The Observer, March 2005
Volunteer Profile: TOEM member’s life mixes music and science
Jon Bower may well be the only volunteer in citizens’ council history who has been a punk-rock recording artist.
Nowadays, he is a diligent member of the Terminal Operations and Environmental Monitoring Committee, is researching hydrocarbon contamination of snow in the Valdez area, and is working on an environmental science degree at the University of Alaska in Juneau.
But, before he moved to Valdez in 2001, Bower was a guitarist and singer with a variety of punk-rock bands in the San Francisco Bay area, often in collaboration with his wife, Ali, and his brother, Josh.
MUSIC MAN – Besides studying for a degree at the University of Alaska and serving on the council’s TOEM committee, Jon Bower (above right) is a rock musician. Here, Jon and his wife, Ali, play with the band Mercury during a recent visit to California. Photo courtesy of Jon Bower.
One enthusiastic online reviewer described the work of one of Bower’s bands, Mercury, as follows: “A sound track on course into the darkest corner of synth-rock stratosphere. Yet, a sound track guaranteed to provide the listener with a floating device, upon a dense, lush, and spacey atmosphere. . . . The sound is enhanced dynamically by electric guitar player and vocalist, Jon Bower, who carries enough gloom and conviction in his voice, that when combined with his cold, disenchanted lyrics it may convince everyone in the room that ground control may never find its Major Tom!”
That may suggest that Mercury’s output was a bit on the bleak side, but Bower says it’s not so. His music, he says, is best described as “sort of melodic punk rock, with a message of environmental concern.”
Bower, who is tall and serious but doesn’t seem the least bit cold and disenchanted, or gloomy, was born 32 years ago in the little town of Shawnee, Kansas. He grew up in Minnesota and Michigan, then moved to California with his family when he was in the seventh grade. His parents moved to Valdez when he was 21, but Jon stayed in the Bay area and got seriously into music.
It was after his last band broke up, in 2001, that he moved to Valdez himself, primarily to attend Prince William Sound Community College. He took an environmental science course from Bob Benda, chairman of the Terminal Operations and Environmental Monitoring (or TOEM) Committee, and he was hooked.
“I loved it and so that’s what I’m still pursuing,” Bower said.
That course is also where he became interested in volunteering for the citizens’ council. At first, he thought that might involve going out on research vessels to work on the studies that are a mainstay of the council’s work. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but he has found the actual role of TOEM equally enlightening and interesting.
“I’ve learned so much about the policy side of things,” he said. “That is where society and science meet, which is very important.”
Bower’s parents are still in Valdez. His father is a minister at the Bayside Community Church, while his mother runs the Rose Cache restaurant.
Bower, however, moved to Juneau after a year in Valdez, so he could get a bachelor’s degree in environmental science at the University of Alaska Southeast. He will finish that this spring, and plans to go next to the University of Washington for a master’s degree. Eventually, he hopes to get his doctorate and return to Alaska for teaching and research.
It was Bower’s work on TOEM, plus a class on snow and glaciers at the university, that led him to undertake a study of hydrocarbon contamination in the snowfields around Valdez. The study did find hydrocarbons as far up the Richardson Highway as Thompson Pass.
They were similar to hydrocarbons put out by the Alyeska tanker terminal in Valdez, though Bower’s study didn’t show what the actual source was, or whether the levels found in the snow could pose health risks.
In November, he presented his findings at a convention of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Portland, Ore. He has received a grant to continue the project, and will be taking more samples around Valdez and in Thompson Pass this month.
He still participates in TOEM meetings via phone from Juneau, but otherwise focuses mostly on being a student. He’s in the math club and chemistry clubs, tutors chemistry students, and works with a couple of his professors on research projects around Juneau. One of them involves water quality in the Mendenhall Valley, where the university campus is located.
However, he hasn’t given up his music altogether. He and Ali still record in their home studio and exchange music with friends from their California days. In fact, they still perform on occasion, such as a recent reunion show of their old band, Mercury, in Oakland, over the Christmas break.
“I think there’s a common thread,” he said with a laugh, “but I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it is.”