Nancy Wallace (environmentalist)

Nancy Wallace (September 2, 1930 - February 15, 2024) was an American educator and civic leader known for her work cleaning up the Bronx River in New York City.

In the mid-1960s, after she and her husband Bruce moved to White Plains, NY, she became heavily involved in community issues there, including working with the local PTA on a plan to desegregate the public school system and advocating for responsible community development and conservation as president of the Fisher Hill Neighborhood Association.

[4] That community involvement and organizing led to her serving on the city's Planning Commission, and then, in 1977, being elected to the White Plains Common Council.

[6] When Wallace took over as executive director, the Bronx River was "a no man's land;"[7] so polluted that almost no fish were living in it, and silt, refuse and debris were stacked more than six feet tall along large stretches of its banks.

[8] To tackle the challenge of cleaning up such an immense environmental disaster, Wallace had only two part-time employees and a total annual operating budget of $130,000.

In addition to ribbon cuttings and Clean Water Festivals, she helped gain the support of public officials by arranging innovative photo opportunities, such as having both New York City Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern and New York City Mayor Ed Koch paddle canoes down newly-cleaned stretches of the river.

"[12] Wallace also understood that any lasting change was going to require involvement and ownership of the clean-up effort by the local community.

She also got grants to provide local teenagers with summer jobs cleaning up the river and testing its water quality.

[14] In 1996, Wallace expanded those efforts by developing a "Riverkeeper" program to encourage community members to take responsibility for monitoring particular stretches of the river for garbage and water quality.