Nina Bell

Nina Bell '91 has been busy since she graduated from the Law School. Currently she's the executive director of Northwest Environmental Advocates where she specializes in application of the Clean Water Act's water quality-based approach. Bell's work has had a huge impact on environmental law in the Northwest. Her achievements include: making the environmental quality of the Columbia River a major regional issue, which led to the creation of the $2.4 million Bi-State Lower Columbia River Water Quality Study; stopping a proposed dioxin-emitting pulp mill on the Columbia River; forcing the City of Portland to commit to a 20-year plan to stop discharging over 6 billion gallons of raw sewage each year to the Willamette River and Columbia Slough; launching the Columbia/Willamette RiverWatch Program; obtaining the Superfund-style clean-up of toxic sediments in the Columbia Slough; negotiating strong new federal regulations governing Clean Water clean-up program; and obtaining commitment to clean-up emissions from Centralia Coal Plant, the largest source of sulphur dioxide in the West.