first, like, two and a half weeks or three weeks. And then we got to spend some time backpacking, you know, just for fun, where the rest of the time we were sherpa packing out all this garbage and barbed wire, and we didn’t interact with the visitors or anything because we were way out in the backcountry, and I really enjoyed that. And then. So that was in ’78. And then I just continued to do. I always liked the outdoors, like camping and doing stuff, but I got on with my life and got a job in a factory and then in an office. So then I did things with Scouts. You know, my son was in Scouts, and I did things with them. Enjoyed doing cleanups and stuff, like the first couple River Day cleanups that they did in Cuyahoga Falls. And I always wanted to get back into conservation work, but. But it wasn’t until I was 40 that I was really in a position to go back to school for biology so that I would have the credentials I needed to actually get that type of job.

Arrye Rosser [00:22:43] So you went right into the workforce out of high school, and so you had this kind of. Yeah, it’s interesting that.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:22:51] Yeah, I didn’t do anything that was like. I didn’t.

Arrye Rosser [00:22:53] Yeah, yeah. It’s funny how life is like that, isn’t it? [laughs]

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:22:57] Yeah. And honestly, when I started in college, I went to Tri-C. I wanted to be a vet tech, I thought- [crosstalk]

Arrye Rosser [00:23:06] I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was a kid.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:23:08] But when I- In the process, they said, well, before you can even apply to be a vet tech in that program at Tri-C, you have to finish your biology. So in the process of doing that, I actually did some job shadowing. And I realized that for the most part, I had wanted, I thought I could be a vet tech for large, like horse, for racehorses. Because that was something I had done as a teenager, also as a job. And so I was like, that’s what I wanted to do. And then I found out that a vet tech really has nothing to do on a racetrack because it’s so regulated that the vet has to do everything. And I found out that a vet tech is mostly like a nurse. And a lot of the jobs that they do, even though they’re very important jobs, were not the kind of things I would like. So I shifted gears and decided that I would focus on zoology. So that was where I put my focus at Akron. But at Akron, the University of Akron, they didn’t, at least at that time. I don’t think they still do. They didn’t have all these different types of degrees. Like you got a biology degree and then you could have a specialization in zoology, but you couldn’t get a zoology degree there. So I specialized in zoology right up until the last semester. And I would have had to stay an extra semester to get that little stamp. And my advisor said, you don’t need the stamp. You just, you know, people look at what classes you took. So that’s what I did. I just went ahead. But towards the end I got more focused on animal behavior, that sort of sub subdivision of zoology. And so in graduate school, I studied spiders. I actually studied web building behavior. But while I was doing that, I was told about an environmental study certificate that I could get. It’s not a degree, it’s not a minor, it’s just a certificate, but it’s more multidisciplinary. So you were. In order to get that, you had to take like some, maybe in, you had your choice, you could take some education classes, you could take some geology classes, different things. So I took environmental rules and regulations and then I took some environmental studies courses that had to do with teaching kids about the environment. And so when I got out of school in 2007, it was the Great Recession and there weren’t a lot of jobs around and I started to track more into education. And then so right after school, 2007, I got a job as a naturalist intern for Columbus Metro Parks. So that was a six month gig. And then I had a little break and I got a job as a seasonal naturalist aide at State Parks. So I was getting tracked more and more into the education part. So after I did that though, I needed a full time job. So I went ahead and I applied for a watershed coordinator position in Washington Soil and Water. That was the end of a- I think it was a four or five year grant. And so I did that for a little while before I moved back here. And so that got me more involved in the watershed world and not just the education world. When I came back here is when I came and I was teaching at Kent State at the Kent State Stark campus and I taught the biology as an adjunct and then I got the job here. So I was doing less and less of that and more and more of this. And then I got my job at the Soil and Water up here in Cuyahoga and now I’m education.

Arrye Rosser [00:27:42] Yeah, yeah. And so let me just get the dates a little bit of when you were doing different things. So you got your master’s degree?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:27:51] I graduated in 2007.

Arrye Rosser [00:27:52] 2007. And then you had the various seasonal jobs and then when did you start working at KSU Stark?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:28:01] 2010.

Arrye Rosser [00:28:02] 2010. And how long were you there for?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:28:05] I was there right up until after I started. So like 2017. I taught in 2017 in the spring. And then after that I stopped teaching.

Arrye Rosser [00:28:16] And what were you teaching there?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:28:17] Biology. So I taught. The classes I taught were human biology, a class they called Life on Planet Earth, which is basically Ecology, Evolution in Society, they just renamed it. And then I taught the biology lab for non- it was for non ma- those were all non major classes. So more general.

Arrye Rosser [00:28:40] We just did an interview with someone who just got her degree there at KSU Stark.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:28:45] Oh, really?

Arrye Rosser [00:28:45] Yeah. Jennifer Daring.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:28:47] Oh, yeah, I know that name.

Arrye Rosser [00:28:48] Yeah, she just got a job. She was with Summit Metro Parks and she just.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:28:54] That’s probably why I know her name.

Arrye Rosser [00:28:56] Yeah, she was doing seasonal work there and then she just got hired by Cleveland Metroparks.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:29:00] Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:29:01] Doing like outreach kinds of stuff. And she also had like a delay. She kind of took time off and was an older student going back. She’s in her mid-30s now, so that was cool. Yeah, that’s wonderful. It’s the same program because she was doing the biological science study.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:29:17] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:29:19] Let me go back to what was. Tell us a little bit about your time when you were a seasonal park ranger. What were the years of that one?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:29:28] So I think I start. So I started here the year after I started at Stark, so I think it was pretty sure it was 2011. And then I left here at the end of the 2016 season. And then at the beginning of 2017, I got my job at Cuyahoga Valley. And I had been- I had worked on that. I can’t even remember what it was called, that project that you guys were working on with Kent and Cleveland.

Arrye Rosser [00:29:59] Jenny- it was like the predecessor of the app. It was the Kent. The KSU app.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:30:04] Yeah, it was an app. Yeah, it was Northeast Ohio park app or something. Yeah, I worked on that the last year that I was here and Jenny had asked me if I would do that, like, as a contract thing. And I thought about it and then I realized for the first time in forever, I am going to have weekends and time off. And you know what? I’m not going to work three jobs. I’m not going to work two jobs. I’m only going to walk one job. I’m finally making money. So I was like, no, I felt bad because I really enjoyed doing that, but I was like, no, I’m not going to do it.

