June 26, 2009
Written by Micki Carter

George Heartwell, the mayor of Grand Rapids, Mich., who happens to be an ordained United Church of Christ minister, spoke quietly Thursday morning in a wing chair in a parlor of the East Congregational Church in Grand Rapids, where he is a member.

He talked about taking a "watershed" approach to the environmental issues facing UCC congregations across the country.

"I was a few minutes late this morning because I met earlier with a group from four Christian Reformed churches in the Plaster Creek watershed that feeds into the Grand River," he said. "This is the same approach that I saw at work in New Zealand where all the people affected by one water source work together to solve the problems of that watershed."

Heartwell was the keynote speaker at "Holy Water: A Conference on Environment and Faith" presented by the UCC's Justice and Witness Ministry's Environment and Energy Task Force as a pre-Synod event on the day before the opening of General Synod 27 in Grand Rapids.

About 25 Synod delegates and visitors gathered to talk about the role of water, holy water, in environmental justice, and Heartwell's focus was on the water roiling along next to the Synod hotels, the Grand River which spills into Lake Michigan at Grand Haven.

"The banks of the Grand River once were a gathering spot for three Native American tribes— the Ottawa, the Ojibwe and the Potawatomi, but soon after Europeans arrived, the abuse of the river began," Heartwell said. "Rows of factories lined the banks dumping toxic effluent into the river. We even had a municipal dump on an island in the middle of the river.

"In our most shameful year, 12 billion tons of raw sewage was dumped in the Grand River and then into Lake Michigan. Now I'm pleased to say that we put just .04 percent of that into the river but, of course, that's still too much."

The mayor would like to go even further in restoring the river. "I'm looking forward to removing the dam and the fish ladder and returning the rapids."

Heartwell made the point that environmental issues cannot be separated from the economy or social justice. "That's the triple bottom line."

He described one zip code area in Grand Rapids — ironically just off Wealthy Street — where one in every three children suffered from the effects of lead poisoning when he took office in 2004. He helped gather a "Get the Lead Out!" coalition to work on remediation.

"This was an environmental issue with economic consequences," he said, adding that because the area was predominantly African-American and Latino, this was a case of environmental racism.

"I like to spread the gospel of sustainability," Heartwell said, adding that UCC congregations are well-poised to succeed in this effort. "We've figured out how to do the work of mercy pretty well."

United Church of Christ News Service