For more than a decade, Bloomington, Indiana, resident Dan Sparks has worked tirelessly to make the Grand Calumet River in northwestern Indiana a better place for fish, wildlife, habitat and people. Sparks’ efforts as a contaminants biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were acknowledged yesterday by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
“ Those being honored today have made all of us proud. They have gone beyond the decision to serve. They have made their choice their calling,” Secretary Norton said of Sparks and other honorees.
“ For some, the choice was made in a heartbeat. They stepped up into a firestorm or jumped into a rescue. Others spent decades in service: Doing more than required — or even desired — day after day, year after year.”
Sparks, who is stationed at the Service’s Bloomington Field Office, was honored along with Interior Department solicitor John Carlucci with the Interior Secretary’s “Four Cs” Award. The award is granted to an Interior Department employee, group or team making exceptional contributions to promote the Secretary’s initiatives embodying the 4 Cs: “Communication, Consultation, and Cooperation, all in the service of Conservation.” The award recognizes Sparks’ outstanding efforts working with stakeholders, other federal agencies, state agencies, and private interests in northwestern Indiana to improve the region’s natural resources.
Overall, an individual or group nominated for this award has demonstrated excellent communicative relationships with all stakeholders involved in decisions that concern our Nation’s natural resources, creating win-win situations for stakeholders, as well as for the environment. The individuals or groups also have balanced working relationships with all stakeholders, including: Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments; private landholders, and private sector businesses, enabling the Department to make sustainable, environmentally and economically sound decisions concerning natural resource conservation.
Sparks and Carlucci brought together a team of state and federal partners and worked with private parties to reach an agreement to restore the natural resources degraded by decades of contamination in the Grand Calumet River. Sparks began looking at the resources of the river in 1989. Active efforts to evaluate the impacts of contaminants began in 1996 and culminated in a 2004 settlement under which eight companies agreed to pay nearly $60 million to restore natural resources injured by releases of hazardous substances and oil in the Grand Calumet River and Indiana Harbor Canal.
“ Dan has shown all of us what it means to work for a great cause,” said Charles Wooley, Deputy Director for the Service’s Midwest Region, which includes Indiana. “His perseverance and dedication to restoring the health of the Grand Calumet River and southern Lake Michigan are making this corner of Indiana a better place for its residents and its resources.”
Amid the factories, refineries, and urban development in northwestern Indiana are some of the most valuable ecological resources in the Midwest. Globally rare dune and swale habitats, prairie wetland, savannas, marshes and lakeshores support a number of important fish and wildlife species such as the endangered Indiana bat and the Karner blue butterfly, and scores of migratory bird species that stop to loaf, nest and feed during their seasonal migrations.
Sparks’ efforts came under the Department’s Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) program, which evaluates the impacts to fish and wildlife resources when contaminants are released into the environment. The goal of the NRDA process is to identify options to restore injured resources and determine the extent of restoration needed.
A native of Mattoon, Illinois, Sparks earned Bachelor of Science degrees in wildlife management and biology from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1983. He attained a Master of Science degree from Purdue University in wildlife science in 1986. Sparks’ career with the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began in 1983 with a summer job in the Service’s Columbia, Missouri, Field Office. In 1986, Sparks signed on with the contaminants program in the Service’s New Jersey Field Office. He came to Bloomington in 1989.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 544 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resources offices and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign and Native American tribal governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Assistance program, which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