Arrye Rosser [00:30:39] I’m living that now because we’re working on a whole other app and those never synced up. So one day we should go mine all that stuff that you did, it was really cool.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:30:50] It was really cool. It was fun. I did the section from Boston Store, I think, just to Stumpy Basin. I think that’s all the farther I went. It’s amazing, though. One of the things that’s an issue with those apps is how things change in the natural world. So a lot of that was based on years of observation of where things went were like, where the turtles like to hang out, the flat, the soft shell turtles, and where the peregrines like to hang out. And if they stop hanging out there, you know, it’s like I haven’t seen the soft shells in years now, and I paddle that section all the time. So it’s just.

Arrye Rosser [00:31:35] I feel like I’ve seen those soft shells in two places, but not very often. I’m not on the river.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:31:42] Yeah, I used to see them all the time. Like, if you were just as you were getting ready to enter Stumpy Basin, if you looked across the river, there was sort of a sandy area that they like to spread out when you’re

Arrye Rosser [00:31:56] headed south on the towpath as opposed to going down river?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:31:59] Yeah, if you’re going. If you’re south on the towpath and you look to your right, there was a big sand bank there. And they used to be there a lot. Yeah, I’ve seen them in a long time.

Arrye Rosser [00:32:10] I’ve seen them north of Station Road Bridge too.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:32:15] That would make sense. Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:32:17] Where some. I was just looking.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:32:18] They like. They like the sandy areas. They sort of work in groups and they’re very shy.

Arrye Rosser [00:32:30] Tell us a little bit about what your duties were when you were a seasonal park ranger.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:32:34] So a lot of what I did when I was a seasonal was work the Visitor Centers and then I did a lot of roving. It was something I really enjoyed. And setting up a table with the skins and skulls and talking to people about and kids about different things. I did programs, but I think, you know, we did programs were much farther and fewer between as a seasonal than the working the desk and, which I didn’t mind. I liked doing that. I liked meeting a lot of different people. Met a lot of neat people when you work the desk. I was duty stationed several different places. So I started out duty stationed at Hunt Farm, which was really nice because Karen had made that little kids center in there. And so it was a place that really attracted little kids and I enjoyed that a lot. Then I got moved to Boston Store, which was fine, but it wasn’t as cool as Hunt Farm as far as being, you know, it was more of an office, office. And then the last year or so I was here, so I was actually stationed here.

Arrye Rosser [00:33:46] I come out economic visitor. What used to be Visitor Center. Yeah. What do you have a favorite memory of your time as a ranger. Or maybe a favorite activity or something like that?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:34:03] I enjoyed doing- I enjoyed leading hikes a lot. That was fun. Trying to think which would was my favorite. I liked all of them, but probably the ledges. Ledges is a lot of fun.

Arrye Rosser [00:34:20] What did you- that now that you. You’ve got a little bit of distance of that time, like what do you take from that time when you were a ranger? What do you- what is sort of your takeaway or your- 

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:34:32] Well, it’s sort of. I mean, the interpretive training that you get is not what a typical educator will get. So I have some formal education experience through, you know, through the classes I took and through, you know, substitute teaching. That was something I did in between jobs. But, you know, now I have to relate to a general audience. You know, we’re trying to change behaviors, which is very similar to what being an educator in a park is like. So when you’re dealing with school kids, you sort of have to, you know, the teachers want to make sure that it fits in with curriculum and that. But using those skills that you gain to interact with the general public or even children to connect them to what you’re talking about, as opposed to just tell them what they need to know, you know, to find those areas where it’ll have meaning to them. Like, now I manage the school program, so I try and think to myself, okay, why is this relevant? How can we make it relevant? Those are the kinds of things that we learned, you know, in interpretive training. I don’t do as much. I don’t do. Like, usually, occasionally I do, but usually I don’t do hikes and stuff. I do more activities where I’d be out teaching kids to do stream monitoring or that. But still, even some of the things you learned, like not trying to talk and walk all the time, you know, trying to plan ahead, a place you can stop. I just did that the other day. I took some kids out. There was a bunch of us, and they had stations, but I would have to take the kids to my station. And so we talk about the weather or whatever, you know, a little bit about them on the walkout. But I didn’t try and impart information with half the people behind me that can’t hear me. And those are things I learned as an interpreter where I learned to sort of think, okay, where am I going to stop? Face the people so they can hear me and talk to them.

Arrye Rosser [00:36:47] Yeah, well, that’s really nice to hear. Let me backtrack a little bit to kind of your role as a watershed advocate. Tell me a little bit about that first job that you had. Where was that exactly?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:37:02] So I was the Duck Creek watershed coordinator, and Duck Creek flows into the Ohio River directly. It flows through Marietta, which has a lot of rivers that flow through it to the Washington County, I think, has seven different watersheds. So it’s. Yeah, it’s a very large county. So Washington County is [the] county that Marietta is in. It’s very- a lot of ag, other than the, you know, the college town of Marietta. And so I got that job.

Arrye Rosser [00:37:37] What year was that?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:37:38] That was 2009. Because it was after I did the park gig. I really liked working in state parks. That was another job I liked a lot, but I just needed something that was full time, so- But I learned a lot about watersheds. I learned a lot about their ways of dealing with things. In that area are different because of the different problems that they have. So here we try to always sink the water into the ground, in Northeast Ohio, we’re constantly trying to infiltrate water into the ground to manage it, and they’re doing the opposite because they’re dealing with acid mine drainage. So they’re trying to keep the water out of the ground because once it goes below ground, it gets in those subsidences, it picks up heavy metals. So they’re trying to pull it above the ground. So that was like a whole different way of thinking about things. And then also, you know, learning to deal with all the social aspects and cultural aspects, because watershed work is way more of that, than biology. You know, you could know what you need to do, but if it’s not culturally gonna fly it, it’s, it’s very difficult. So that was, that was interesting to do that.

Arrye Rosser [00:39:10] How did people respond to that? Sort of early, like early in your career, but that river advocacy at that time. This has been a little over 10 years.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:39:20] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:39:21] Were people pretty, like receptive to it?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:39:24] Well, it’s a whole different culture down there. That’s Appalachia, Ohio. It’s very rural. It’s very poor. Like, I would go into school to substitute teach in between. Let’s see, was that after or before that was in between when I had the job at state parks and got the job because like, that ended in October. So I substitute taught for a couple months before I started the job in Washington County. And they didn’t have cell service that everybody got free. It was like the, the poverty down there. People don’t realize. They think all the poverty is in the cities, but there’s a lot of poverty in southeast Ohio. So culturally it’s- It’s different and doesn’t- they don’t relate well to it. What they want to hear about is how you’re going to stop things from flooding. Because flooding is a big issue in that area. Because like I said, there’s a lot of water coming down from every place else. And I also did a lot of work with federal and state and local agencies and like the county, like we installed a water gauges that were basically flood, mostly flood gauges. So it was supposed to be about water quality, but it was very hard to get people serious about water quality until those other things were taken care of. And I just wasn’t there long enough to make a huge impact. But yeah, generally speaking, as far as they’re concerned, water quality is a tree hugger activity and it’s not particularly well received compared to up here at the same time, when a lot, you know, a lot of the environmental impact, but also they don’t have the population concentration. So while at the same time they have. They have such different challenges and culturally things are different. And I never. Just about the time I was figuring that out, it was time for me to come back home. So, like, culturally,

