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George Cofer has been a key player on the Austin environmental scene for nearly 20 years. Photo: John Jonietz

Cofer in his late night habitat. Photo: Eric Beggs

It's Earth Day in Austin, Texas and George Cofer, Programs Manager for the Save Barton Creek Association (SBCA), stands before approximately 30 school kids, and holds up a piece of whitish-grey rock. "Can anyone tell me what this is?" he asks. It is about as large as a football and has holes, many holes. After a teacher's prompting, someone yells out the word "Karst." Cofer replies, "Right, it's Karst limestone, and this is what makes up the Edwards Aquifer." He raps his knuckles on the rocky ledge where the class is seated. "Hear how that's hollow?" he says. "There's water passing underneath us. . ." In no time half the class is thumping away on the ledge. "This creek," Cofer points to Barton Creek, inches away from the class, "is only a small part, a very visible part of the aquifer." Before the day is out he will have spoken to roughly 300 elementary students.

Public education has been George Cofer's mission, since he joined the SBCA in 1990. "I got involved with environmental work after I heard intelligent people claiming that Barton Creek and Barton Springs are not impacted by urbanization. I was offended. Outraged. I used to write long diatribes, scream, you name it." That was in 1970. Today, nearly 20 years later, talking to kids about the local environment is only a very small part of what George Cofer does. Most of his time is spent doing the hard work of organizing: setting up meetings and events, writing letters, working the phone, etc. Among his many accomplishments is help with the recent acquisition of the Barton Creek Wilderness Park, nearly 1,000 acres of park land located on Barton Creek. This land is held in trust for and is accessible to the public. George also works with Earth Share Texas , a statewide effort that allows people to contribute to a host of environmental organizations by a simple paycheck deduction. Intermingled with these duties George finds time to serve as an advisor to others working on wastewater issues such as companies within the high tech industry.

Does George Cofer sleep? "Yes, five nights out of seven. I like to stay up until 3 or 4 am a few nights to catch up on work. I usually wake up at 6, check e-mail, phone messages, and faxes. Then I eat breakfast." With meetings, traveling, lectures and other obligations, he likes to do his writing at night. "Around 11 pm is about the only time I can get any work done." This type of schedule would seem daunting to the average person, but Cofer is not average. His motivation seems come from a place as deep as the Aquifer itself.

This story is made possible in part through support from
The National Environmental Education Training Foundation.

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