Talkin' 'bout cogeneration Watterson is a one-man greening crew.

After graduating from college, Andrew Watterson sailed across the Atlantic with two friends in a 33-foot steel sailboat he'd purchased with a loan his junior year.

"I saw how powerful and majestic this ocean is, but I also saw our footprint everywhere," he recalls. "We saw oil tankers, offshore rigs and slicks, floating trash, injured wildlife and fisherman complaining about lack of fish. This is a direct result of how we live our lives."

The experience helped guide him toward a career in environmentalism. Today, at 29, Watterson's area of responsibility is much smaller than an ocean, but nearly as challenging. He is sustainability manager for the city of Cleveland, charged with coming up with enough eco-friendly cost-saving measures in his first two years to justify his annual salary, and to save the city a lot more than that in the long run.

Watterson, who grew up in Hunting Valley, looks the part of the well-educated tree hugger. Wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt, he talks passionately about "life-cycle analysis" and "wind turbines" over coffee at Talkies in Ohio City. At first glance, you wonder if he'll pull it off. But Watterson is no neophyte. His background includes experience in private development, including a stint managing the rehab of the Lorain Avenue Bank Building, now the Cleveland Environmental Center, in Ohio City. The successful office building opened in 2003.

That same year, in 2003, Mayor Daley of Chicago blew into town to check out the Environmental Center. He got a tour from Sadhu Johnston, an Oberlin grad who had founded the Green Building Coalition, the group spearheading the redevelopment. Johnston, a poster child for young green types in Cleveland, impressed Daley, and a few weeks later, he offered Johnston a job in Chicago.

At this point several nonprofits had already been talking to the city of Cleveland about hiring someone to "green" their operations. Some cities have departments devoted to sustainability, they argued. Then-Mayor Jane Campbell seemed receptive, but the idea went nowhere. After Daley's poaching of Johnston, however, the nonprofits redoubled their efforts, and pressured foundation executives into supporting the "sustainability manager" job so the city wouldn't have to front the money.

Watterson — whose background also included nonprofit environmental work in Oregon and investments in local businesses — applied and was hired.

Seven nonprofits that helped to create the position — Earth Day Coalition, the Green Building Coalition, Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, EcoCity Cleveland, Environmental Health Watch, Green Energy Ohio and the American Lung Association — now have seats on an advisory committee that meets monthly with Watterson to review goals, provide advice and support, and shield him from the politics of city hall. City representatives and Councilman Matt Zone also sit on the committee.

"This group helps to create a buffer between what might be a political priority, and one of our priorities," said Watterson.

His top priority is finding ways to save money. On the job for less than a year, Watterson claims that he's already found ways to save over $1 million dollars in the Water Department alone, he says.

"So I'm done, right?" he jokes. "As an entrepreneur, it was tough for me to step into an 8-5 job with the city. But this is my dream job in terms of the "footprint' that I want to have. I see the city as a big company — I know there are a lot of potential savings here."

Could the city save money and spur new kinds of economic development? Or is this just another faddish civic program? To find out, change is needed, and that won't always come easily. Cleveland is a bureaucracy, a place where e-mail was revolutionary just a few years ago.

"There are a lot of champions here," Watterson says cheerfully. He admits, however, that the pace is slower than he'd like: "Some of the projects that I'm working on are just getting off the ground."

Though Watterson works across many different city departments, his office is in the Water Department. This is by design — he is isolated from city hall politics and, housed here, the position is less likely to die when a new mayor is elected. But leadership from city hall will be crucial, as will cooperation from the civil servants with whom Watterson deals directly.

"Change has to come from the top down and the bottom up," he says, segueing into a story about a project that would create "drying beds" to capture soil from the city's water treatment plants. This soil, after treatment, would be sold to greenhouses. But Watterson butted heads with an engineer who resisted incorporating his feedback, even though a department head had already given the green light.

CHICAGO AND PORTLAND have departments devoted to the environment, and their Web sites offer a laundry list of programs. In Cleveland, Watterson is the sustainability department, and it takes some online digging to find a description of his work. Media coverage has also been scant.

Watterson seems unconcerned, though, energetically hopping between the branches of city government, attempting to green the city's day-to-day operations. Mayor Frank Jackson, he says, "has expressed full support."

Current initiatives include requiring that energy efficiency be part of the design of any new city project. In addition, the city's new waste management policy is to recycle 50 percent of construction and demolition debris, rather than carting it off to a landfill.

An "anti-idling policy" for city trucks is also in the works. "There is significant savings potential here, in the hundreds of thousands," Watterson says, by retrofitting trucks with heaters that keep the engine and driver warm while the truck is turned off.

Cleveland Public Power has bought eight hybrid cars, and the city plans to buy 16 more this year. Watterson cites the fuel savings of each one at about $1,000 per year.

Watterson is also working with the private sector on new technologies that could help to create jobs. A small wind turbine was installed last year on "the crib," a monitoring station on Lake Erie, and another was erected last month in front of the Great Lakes Science Center. These turbines do generate power, but are mostly designed to help determine the feasibility of installing large, "utility-scale" wind turbines on the lake.

"This is an opportunity to move beyond the industrial revolution," says Watterson. "Wind power fits with our manufacturing base, so this is as much about job preservation as growth." He cites a study that ranks Ohio second only to California in its capacity for wind power.

Another potential growth technology is "combined heat and power" (also called "COGEN", short for "cogeneration"). As Watterson explains it, most power is created by boiling water to create steam, which turns turbines that create electricity. In most cases, the steam generated by this process is not re-used. Watterson is working with Great Lakes Brewing Company to look into a COGEN facility that would use heat and power at once, "combining two processes and increasing your efficiency."

Watterson is also putting out a request for proposals to install a roof on city hall consisting partially of plants, thus reducing the need for asphalt, the amount of CO2 discharged, and water runoff. The building's current roof has no parapets, and is subject to gusts of Lake Erie wind. "The last thing that I'd want to do is to put some plants in, and then have them blow off of the roof," he explains, smiling.

Overall, how does Cleveland stack up against other cities making such efforts?

"We're still in catch-up mode," Watterson says. He pauses, searching for the right words. "In some ways that's helpful, because we can learn from others' mistakes. We have a lot of things working against us. Yet sustainability can also grow our economy. Being on a Great Lake with all of the natural resources we have, Cleveland has an opportunity to define itself as a sustainable city."

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