Arrye Rosser [00:41:46] how long were you down there?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:41:48] I was only down there for a little over a year. And then that they had a grant, a watershed grant, and it expired and they didn’t renew it, and I was ready to come home. So I came home and got the job at the college. But so just little things, like to them, leaving vegetation grow up along a stream bank is poor stewardship. It’s sloppy, it looks messy. It’s just culturally, it’s the same thing as telling somebody up here to leave dandelion in their garden, I mean, in their lawn. You know, it’s. So you’ve got. You’ve got to figure all that stuff out. And I wasn’t there long enough. Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:42:37] Anyway, how did you get involved and when did you get involved in Friends of the Crooked River?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:42:41] When I came back. Because when I came back, I realized I knew Friends of the Crooked River existed, but I realized just how important it was to have citizen input in on how government agency by themselves can’t do it at all because you have to have that local boots on the ground. And so I made a point of getting involved with Friends of the Crooked River because that was my watershed.

Arrye Rosser [00:43:06] And that would have been like around 2010. Yeah, something around there. Yeah. And. And you’ve been involved in it steadily ever since then, right?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:43:14] Yes, yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:43:15] So what are. How do you. We interviewed Elaine Marsh, too, but. So we get certain amount of stuff out of that interview. But like, there’s quite a few watershed groups, you know, that are serving the Cuyahoga. How do you see, like, the Friends of the Crooked Rivers kind of niche within the sort of.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:43:34] Oh, yeah, we definitely have a niche. That’s different. So most of the watershed groups are similar to what I did in southern Ohio. They are- they start out oftentimes being funded by the state. So, and I think that money filters down from the feds, but it used to be in the Ohio Department of Natural Resources when I was a watershed coordinator. Now it’s the same people, but they’ve moved to Ohio Department of Agriculture. So along with the soil and Water conservation districts, also those watershed leaders have moved. Those watershed groups are very focused on projects and restoration, which is sort of what we found ourselves in. But that’s really not where we- that’s not our place. Our place is an advocacy group. That’s actually, if you would look at our charter, that’s what we. We are chartered for. So we are not a government agency. We’re not affiliated. We’re a grassroots group where those other groups may or may not be affiliated with a government agency. So, like, Rocky River is managed by Cuyahoga Soil and Water employees. They have a citizens group, but that’s where the money filters through and projects are listed and engineers are paid and supervised and all that stuff. The thing that Friends of the Crooked River does is advocacy and education. So they’ve always been really involved in fighting for clean water. If it meant taking people to court, if it meant pushing and fighting, fighting and shoving to get people to pay attention, including government agencies. Anybody that’s worked with us knows that. That is where they are and where they shine, and you need that. And that’s why so many of the- So we’re a part of the club, the central Lake Erie Basin group, and yet we’re so different than the other ones. But like a lot of the new watershed people, they come to Elaine for advice because she’s been doing it for a long time, and they look towards us because a lot of times they’re too looped in. I don’t want to say beholden, because that sounds negative, but, you know, they have to play nice. A lot of times they’re agencies. Sometimes they’re freestanding, like West Creek or Tinker’s Creek. But there’s a lot of donor considerations, political considerations, and we’re not hemmed in by that.

Arrye Rosser [00:46:23] Well, you don’t have staff, too. 

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:46:25] We don’t have any staff.

Arrye Rosser [00:46:27] That you’re trying to fundraise. 

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:46:28] Yes, exactly. We don’t have to do any of that. So we’re a very, very different watershed group than the other ones, and we represent the entire river. Now, I will say Cuyahoga River Restoration really focused more on the Cleveland area of the river. And we- Just- Because of where we were located. You know, the main players were located in the Bath, Cuyahoga Falls, that- that area. Yeah, we have paid a lot more attention to that area and not really focused a lot, although there have been times when we, you know, if there’s a big issue like harmful algal blooms or dredging in the shipping channel, open lake dumping, we get involved in those things and write letters. Akron recently had some things that they were doing that you know, we gave some advice on how we felt about it based on. Because sometimes, sometimes politicians, that’s not their job, you know, and they come and they go. So a community might spend a whole ton of money to fix one problem so that they’re in compliance with the Clean Water Act, and then turn around and be thinking about doing something because there’s political pressure or economic pressure, thinking about doing something else without realizing that’s going to undo all the good things that they just paid a whole ton of money for. And so that’s a good point, place where we can go in and say, hey, did you guys realize that this might not be a good idea? You know, so we can support others if we think that they’re- they’re going about something that’s going to benefit the Cuyahoga River. So that’s sort of where we look at things, and that’s sort of why doing a project which takes a lot of time, especially when you don’t have staff. I don’t think we’ll ever do that again. But don’t quote me on that one. But it’s just. It’s. Yeah, it’s. You need. If you have staff, because then we can’t do this. We don’t have as much time to do the things that we want to do.

Arrye Rosser [00:48:53] Yeah, sure.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:48:53] Which is advocacy.

Arrye Rosser [00:48:55] Yeah. What are some of the activities that you’ve kind of personally done within Friends of the Crooked River? I’m just curious about the nature of some of the-

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:49:02] So, like, going to. Well, River Day was a big part, and now we’re taking that back. So this year it’s going to be real low key because we got. We didn’t know right. Really early that we don’t have the website all figured out and everything. Once again, we have no staff, so we’ll be taking back River Day. We got involved with just giving our opinion on different development of golf courses. We’ll get involved if somebody asks us to give input on things like sewering or developing an area, gas and oil drilling, if they ask. I mean, like I said, right now we don’t have. We just don’t have the capacity right now to take on all the issues that people will come to us and ask us to support. But we try. We did get quite involved with the open lake dumping, giving our opinions on that and just the harmful algal blooms. We’ve talked about that. Basically, it’s just general things that at this point that impact the river. But it can be anything that we think, you know, if we think it’d have a negative or positive impact. Then we put- We actually- Elaine, actually, as a leader, the conservation chair at the time of Friends of the Crooked River was the one that was instrumental in, you know, all the amicus briefs and stuff to get, you know, the Akron sewage issues, you know, like, hey, this can’t happen. You can’t keep saying, well, we can’t fix it. We don’t have the money.

