• By BOB ANDERSON
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: Oct 29, 2009 - Page: 1D

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Shirley Welles’ smile told the story better than any of the speakers Saturday.

That’s not to say that the string of presidents of Citizens for a Clean Tangipahoa Parish didn’t have a lot to be proud of or that they didn’t tell their stories well.

For two decades they rotated the leadership torch among a dedicated group determined to clean up the Tangipahoa River.

Saturday the group celebrated the success of seeing sewage pollution levels shrink to a point that the Department of Environmental Quality removed the river from its list of impaired water bodies.

To understand the significance of that victory, one has to have seen the disdain many state regulators displayed for groups like CFACT that tried to force change in Louisiana’s environment.

Many of those groups gave up in frustration.

A careful look at Shirley Welles makes it clear that she isn’t one to give up, though she now admits, “I didn’t think we’d ever do it.”

At the age of 88, Welles not only enjoys looking at the now clear water of the Tangipahoa River, but continues to kayak in the stream that flows from Mississippi to Lake Pontchartrain.

“It’s a cinch,” she says of maneuvering the Tangipahoa compared to some of the other rivers she has kayaked.

That doesn’t dim her love of the river where she’s watched wildlife and rescued baby beavers.

But, by the 1980s, the Tangipahoa River had become so polluted the state erected warning signs against boating and swimming in the river.

Saturday, Welles held one of the no-longer-applicable signs with a look of satisfaction.

Cleaning up the sewage from municipalities, residences and dairy farms were key factors in improving the water quality, but that wouldn’t have been accomplished without people pushing a balky state agency to take action.