Environmentalist John Beal (1950-2006) spent 27 years fighting to restore the Duwamish River and its tributary, Hamm Creek, near his South Park neighborhood. In spite of ongoing battles with commerical interests and indifferent officials, Beal's work slowly transformed these trash-filled and polluted waters into a healthy, functioning habitat for wildlife and people. Beal's work continues today through groups like Environmental Coalition of South Seattle (ECOSS), the Duwamish Alive Coalition, and the People for Puget Sound.

John Beal also led field trips to his sites for schoolchildren from the nearby Concord Elementary School (now Concord International Elementary School), showing them the cleanup, teaching them about ecology, and sometimes releasing juvelnile salmon raised as a school project into the creek. In this photo, John Beal speaking to a group of Concord schoolchildren near a narrow section of waterway.

Caption information source: Beal, John (1950-2006) by Stephen Miller, HistoryLink.org Essay 20578