Dr. Baker is the owner of WaterThink, LLC and a Senior Fellow in the Minnesota Water Resources Center. He also serves on the Water Resources Science Program’s graduate faculty, where he teaches the program’s required water policy course and advises several graduate students.

 

The broad goal of his consulting and research is to develop novel approaches for reducing pollution that are more effective, cheaper and fairer than conventional approaches. 

 

Recent projects include development of whole-watershed phosphorus balances for Minnesota lakes, an analysis of salt balances for western (U.S.) cities, an assessment of source reduction practices for reducing stormwater pollutants, and an approach to target pollution sources in residential watersheds. 

 

Currently, he and his colleagues are currently conducting extensive study of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus movement through households through a survey of 12,000 homes.  The goal of this research is to examine underlying behavioral motivations that drive consumption choices and the production of pollution.  Ultimately, this research will be used to develop policies that influence these choices.

 

He has published about 100 technical papers in a diverse array of journals including Limnology and Oceanography, Journal of Environmental Engineering, Groundwater and Urban Ecosystems. He has edited two books, Environmental Chemistry of Lakes and Reservoirs and The Water Environment of Cities, which will be published in 2009.

He is currently doing research for his first “trade” book, The End of Pollution.

 

He has served on several key science assessment task groups, including the National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program task group that wrote the Integrated Assessment – Report to the U.S. Congress-- just before passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act.  He also chaired the Human Health Subcommittee of the Arizona Comparative Environmental Risk Project.  The final report from this committee was deemed a “blueprint” for future environmental initiatives in Arizona when it was completed in 1995.  He is currently on the Leadership Team for an ongoing Citizen’s League Water Policy Study Committee (2008).

 

In addition to technical articles, he also writes occasionally for practitioner magazines (such as LakeLine and Stormwater) and for public audiences (such as the Minnesota Journal and the Minneapolis Star and Tribune). He also is a frequent speaker or panelist at various public events and workshops.

 

In his spare time, he is President of the Friends of the Sunrise River, a group dedicated to improving ecological conditions in the Sunrise River north of the Twin Cities. In that capacity, he edits the group’s newsletter, the Sunrise River Currents. 

... and  he fishes (photo from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area).