Arrye Rosser [00:51:07] Shoot. The Friends of the Crooked River was a party to the lawsuits. 

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:51:12] That’s why we got the set money for the dam removal that was awarded to us. Well, not awarded to us, because that sounds like they gave it to us. They basically said, oh, well, we’re giving you this stuff, and you need to make sure that this happens. But they. Yeah. So we didn’t always have the lovely relationship that we have now with the Akron sewage people, but, yeah, for a long time, Friends of the Crooked River was really fighting to get the CSOs under control.

Arrye Rosser [00:51:47] Yeah. Yeah. Well, sometimes.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:51:49] And then we step into. Like, when the judge was like, we need zero discharge. We were like, well, that’s- that’s not really gonna happen. So it’s not always- I mean, we try to- We also try to temper things. If people are. Whether it be a legislator or a judge or a grassroots group that isn’t, doesn’t maybe know how things work and what really needs to be done as opposed to what they think needs to be done, then we’ll get involved and talk to them and try and educate them. We used to do- before the Brexit, we used to do a lot of, like, going to do tabling and stuff to teach people about the river. We also do outings, so that got sidelined by COVID, like everything else. But that’s a big part of what we do to get people out on the Cuyahoga River. We’ve done politician, public official is a better word for it. Tours of the river and of, like, above the Gorge Dam and the dam pool. We partner with people to get boats and get people out there and show them why this is important. And a lot of that stuff got sidelined during COVID. We just had a paddle that we did last Saturday where we had Dan Best, who is a retired naturalist from Geauga Parks that does the boxes for the prothonotary warblers. He actually- We paddled, and then we met him, and he paddled us down a little ways and. And back up over in that Eldon Russell area, and we did some birding and that. So we try and do education on the water, but in a very low key, you know, people have to have their own boats most of the time. And flatwater paddling. No, just for educational purposes.

Arrye Rosser [00:54:08] Yeah, yeah. For people that haven’t met Elaine Marsh, how would you describe her?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:54:14] She’s a little dynamo. She’s very passionate about the river. She’s worked really hard to make sure that she’s well versed on the issues that she’s going to talk about. Always making sure she does her research. The Gorge Dam has been. That’s been a big part of Friends of the Crooked River. And now that’s sort of off of our shoulders because people that have the power to make it happen, I said, oh yeah, we want that to happen. So now we just get to be cheerleaders. But for many years, that was a lot of work on the part of Friends of the Gorge and Friends of the Crooked River to try and convey, convince the landowners that that was something it. That had to happen. 

Arrye Rosser [00:55:09] So, yeah, I’ve noticed that in the history of environmental things around here, you know, the point at which like a government agency just starts to kind of own the problem and then that push that the advocates have had now becomes kind of the people like myself or whatever, that suddenly somebody’s job is to go do that thing and then it changes all those relationships. It’s just an interesting thing. How has, like, Elaine influenced you? Do you guys work together quite a lot over the years? 

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:55:39] Yeah, yeah. So well, just getting to know a lot of people. I know the biology, but she knows all the dynamics around the things that go on. So it’s been good to see that and it’s been a good example. So I enjoy that she. That I’ve been able to work with her for these last, what’s been like 12 years now. We’ve worked together a lot on things like the River Day because in the beginning we worked really closely on that. And you know, I’ve made. I met a lot of people and we’ve been a lot of places and.

Arrye Rosser [00:56:24] Yeah. Tell us a bit about your current job. Like what’s your job title now? Where do you work? How did you get started?

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:56:32] So I’m currently the Stormwater Education Program manager. So at Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District, that’s every county in Ohio has a Soil and Water Conservation District. It’s not like that in every state. Every state has at least one. But in our state, we’re very agricultural. And so very early on they wrote into Ohio revised code that every county could have one, and we’re a division of the state, just like the metroparks are a division of the state. The only difference is, like I said, there’s one in every county. So quite often, just like ours, we tend to work with the county as far as benefits and payroll and stuff like that. But we have an independent Board of Supervisors, and they are guided by the Ohio Revised Code and by the Ohio Department of Agriculture. So we have program specialists from Ohio Department of Agriculture that help train our supervisors, provide training for all the soil and waters in Ohio. So we have a really tight relationship with the state. And then we also have, in most counties, a relationship with the Natural Resource Conservation Service, which is the federal agency for soil and water. It actually was called Soil Conservation Service when it was established. Cuyahoga Soil and Water was established in 1949. And-

Arrye Rosser [00:58:12] It’s a little later than I thought. I was sort of thinking they kind of came out of the Dust Bowl.

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:58:18] They did. They did.

Arrye Rosser [00:58:19] So but maybe that’s when the bureaucracy kind of- [crosstalk]

Jacki Zevenbergen [00:58:23] Yeah, that’s when FDR said, we need to have somebody to help the farmers. And so he established the Soil Conservation Service, which was a federal agency. The problem with that is farmers are generally not wanting to listen to the feds, if they’re even going to let them on their property. So they realized that they had to have boots on the ground that were actual people. And out of that, well, not that the other people weren’t people, but actual local people. And out of that came this concept of you would have a board of supervisors, and if they needed staff, they would hire them. In most rural areas, the Board of Supervisors is actual farmers in the community. Now, Cuyahoga Soil and Water is different in that all the farms practically are gone. Mostly what we have left in Cuyahoga County is horse farms. The farms like Foote’s and Walcher’s, and all those that used to be here, they’re gone. And so we focus on managing stormwater because that’s what causes the majority of problems in a developed area. That’s where all the pollutants are picked up, is the movement of stormwater over land. So we do education for 52, I think we’re up to now, communities out of the 58 in the county where we assist them with the minimum control measures one and two. So those control measures are public education and public involvement. And so we offer our services to educate their residents and students about stormwater, stormwater management. The agency itself, we have not that many, not quite that many, probably about half that. We have contracts or agreements with them to, for a fee, provide them with stormwater inspections on construction sites. It’s something that they have to do. They can pay us, they can pay. They can hire somebody to do it. So the public education, public involvement is very popular because we can do it at a really reduced price. Because when we- we’re just pumping out education materials for the whole county, if we’re doing a flyer, it’s for the whole. We get a huge, you know how printing is, you know, the bigger you can make it, the better. We also are involved with a group, Northeast Ohio Public Involvement Public Education Group. So it’s other counties, agencies that also are doing that type of work. So like we might make native plant calendar. And that will help meet the requirements of their MS.4 permits for the communities, which is their Ohio EPA permit. And we’ll get them for like a buck where they might have had to pay three bucks because they would have only had a handful. And we’re given, you know, we’re getting this huge discount because we’re working with 17 different agencies. So that’s what we do. We do a lot of education. Now my focus in particular, in addition to the we break up the communities between different staff. So I have my community assignments. But then my other main job anymore is managing the school programs. So right now I’m working. We got a grant from NOAA and I’m working with teachers in the first ring school districts. Are you familiar with that? That’s the school districts that touch Cleveland and Cleveland. So Bedford, Maple Heights, all, you know, Warrensville Heights, Shaker Heights, Fairview Park, Brooklyn, all those schools that sort of ring Cleveland. And we wrote a grant. So a lot of times, a lot of what I do is write grants so that we have money to implement. We can always do it without the money, but we could do it better if we have money. So that instead of going to school and saying, hey, do you want to plant some trees but you gotta buy them, we can say, oh, we got a grant for 20 trees if you want to plant some trees with your kids. So my job is to manage our interactions with the school districts.

