Jim Blackburn Houston is a city where it's always good to have the phone number of an environmental attorney handy. After all, you never know when somebody's going to decide to build a container port on your favorite spread of wetlands, covertly spew toxins into your air or simply dump a bunch of crap in your backyard. So thank your lucky water lilies for Jim Blackburn, Houston's environmental lawyer extraordinaire. Blackburn might not always win his cases (hey, it's Texas), but he's almost always on the side of nature and the little guy. Winner of the National Wildlife Federation's 2001 Conservationist of the Year Award in the legal category, Blackburn also does his part to reach out to his community. He teaches environmental law at Rice University and helped organize this year's Global Forum on Water as well as an air pollution conference for the State Bar of Texas. This fall, keep an eye out for Blackburn's name on bookshelves. His Book of Texas Bays will be released in October.

houstonpress.com | originally published: September 23, 2004