Gov. Donald L. Carcieri appointed Michael W. Sullivan to head the R.I. Department of Environmental Management in April 2005. Last week Sullivan said he planned to retire on Jan. 1, just days before Gov.-elect Lincoln D. Chafee takes his seat. Sullivan will return to a teaching position at the University of Rhode Island’s College of the Environment and Life Sciences. As his tenure at DEM winds down, Sullivan recently spoke with Providence Business News about the experience.
PBN: Why are you leaving DEM?
SULLIVAN: I came to DEM from the University of Rhode Island. It was a wonderful opportunity. I loved the job but the opportunity to return to the classroom, to return to the university and the timing of it was probably just as well now as six months or six years from now. And it was clear that the Chafee team wanted to make a change.
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PBN: You previously said you hoped to stay under Chafee because you were excited about a lot of projects. Are you disappointed to leave?
SULLIVAN: I will remain excited about a lot of things. Part of me would have loved to stay. Part of me I won’t say is happy to be leaving but it’s now somebody else’s turn.
PBN: Shortly after you came to DEM, you called water infrastructure a top priority. Is it still?
SULLIVAN: It still is but we’ve rewritten in the last five-and-a-half years most of the wastewater treatment-plant permits to an advanced level. Rhode Island I think now has amongst the most progressive wastewater treatment plants in the country. While I’m proud of that I’m equally as proud of the fact that EPA now is taking the seriousness that we have and is beginning to show it in Attleboro, North Attleboro and Worcester, which are part of the Narragansett Bay watershed.
Rhode Island has owned the asset called Big River Management Area for better than a half century and not done anything with it. There are multiple wells in there now that are producing commercial-quality water.
PBN: What do you see as DEM’s accomplishments during your term?
SULLIVAN: In the last five-and-a-half years we have protected … almost 10,000 acres. We’ve changed some of the value of that protected land. We have some partners like the Nature Conservancy who had always excluded hunting opportunities and fishing opportunities from most of their properties. And now when we’re involved with them it is open to Rhode Island hunters and [people who] fish and that’s expanded by almost 4,000 acres the recreational space available to citizens.
PBN: You’ve been a proponent of renewable energy projects. Did you think such projects would gain prominence when you started at DEM?
SULLIVAN: I had hopes that it would, in that very early in 2006 the governor signed an executive director committing all state government to LEED certification for new government buildings. … He signed California car-emission standards, which were all linked to air quality.
PBN: Can you talk a little about the passage of Question 4, which sets aside money for the state purchase of the former Shooters in Providence and the former Rocky Point Amusement Park in Warwick?
SULLIVAN: I get overwhelmed with excitement about this. [It’s] an overwhelming environmental commitment to the urban core, to create a viable portal in … Providence where citizens can catch a ferry to tour Narragansett Bay or tourists can catch a dinner boat to have a lovely meal [during] a sunset on the bay. And for the single mom from Providence to have a recreational opportunity on a limited budget that’s in walking, biking or RIPTA distance is tremendously exciting.
SULLIVAN: We aren’t just about camping opportunities or beach opportunities or about working with educated, suburban youth.
We need to find a way to involve all Rhode Islanders, all citizens, all youth and let them experience the environment and understand educational and employment opportunities.
PBN: The Environment Council of Rhode Island recently released a report that called Carcieri’s two terms “a legacy of inaction” for environmental progress. What did you think of the report?
SULLIVAN: I thought it was a little biased. I thought it was untempered with some of the reality. In my five-and-a-half years, I’ve seen staff numbers decrease by 30 percent and budgets shrink dramatically; the opportunity to fill positions eliminated.
I think those from the outside looking in to operations of government have a view that this was a choice I made or perhaps the governor enforced. If you can accept that there are very few economic opportunities right now, we’ve had to kind of hunker down and focus on improving the permitting processes.
I would not disagree with some of my more – let’s call them militant – environmental friends that we have not begun to address as a state … things like climate change. We were involved – and I remain personally involved – with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the development of low-carbon fuel standards. •
INTERVIEW
MICHAEL W. SULLIVAN
POSITION: Director of R.I. Department of Environmental Management
BACKGROUND: A former professor at the University of Rhode Island, Sullivan became director of DEM in 2005. He is the former president of the Richmond Town Council and a former state senator. In his capacity as DEM director, he serves on a number of state boards, including the R.I. Water Resources Board and the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council. Sullivan is also president of the board of trustees for the Rocky Hill School in East Greenwich.
EDUCATION: B.S. in plant and soil science, University of Rhode Island, 1975; M.S. in agronomy, University of Vermont, 1978; Ph.D. in agronomy, University of Nebraska, 1981
FIRST JOB: An assistant maintenance person at a Cape Cod camp at age 15
RESIDENCE: Richmond
AGE: 57