Arrye Rosser [01:03:26] So what kind of projects, like in terms of- 

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:03:30] Schools or in general?

Arrye Rosser [01:03:31] Just n general, like, what are some of the activities that you do?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:03:34] So we have about eight general categories of things that we know will meet the purpose requirements for public involvement. And so that is things like, let me think how they go. There’s like eight. So stream, storm drain stenciling or art is one of them. Because it teaches people about. And it’s actually considered involvement because you got something out there and you teach people about why they shouldn’t dump things down the drain. We do tree planting. We do several different types of native plantings. We can do pollinator gardens, rain gardens, or just straight native gardens. And those help absorb stormwater, and we teach people about why those are important. Same thing with trees, because it actually is absorbing the stormwater. We do green yards and healthy homes. That’s a workshop where we make green cleaning project products. What else do we do? There’s. Oh, water tank.

Arrye Rosser [01:04:43] Do you do de-paving stuff?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:04:45] We can. The problem is we don’t generally do that because a lot of the funding has gone away. We could do that. We’re talking about it with a couple people, but usually that takes somebody getting a really big grant, so we don’t do as much of that as we would like. That is on the list of things that would be considered watershed friendly. Oh, we do rain barrels. We have a big rain garden program. It’s called Master Rain Gardeners. So you know how they have Master Gardeners. This is where they can actually get a certification. And there’s two kinds. There’s the kind of certification that’s for the general public, and then there’s the kind that’s for landscapers so they can get a professional certification that they actually know the proper way to install a rain guard.

Arrye Rosser [01:05:35] Yeah, that’s really cool. When did you start in your current job?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:05:40] 2017.

Arrye Rosser [01:05:44] And what are some of the. So more recently, just describe a little bit about your relationship with the area of concern and kind of how that’s unfolded.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:05:54] Yeah. So when Cuyahoga River Restoration decided- decided that they- well, when Jane decided to retire, we applied to be the facilitator for that group. I had been in the group. It was really funny because whole bunch of us had been in the group in different roles, and then we all came to work at Soil and Water sort of at the same time. And so all of a sudden-

Arrye Rosser [01:06:26] You didn’t work for Cuyahoga River Restoration, did you?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:06:30] No, I was. I represented Friends of the Crooked River. But it was always iffy because they would be like, you represent yourself, and then they’d be like, you represent the people you’re here for. It was very- was very gray. So anyway, I was in as a public. A member of the public representing Friends of the Crooked River. Or maybe they considered that a watershed group, I’m not sure.

Arrye Rosser [01:06:54] You were on the advisory committee for Friends of the Crooked River, as a member of the one of the public.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:07:00] Yeah, I don’t know if they called it a watershed group or. Yeah, whatever. And it was very good.

Arrye Rosser [01:07:05] They have some public slots.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:07:06] Yeah, yeah. So I was doing it for Friends of the Crooked River. Ellen Brown was doing it as a private person. Elizabeth was doing it for Euclid. Before her, it was. Claire was doing it for the Euclid Creek Watershed Group. And Jan was one of the original people involved with the Remedial Action Plan. 

Arrye Rosser [01:07:33] For RAP, yeah I remember.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:07:33] The original thing. And so she was on it. Yeah, for Cuyahoga Soil and Water. So all of a sudden we had all these people. I think we had four or five people that all were now working for Cuyahoga Soil and Water. So they were like, we can’t have this many people for Soil and Water. But then we became the facilitators, which further muddied the waters. So we had to like, Elizabeth had to give up her position. And by then I already was not on the advisory committee. But yeah, so that’s how we came to do that. We actually applied and said we wanted to do it.

Arrye Rosser [01:08:16] What year was that transition was that? 2000.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:08:21] I want to say it was an 18. Well, where are we now? It was an 18 month gig and it ended this March. Oh, so it’s very recent. I think it was 2020. Cause it was that, right?

Arrye Rosser [01:08:36] Are you done with it or are they extending?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:08:39] It’s- it’s a- we have to write a new. A new agreement or whatever.

Arrye Rosser [01:08:46] Yeah, I know it feels like all this these days.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:08:48] I know, yeah, 2019.

Arrye Rosser [01:08:51] Because Jane retired after, I think it was 2020. That sounds about right.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:08:57] But the other thing was like everything else, it wasn’t finalized, like, so like they said, oh, Jane’s retiring. I think it was September 2020.

Arrye Rosser [01:09:06] It went on and on.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:09:08] But we didn’t get our contract until way after that. But then they retroactive it, so it still expired in March and by the time we got all the records and everything, it was crazy. But anyway, so that’s what, what, what our role is in the AOC is we are the facilitator for the AOC and it’s a really good match with us. The thing is, is that Covid impacted that like it impacted everything else. Normally we interact with all those communities. We are at their community festivals for pipe[?] and we, we have a table. So we’re not fundraising. We’re, you know, we’re an agency. We don’t need to do that when we go any place. So we were gonna take the AOC materials everywhere we went. But because of COVID there was hardly any festivals, hardly any, you know, so we look forward to that ramping back up.

Arrye Rosser [01:10:08] Yeah, sure. What were some of the. So what’s for somebody that doesn’t know about this? What’s your role in getting the Cuyahoga River delisted? Like as the area of concern?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:10:21] Oh, you mean the area of concern itself or Cuyahoga Soil and Water.

