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Staff
Deborah Reames
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Title: Managing Attorney Office: California Department: Legal |
"I talked my way into Earthjustice...in 1976, and I've never left! I was lucky enough to land my dream job the first time around."
Growing up with the natural and political backdrop of the Bay Area, one is hard pressed, I think, not to appreciate the environment. Surrounded by fabulous urban parks and only hours away from innumerable national parks and wilderness areas, I have always loved spending time outdoors, hiking, camping, and river rafting, and from grammar school days have been interested in environmental protection. My joint degrees in biology and environmental studies, inspired by my introduction to environmental litigation through an excellent college seminar, left me interested in the idea of using law to protect the environment. After a short stint at a UCLA Law School training program, I talked my way into Earthjustice as a combination paralegal-law clerk. That was in 1976, and I've never left! After a few years, I "read the law" and became a Staff Attorney, and for the past several years I have been Managing Attorney for the Oakland Regional Office.
It's not that I'm averse to change; I was just lucky enough to land my dream job the first time around. What I like most about Earthjustice is its litigation focus and the fact we truly do function as the law firm for the environmental community, representing real clients. Also, Earthjustice offers the opportunity to work on significant environmental cases and, because it is a good-sized, stable organization, to tackle environmental problems in a strategic and sustained manner. Perhaps best of all are the interesting and impressive colleagues, clients, and experts I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with over the years.
For maybe my first 15 years with Earthjustice, much of my practice involved our more traditional wilderness and endangered species work, focused on the California desert. We ensured significant protections for the desert tortoise and battled everything from massive off-road vehicle races to enormous cyanide open pit heap leach mines. In short, we helped protect much of the wilderness values of the desert pending the decade-long activist struggle that culminated in the passage of the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, transferring much of this land to the more protective National Park Service regime.
Perhaps my favorite "closer to home" case during this period was the "Burger King" suit, a battle to protect Crissy Field in San Francisco's Presidio. We managed to stop the Army from constructing a massive parking lot for the City's mail trucks, numerous warehouses, a giant commissary, a bowling alley and, yes, a Burger King - all in an area that was already one of the most heavily visited areas of the National Park System. Years later, when the Army left the Presidio, Crissy Field remained in a sufficiently natural state that the Park Service was able to turn it into one of the most special places in the Bay Area, with almost 100 acres of restored meadows and marshes. It's great to feel that Earthjustice was part of that.
Right now, much of my docket at Earthjustice relates to air quality issues in the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley. It is hard to describe how bad air pollution is in the Valley. Asthma rates are off the charts, with children and seniors flooding emergency rooms literally gasping for breath on polluted days. Our clients correctly note that the Valley is DOA -- Development, Oil and Ag. Yet while these key sources of pollution go virtually unregulated, the local air district advises residents to stay inside as much as possible, keep doors and windows closed, run air conditioners to filter the air and try to talk their kids' coaches into holding team sport practices indoors! We're also working hard to protect the Sierra Nevada, to stem sprawl and protect water quality and quantity, and to protect endangered species. My office is busier than we've ever been with the new challenges posed by the Bush administration, particularly its onslaught in the Sierra and its attack on Clean Air.
While I am as excited as I've ever been with my current work at Earthjustice, sometimes it does get a bit much. My "quick fix" recharge is to head out for a weekend in Tomales Bluff, in the Point Reyes National Seashore, a special place of renewal for both my husband Tom and me. We also do a lot of camping and hiking throughout the West and we continue the love affair we began with the desert when I first started my work with at least biannual pilgrimages.
Earthjustice attorney Deborah Reames and some of her staff in Oakland: Greg Loarie, Rachel Pelc, Bill Kramer, and Mike Sherwood
Deborah Reames is managing attorney with Earthjustice's Oakland Regional Office. Born in Berkeley, California, and reared in the Bay Area, she currently lives in San Francisco with her husband, Tom Muldowney. Deborah received BAs in both biology and environmental studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Created: January 3, 2006
