Chris DeScherer: back where he belongs. (Maine).

DeScherer's childhood memories are full of idyllic days in New England: skiing at Butternut and Stowe; canoeing the Kennebec and Allagash during endless summers at a Maine camp. Though he grew up in New York City, his July arrival as a staff attorney at CLF's Rockland office was like coming home. Now if he can just make it through the winter.

DeScherer hasn't been cold--Maine-winter cold--in quite a while, having spent most of the time since his 1997 graduation from Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown University Law Center working in the South. His most recent job was a two-year stint as associate attorney at Atlanta's Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). His focus there was protecting coastal wetlands, notably marsh hammocks--tiny, ecologically and esthetically sensitive islands in the state-owned Georgia marshes. A developer had proposed construction of bridges to three of the hammocks, for the purpose of building homes on them. DeScherer fought the good fight, but Georgia's Coastal Resources Division ("Not too environmentally enlightened," he says; "they referred to permit applicants as clients.") granted the developer a permit.

Also while at SELC, he challenged construction of a marina in a sensitive area, winning that case. And he did Clean Water Act work in Alabama, where a poultry processor was discharging offal to the Cahaba River. A final outcome awaits, but the processor has lost a motion to summary judgment.

At CLF-Maine, DeScherer continues to work on water pollution issues, focusing on publicly owned wastewater treatment plants in coastal areas. Some appear to be out of compliance with their discharge permits, so it looks as if a number of plant-related CLF case selections could be filed.

DeScherer's wife, Amanda Honeycutt, is from North Carolina, so she's wondering about winter even more than he is. A health economist for a nonprofit in her home state, she telecommutes from Maine, and she's a new mother. The couple's first child, Emmett, was born on August 18. Chris's and Amanda's lives are becoming very interesting, what with challenging developments on a new job for one, a brand new baby for both--and winter on the way.