Arrye Rosser [01:10:25] What is the Cuyahoga’s Soil and Water’s role in the AOC that’s working on getting the delisting? Does that make sense?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:10:35] Yeah. So as facilitator, it’s our role to set the meetings to sort of be this, the, what would you call it, administrator. Yeah, we’re the staff. We’re the paid staff that like, we take the minutes for them and we do the, you know, keep the website up and running. We keep the. But we did hire in the first grant period, we had sub grantees, so they also had roles and we just oversaw them doing what their role was. But basically there’s a list of things like the EPA gives you a list of deliverables. They want X amount of posts on the Facebook. Obviously you have to keep the Facebook running. You have to keep, keep the website running. You have to make sure bills get paid. There is no. The AOC does not have a treasury. So the budget is through that grant and some of that money is allotted for things like printing or-

Arrye Rosser [01:11:48] you’re like the fiduciary partner or whatever.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:11:50] Yeah, we’re the fiduciary for the funds. And that’s all set up ahead of time. You know, the budget is set up ahead of time. You’re going to get this much for printing, doing an annual report or making sure that gets contracted out and done. So a lot of it’s just a matter of typical facilitation.

Arrye Rosser [01:12:09] Yeah, sure. And what are some of the challenges that you faced in just in this job working as a stormwater educator? What are some of the-

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:12:22] The biggest challenge has been Covid because it’s made it very difficult to do public education and involvement. We have done some virtual stuff. It’s- it can be very effective in some ways. But for what we’re doing, we are very much a hands on agency. So getting out there and meeting people and having that face to face conversation about stormwater, hands on things that they can touch and feel, feel a part of. You know, you plant a tree. I have one little boy that we did a tree planting. I think it was in 2000. Might have been my first year. It was either 2017 or ’18. I think it was 17. And we planted some trees in a traffic triangle. So it’s a very busy area. And he goes by this a lot. So he was, you know, he was pretty little. I think maybe he was maybe eight when we did that. And every time, his mom told me, every time he goes past there, he’s like, that’s the tree that I planted. And that’s what we want, you know, we want that connection. And you don’t get that by doing a virtual. I mean, maybe you could, but it’s just not the same as I dug that hole and I put that tree in there or I planted that garden, you know, that you see that’s all grown now. Like we do. So we like to do a lot of hands on stuff. And that’s been really challenging. It’s also challenging to communicate with people in this disconnected world where, you know, it used to be people were mostly in their offices and you ring them up and they’d answer the phone. And now it’s, you know, one of the things I find is more and more people don’t put their phone numbers on anything because they just want you to email them. But a lot of times they don’t see your email because they get so many emails now. And so that’s. Those are the challenges, I think more related to the pandemic and just the stressors. The kids were out of school for a long time, but that can also be an opportunity because one of the things that happened during COVID is people had to rethink education a little bit and what was important and you know, is it always this particular lesson or is there other ways? They had to start thinking about alternate ways to teach things and do things. And so maybe they’re in some cases a little more open to hands on learning, place based learning, relevance, you know, to the local relevance to what they’re teaching their kids. Because it was hard to gauge kids. At the same time, there’s a lot of burnout in the education world and there’s been a lot of disruption. You, you’ve got kids that haven’t had a normal school year. For some of the little ones, they haven’t had it since they’ve been in school. The older ones, it might be, you know, you figure you got about three years of middle school, you got four years of high school.

Arrye Rosser [01:15:48] Yeah, it’s their living memory, really.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:15:51] Yeah. So that’s been challenging, but it’s also opened up some opportunities and it’s got people outdoors.

Arrye Rosser [01:16:00] Yeah. I wonder, what are some of the successes that you’ve had in your job?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:16:06] Oh, there’s so many. You know, it’s always so great to take the kids and get them outside. I always feel good when you get out there and the kids are having fun and they’re learning one or two things I’m not a big stickler for- You know, this is what we had on our thing for you to learn, and you have to learn every bit of it. That’s the fun of being an informal educator. You want to be accountable, but your goals are a little bit different. You want to get students and adults engaged, not necessarily that they have to pass a test at the end. So that’s one of the things that I find the most rewarding is when kids or adults come back, you know, because they’re like, this is cool. This is fun. Like, they’re having fun. So yesterday we. No, two days ago, we went to Big Creek, and we work a lot with partners. So for the Big Creek, it was not our event. It was Big Creek Connects led the event and invited us to help with the station. It was us, the sewer district, natural history museum, the Metroparks, of course, Big Creek Connects and GM who funded it. We had about 65 students out to Big Creek this week, and we had an equal number, if not more, a week before that from Maple Heights. So these kids are from an urban area. They don’t get to go outside that much. And they were. It was wonderful. They had a good time. They learned a few things about streams. And I just love doing stuff like that. The day before that, we had a field day where we took kids from a school in Cleveland. Elementary kids, all different ages, they walked over because their school is next to a church. The church has a bioretention cell pond. And I don’t want to call it a pond. That’s not right. A bioretention area. And they wanted it to look nice. And they got a grant from the Monarch Group from Fish and Wildlife. And so they bought pollinator plants to plant in this cell. So the roof drains into this cell, has special soils in it. And the kids planted, with our help, all these plants, filled this cell up with appropriate plants. So it will perform as a stormwater control measure because it’s going to absorb. It’s shaped and properly has the proper soils in it that it’s going to absorb some water, but it’s also going to have these beautiful pollinator plants. So I love that we’re doing both education and actual things that make a difference.

Arrye Rosser [01:19:07] Yeah, yeah. I wondered what you thought were some of like when you think about your own work, but you’re working so much in partnerships too. Where do you think we’re getting the most traction as kind of as a watershed advocate? And where do you see the biggest areas of change? Because you’ve been at it now for quite a while.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:19:27] Do you mean as far as like education goes?

Arrye Rosser [01:19:30] Either one, either remediation or education?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:19:34] Well, I think in the remediation world it’s dam removals. I mean we just see that you remove a dam and it gives you so much more bang for your buck than just about anything else you do. The fish and bugs come back almost immediately. Water quality just goes right up because you free that river and it just, it may. That’s where it is. That’s going to be biggest thing. Our biggest challenge is managing stormwater because what happens is when we control combined sewer overflows, which isn’t our area but is an area that’s really important that the sewer districts, they’re taking care of that eliminates that source of bacteria and that source of pollution. We already managed with the point source permits, we managed that source, but we’re still seeing, seeing- We’re still seeing pollution entering our waterways. And it’s because you’ve got this. Too much water is flowing over the land and picking that up and not getting absorbed in. So in my mind a lot of that is there’s no choice, but it’s got to be education because it’s just one of those things that you can’t regulate. You can, to some extent with bioretention, but it’s even more than that. Once we get all that regulated, we’re still going to see stuff going in unless we can change people’s perceptions and attitudes and behaviors. And that’s why getting people involved, especially children, because their minds are still open to, you know, new possibilities. That’s why I think stormwater is a non point source is the next big challenge, but also opportunity.

