By Carol Brejot
Management of an Urbanized Drinking Water Watershed
- A Case History. The Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Sediments, Sludges
and Soils.
Everything I Know I Learned from My Dogs (Scriptwriters/Houston for Stages Theatre).
Losing it All (Scriptwriters/Houston for Main Street Theatre).
What links these two
disparate groups of
writing? The author
of the technical
pieces and the short
plays is the same person:
Mary Ellen Whitworth, a Houstonian who
seemingly leads a double life as an environmental
engineer and an award-winning playwright.
Mary Ellen, head of the Bayou Preservation
Association, is one of those rare individuals who
is both scientific and creative, or left-brained
and right-brained, if you will. Psychologist
Roger Sperry’s research in the late 1960s
showed that the human brain has two very
different ways of thinking. The “verbal” left
brain processes information in an analytical,
sequential way, looking at the pieces first, then putting them together
to get the whole (scientific.) The “visual” right brain handles data in
an intuitive, simultaneous manner, looking at the whole picture, then
the details (creative.)
Growing up, Mary Ellen was admittedly very math and scienceoriented.
In fact, she won the science fair competition in high school
which earned her a trip to West Point Academy for a week. But English
literature—well, not so fun.
The environmental interest was cultivated early on in her hometown
of Sinton, Texas. “We didn’t have a TV in our house, so I spent
lots of time outdoors playing with my animals or the neighborhood
kids,” she said. “The houses had no fences back then, so I just roamed
freely and began to appreciate nature.”
It was also in high school that Mary Ellen learned about
environmentalist Rachel Carson. After
studying marine biology and zoology in
college, Carson worked for the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service as a scientist and editor, later
turning her government research into prose.
Disturbed by the widespread use of synthetic
chemical pesticides after World War II,
she wrote Silent Spring. Although she was
attacked by the chemical industry and the
government for her “radical” views, Carson
testified before Congress in 1963, calling for
new policies to protect human health and the
environment.
“I respected Rachel Carson’s strong stance
on ecology since that has been a guiding principle
in both my work and leisure time,” says
Mary Ellen. However, she herself didn’t start
out going in the green direction right away.
Upon receiving her masters in food science and technology from
LSU, Mary Ellen came to Houston “thinking that I was going to solve
world hunger.” She quickly learned that there were no food companies
in Houston with research departments where she could apply her
scientific knowledge and youthful idealism. “So I went where everyone
with a science degree goes—The Texas Medical Center.”
After stints at Baylor College of Medicine studying autoimmune
diseases and M.D. Anderson researching environmental carcinogens,
Mary Ellen soon realized she needed a Ph.D. to advance in medical research. She really wanted to do something related to the environment,
but there were no jobs in that field during the oil and real estate bust in
the mid ’80s. A friend recommended she contact Dr. Jack Matson, the
guru of environmental engineering at the University of Houston, who
told her, “It’s time to go back to school.”
Armed with her masters in environmental engineering from U of H,
in 1985, Mary Ellen went to work for a wastewater treatment plant.
“Let’s just say nothing in my graduate program could have prepared
me for this job,” she says. “I was the only woman at the plant, and most
of the employees had a fourth grade education. There was only one
phone in a dirty little building and when I got a
call, the men would cup their hands under their
breasts to indicate it was for me.”
“Our truck drivers cleaned out grease traps
and septic systems and brought the waste to the
plant for processing,” she continued. “Since it
was such a disgusting mess, most employees felt
compelled to drink or smoke marijuana on the
job for escapism. We also had the most colorful
treatment tank known to man, since on a lark,
one of the workers got the bright idea to paint
it pink.”
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