In Chapter 22, James meets with Harry at the Jade Garden restaurant on Hillsborough street in Raleigh. During their lunch conversation it becomes clear that James loves his new job as an environmental engineer in the state environmental agency's Raleigh Regional Office, which Harry prefers to refer to as the Raleigh field office. James explains how he is quickly learning a great deal about water resources and the various types of wastewater treatment systems.
James attended college in Louisiana and earned a degree in chemical engineering from Louisiana State University. It was an interesting coincidence that both his father and stepfather had lived and worked for several years in Baton Rouge. After college, James worked at an environmental consulting firm helping clients calculate air pollutant emissions and submit reports to the state environmental agencies.
James describes to Harry how the Raleigh office of DEQ has an energetic and collaborative group of employees. He is impressed with the two supervisors, Don Smythe and Rick Burns. James describes the office's rotational system that ensures that each employee takes phone calls from the public with questions, concerns, complaints, and reports of releases into creeks, rivers, and lakes. Reports of releases into bodies of water are quickly forwarded to the agency staff responsible for drinking water supplies. Harry is impressed with this system. It seems to keep each employee connected to the agency's mission and the perspective of the public, rather than a constant focus on generating paperwork loaded with esoteric language and acronyms, dressed up with signatures, and then squeezed into large metal file cabinets located deep in the bowels of an agency building.
James is especially excited about the agency's new joint inspection program. He describes facility inspections conducted jointly with the agency air quality inspectors. James gets to observe the discussion about air pollution control equipment and requirements, while the air inspector gets to learn the water pollution control strategies and requirements. Harry asks numerous quesions about this new program.
James describes an area in the division of water resources that needs some improvement. While the air program has all the documents for a given facility in one database, the water quality documents are scattered in multiple file cabinets, databases, and even in different agency buildings. Fortunately, Trey Donneth, one of the engineers in the downtown Archdale building, is carrying out the arduous task of continually wading through file cabinets and placing documents online for field office access. James describes how even after tracking down the various documents to piece together the history of a facility, it is often necessary to speak with the previous inspector to get the complete view of past events. James begins writing up a site chronology for each of his reports to work more effectively and to save the next inspector from having to reinvent the wheel.
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In December, James attends an event in the Green Square building in downtown Raleigh introducing the state agency's new Environmental Justice and Equity Board. He is impressed with the event speakers and the friendliness of those in attendance.
As the event is about to conclude, Ned Martin, an environmental engineer with the division of air quality, walks James around the air quality floor in the Green Square.
James meets Elizabeth Savage, working quietly at her desk. Elizabeth is a long-time environmental engineer in the division of air quality with a masters degree in environmental science from UNC in Chapel Hill, and a bachelors degree in chemical engineering from NC State in Raleigh. Harry had described her to James as an agency star. Importantly, she was one of the rare engineers he had encountered with an advanced degree in science, working in an organization with a mission and focus of "science-based environmental stewardship." Harry had pointed out that both Jack and Lori had a high opinion of Elizabeth during their years working in air quality, including her knowledge, demeanor, and professionalism.
James and Elizabeth begin discussing the events from the agency's past involving Jack and Lori. During the conversation, James points out that the anger and retaliation against Jack and Lori began in September of 2005, immediately after the meeting in Raleigh between agency bosses and the DuPont Fayetteville representative. Clearly, Elizabeth is stunned by this information. James is surprised that she was unaware, since she was working closely with Director Undercash during the 2005 and 2006 time period. Also, he and Harry had assumed that during the past six months the division of air quality had been scrutinizing the Fayetteville office DuPont files, and that Elizabeth, considering her exceptional background, was a key participant in the agency's efforts to understand the Fayetteville Works site and make key decisions moving forward.
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