Arrye Rosser [01:21:34] Yeah, definitely. Are there other, any other women that you want to give a shout out to or just. We’re talking about kind of women in leadership, community leadership roles. Are there any other women that you just wanted to sort of, kind of point out as sort of champions and who they were, you know, where they work or who they work associated with?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:22:00] I think there’s a lot of people that have done a lot over the years. Trying to think the people I partner with. Well they’re- All the water- A lot of the watershed groups have women watershed coordinators that are doing, you know, just awesome good work. You know, Kay Chappell over in Tinker’s Creek. 

Arrye Rosser [01:22:24] She just left.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:22:25] She’s coming to us.

Arrye Rosser [01:22:26] I know everyone’s going to your organization. I heard it already.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:22:30] I know everybody’s heard it, but it’s not- I- I don’t know who knows if it’s official, official. So, you know, that’s- That’s a really important thing. Claire Posius, who worked with Euclid Creek for a real long time, now she works at the Sewer District. You know, she made great strides in watershed health while she was there, obviously. Elaine, trying to think who else is doing a lot of projects? A lot of it is men. I’m trying to think of who else I know.

Arrye Rosser [01:23:08] I always think of- I mean, there’s Jen Glaiser and Jade.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:23:14] Jade. She did a lot of good stuff. I mean, that de-pave program and the relief program. Now we’ve got the relief program now under our umbrella.

Arrye Rosser [01:23:29] There’s kind of the water for woods. I think there’s so many really nice materials that got created that the water for woods.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:23:38] Jan Rybka did an enormous amount, you know, like. And she had her fingers in so many different things as the director of Soil and Water, that a lot of it sort of gets lost, that she was the overarching person that was, you know, juggling all those balls and making sure staff was there to get it done. So she wasn’t always the face of all these different things, and yet she was the person behind the scenes that was making sure a whole lot of stuff got done.

Arrye Rosser [01:24:10] How long was Jan in that role?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:24:14] I don’t know, honestly, because I always have trouble. I always have trouble remembering where the RAP ended and where her role in Soil and Water started. I can’t remember because they were so intertwined. So. But, you know, she was there.

Arrye Rosser [01:24:34] And the RAP, for the tape is the Remedial Action Plan, which is the game plan for cleaning up the Cuyahoga.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:24:41] Yeah. And that came before the AOC sort of morphed into that. But, yeah, I mean, Jan was a major player in the watershed world. There’s also people that I don’t know really well, but I know Erin Huber with the Drink Local. Drink tap. She hasn’t been locally really. Well, she is locally involved in education, but she also has a worldwide impact that she has Mandy Rosano. I mean, she’s out there in the field behind the scenes, taking Water samples all over the place. And Rosano working for. She works for EPA. Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [01:25:33] Ohio EPA. Yeah. I always think there’s quite a lot of women actually, that are doing this kind of work. There is. Because there’s a lot of women with the sewer district as well, that. Well, both some of the folks down in Akron and certainly in the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:25:54] I think what happens is sometimes you end up working with one person a lot. Like, I worked with Pat Gsellman because he was on the AOC in that. But I know that there’s a- Like, her name is Jessica. It starts with a G. It’s like Glakowski? She is very important in managing, like, Lake Rockwell and the- [01:26:18] the water, drinking water treatment and so. But I don’t work with her that much just because our cross- our paths don’t intersect that much.

Arrye Rosser [01:26:30] That’s interesting, huh?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:26:32] Yeah, I know.

Arrye Rosser [01:26:33] I also found, like, I don’t know a whole lot about the whole Lake Rockwell and the- it’s ’cause, what am I? I don’t have anything to do with drinking water, so.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:26:40] And there’s probably a lot of women that are involved in the downtown area. But like I said, you know, I lived in the more, the middle section, so we had a lot more interactions and at work. It just so happens that my corner of the community world is in that southeast section, so the Bedford area, the Solon area. So I don’t interact a lot with the people in Bay Village or the people in Rocky River. And I’m sure there’s a lot of great women that are involved in those areas, too.

Arrye Rosser [01:27:14] That’s interesting. Well, let me ask you some just general questions. So what are some of your favorite experiences on the Cuyahoga? Just sort of some of your happy memories.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:27:26] It’s always, you know, like I said, when I was a kid, people didn’t paddle on that river unless you went up to Camp High. But that’s my, you know, that’s been my life for the last, I don’t know, 12 years or so. A lot of time. I spend a lot of time on the river. So I paddle from usually March all the way through the end of the year. Every week, pretty much every week. Sometimes a couple times a week. So that’s where I spend a lot of my time, whether it’s on the flat water with Friends of the Crooked River or whether it’s with the keel haulers. I really enjoy being down there on the river paddling. So that’s really my favorite thing to do in the Cuyahoga Valley and associated with the river?

Arrye Rosser [01:28:23] Yeah. What are some of the big. What surprised you the most about just the changes in the river, you know, that have happened over your lifetime?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:28:33] I think- well, I mean, it’s amazing. I was nine years old the last time that the river. Well, it’s not really the last time anymore, but when the. Made the fire that started, everything happened. And it just, you know, people take water quality more seriously. I think they were very fatalistic back in the ’60s. They were like, that’s just the way it is. It’s dirty. Stay away from it. Now people demand more of their waterways in terms of them being clean, something that they can boat on, and they’re willing to make changes in many cases to make that happen. So I think that’s really rewarding that we have that. That people care about the river being clean, because there was a time when they were like, well, if something’s dirty, just stay away from it. And that’s the biggest change I’ve seen is people. People’s expectations.

Arrye Rosser [01:29:42] Yeah, that’s a really fascinating point, actually. I appreciate you kind of articulating that, because it’s like people have hope about it. It’s like, I try. I do training on the rivers, history of the restoration for new staff, and I try to really impress upon people that we’ve exceeded, like, anyone’s expectations. And so it’s really so moving, really. I think people see how hard it has been and how much change, and it makes people proud. Should be proud. Yeah. What are some of the- what do you feel like you’re most passionate about in this kind of environmental world?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:30:23] Well, I think it’s definitely water quality. I mean, that’s sort of where I’ve gone. I’ve never been a- and I know air quality is equally important, but I’ve just never been. It’s not my thing. It’s all about the water quality.

Arrye Rosser [01:30:40] What do you think inspires you the most? Like, what keeps you going?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:30:45] Just the fact that we’ve come so far. I think it’s easier to stay hopeful when you see what can happen, because, you know, I’ve had this whole history of seeing that people can make a difference, that you can push government agencies to do the right thing, that government agencies can help people do the right thing. You know, that makes me hopeful. And the kids. The kids are amazing. You know, they’ve been through so much these last couple years, and yet you take them out or you tell them about, you know, planting a garden or planting a tree, and they still laugh and smile and, I mean, that, you know what I mean? That’s a lot. They still have that hopefulness, so that’s what really keeps me going.

