There could be no better person to begin this series of “Profiles in Conservation” than Anna Maria’s John Kolojeski. Here is an individual who has had an outside influence on protecting our environment and water quality, not only on Anna Maria Island, but throughout his distinguished career.
John was among the founding members of the city of Holmes Beach’s Clean Water Ad Hoc Committee that held its first meeting on December 15, 2021. The volunteer committee John serves on acts as an advisory board for the city commission, with a focus on community education and outreach and encouraging governmental and community actions that improve and protect our water quality.
I first met John at a support group meeting over 10 years ago, but it wasn’t until recently that we reconnected through our shared interest in water quality. Here is a man who doesn’t wear his achievements on his sleeve. He is a quiet achiever who lets his work speak for itself. Having said that, I think it’s important to highlight some of his impressive accomplishments.
During the Richard Nixon era in the early 1970s, John served as the deputy general counsel and chief of litigation for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Pesticides, Toxic Substances and Solid Waste Management. This was a senior legal role at the EPA, overseeing litigation in some of the agency’s most consequential regulatory areas.
John later became special assistant to the assistant administrator for water and hazardous materials and chaired the EPA work group that developed the original list of toxic pollutants under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (the Clean Water Act).
After leaving the EPA, John took a one-year leave to teach (at the deans’ request) at the Harvard School of Public Health, where the administrator gave him wide latitude, including taking charge of creating a list of priority pollutants which became the famous “list of 65” – a list of man-made chemicals that is often been mentioned during the Clean Water Ad Hoc Committee’s discussions about the PFAS pollutants found in our drinking water, natural waters and many of the products we buy and use.
John then started Clement Associates Inc., one of the early pioneering environmental and scientific regulatory consulting firms in the world. This endeavor was a result of John seeing the need for expert scientific witnesses during his tenure with the EPA.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women like John Kolojeski who champion protecting the water and natural resources that support our lives and those of future generations.
Now, more than ever, it’s important for citizens to demand of elected officials the basic environmental protections that are being loosened for profit.
I don’t think it’s an overstatement, as I’ve said before, to consider this a moral imperative.