Arrye Rosser [01:31:39] What do you, at a personal level, what about the Cuyahoga Valley sort of stays with you the most? You know, you’re obviously from here, kind of. What is your sort of sense of the Valley or what it means to you?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:31:56] Well, I think it’s, it’s sort of a unique area. It’s got a lot of culture. And it’s nice to see that culture stay. It can be difficult. It’s- we, we don’t always all agree on everything and there has to be a lot of, you know, I totally, I’m on both sides of the fence. I love the park. I love paddling in the park. Except for your crappy takeouts and put ins.

Arrye Rosser [01:32:26] But it’ll get fixed eventually.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:32:30] I’ll be gone by the time they get fixed, but by then I’ll have broken my neck on the Boston one. Anyway. They, I, I love having the area preserved. I think sometimes it’s hard because there’s still a lot of people here that want to keep their culture. And sometimes when you have all these parks, it’s it, you know, you’ve got this series of park systems and they purchased the land which kept it from being developed, which kept the culture. But at the same time, having so much government control of the land can be very frustrating for the different residents, especially long term residents. So while it’s preserved things for them, sometimes it shoves them out of the way a little bit. So that’s always the dichotomy. And I think people on an individual level feel that dichotomy. We all, if you grew up in this area, you have family that got pushed out or pushed around or whatever, or you’ve dealt with it yourself when you want to get something done and the parks aren’t cooperating. And you know, and yet at the same time, I think most people do appreciate being able to go for a walk on the towpath or being able to hike in the areas that they hiked when they were younger. So it’s this dichotomy that we all deal with in this. You know, we like having it preserved, but we, you know, like when the, when the park first came in, a lot of things like the little corner store that was deemed not historical. So down it went, you know, but to the people that lived here, that was a cultural icon, you know, and so they get frustrated sometimes when you’re like, well, this historic building, you’re like, what about that? We like that. And you guys destroyed it. Just knocked it down. So, you know, it’s that dichotomy of, you know, preserving an area. I know Peninsula goes through that, you know, they complain and rightfully so. It’s really hard for them. And at the same time, you know, they may not have if they probably would because who knows if they’ll ever get sewered because of their horrible bedrock issue there. But yeah, so it’s just stuff like that, I think is always, you know, the tough part.

Arrye Rosser [01:35:07] Yeah, yeah. Governments aren’t so easy to work with or understand. They’re complicated. 

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:35:11] Well, and sometimes I think the biggest thing is sometimes it feels like the only thing.

Arrye Rosser [01:35:16] Staff turnover. The residents don’t. A lot of times, not around here.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:35:20] No.

Arrye Rosser [01:35:20] They have long memories.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:35:22] Yeah, they have really long memories. We have very long memories. And you know, the thing is, is that it’s important to ask people’s opinions, not just when you want something. So not just when you’re applying for that grant or you’re trying to get that designation or whatever. Because sometimes it feels like, oh, yeah, you had three meetings in the evening when we could come when you wanted something, and now where are you? You don’t care what we say anymore. So that’s always tough for people. And once. Sometimes it’s- it’s like, it’s nice sometimes when the Conservancy buys something because they have the flexibility to be reactive to what’s going on or what people want. And also they have the flexibility to do things because they’re not a government agency.

Arrye Rosser [01:36:16] And they can retain land, but-

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:36:19] sometimes they turn it over, whether it’s your conservancy or another friends group or whatever. And then all of a sudden you’re back to square one. You can’t do this, you can’t do that. You lose all your flexibility in what you’re able to do, because now it’s owned by the park and there’s certain rules. And that I think is something that needs to be really well thought out before they transfer something.

Arrye Rosser [01:36:48] Because it’s interesting thought.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:36:50] Well, like, let’s say they transfer the golf course to the park. Now all of a sudden, it ends any chance that it’ll ever be a campground, because there’s no way in heck, under government rules that you’re ever going to get a campground there. You know, it’s like when they. There’s things that were in the park, like when Mickey Dover had Dover Lake Park, you know, that it wasn’t like it was an icon, you know, it was there for what, 10, 20 years, whatever. 

Arrye Rosser [01:37:23] There was a water park. 

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:37:24] Yeah, there was a water park. [crosstalk] 

Erich Schnack [01:37:26] When I was a wee little-

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:37:28] And it wasn’t anything great, but it- They had camping there. Like, they had camping there. So if that was still private, there could be camping there. You know, I don’t know if it’s still- It might- Part of- It might still be part of Brandywine. I don’t know. But it’s things like that, like, you like.

Arrye Rosser [01:37:46] Yeah, well, that happens in the private sector, too. Stuff changes and then. Yeah, but the difference is Thames and Park, you know.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:37:53] Yeah. Oh, yeah. If that would have been- If that hadn’t been developed when it was, it would have survived because once the park became popular, that place would have been packed every weekend. But at the time they were struggling. I knew some of the people that owned that, and it just was changing hands all the time because nobody could make any money there.

Arrye Rosser [01:38:18] We did an oral history on the origins. It’s Tom Jones, the photographer, and his wife Bertha that ran that. Yeah. Well, I got to all my questions. Thank you for taking so long. I’m so appreciative. Do you have anything else that you didn’t get a chance to say or any parting shots?

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:38:36] I don’t know. Listen to people, ask them questions like this. This is good. But-

Arrye Rosser [01:38:42] Yeah, I think your perspective as a resident and you do this community engagement. I feel like our park is maturing into this, and now that we have a superintendent that’s also been here a while and isn’t just brand new, I’m hoping we’re gonna just get traction and feel like we’re not, you know, we’re going to another level of that community engagement, our planning. But I know it’s confusing for the public all the time. There’s so many-

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:39:13] It’s not just that. I know, like. And I’m sure they got some public input, but, like, Summit just closed their swim park, which for generations was important. It’s like, sometimes they say things like, oh, we want to get biodiversity, not biodiversity. We want to get diversity in the park. Well, you know, you just shut down a place that actually was sort of nice for a mix of people because it had a lot of those features that minorities like. [01:39:45] Like, big picnic areas. And it was. I don’t know if it was free or just cheap. It was cheap before it was Metro Parks, and some people told me it was even free when it was Metroparks, and they just shut it down. And it’s like, there’s not that many places for people to go swimming on a hot day that aren’t really expensive, you know?

Arrye Rosser [01:40:08] Yeah. And have a natural- more natural thing.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:40:12] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [01:40:12] So, anyway, anyway, well, thank you so much for your time, Jackie.

Jacki Zevenbergen [01:40:16] You’re welcome.

Arrye Rosser [01:40:16] Yeah. Yeah, it’s wonderful.

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