Dr. Edmondson saved Lake Washington

Think of W. Thomas Edmondson when you look at the clear water of Lake Washington.

The University of Washington scientist whose research saved the lake and led to the inception of Metro, died Tuesday (Jan. 11) of cardiac arrest. He was 83.

He wrote in 1975, "I felt this was a normal part of my work as a university professor whose job, as I see it, is to find out things and tell people about them."

What Dr. Edmondson told people about Lake Washington in the mid-1950s became a blueprint for the way environmental science could change public policy, earning him the highest recognition his profession had to offer.

This was the flow of history:

The lake was dying. Chemicals from sewage-treatment plants along the lake had made the once-clear water cloudy. Stinking masses of algae were washing up on beaches.

Near the beginning of his career as a zoologist specializing in fresh-water biology in 1955, Dr. Edmondson identified the problem and what it would take to clean up the lake. Based on his findings, voters formed the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle in 1958 and eventually ponied up what in 1965 was a near-unthinkable $165 million to resuscitate the lake.

"It was quite an amazing accomplishment for the 1950s, to be so convincing to the general population that they saw the need to do something based on science," said colleague Kathryn Hahn, UW zoology department administrator.

At one time, there was a whimsical proposal to rename Lake Washington "Lake Edmondson," recalled his wife, Yvette.

Although he had an outwardly formal bearing - he was rarely seen without a jacket and tie - Dr. Edmondson was known as "Tommy" and remembered as an elfin man with bright-blue eyes who never had an unkind word for anyone.

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1973 and a seat on its Environmental Studies Board. He also won a slew of major awards, including the highest in his field, the Naumann-Thienemann Medal of the International Society for Theoretical and Applied Limnology.

Born in Milwaukee in 1916, he walked with his mother along the shores of Lake Michigan at the age of 2. When the family moved to Indiana, Dr. Edmondson wrote, "For a long time every afternoon at the same hour I walked out of the house, tried hard to find the lake, and was reduced to tears by failure."

He earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at Yale, then lectured at Harvard for three years before coming to Seattle with his wife, who was also a respected figure in the same field.

Although university regulations forced Dr. Edmondson to retire at the age of 70, he continued to do research for the rest of his life.

An auto accident last August left Dr. Edmondson a paraplegic, his wife said. But that did nothing to diminish his drive for researching Lake Washington.

"Even in the hospital after the accident, he was talking about, `We have to get on this and get these papers done,' " Hahn said.

"He was an inspiration," said research scientist Arni Litt. "Some of my love of science comes from him. I started working with him right out of college and stayed with him all the way through (my career). He instilled that kind of loyalty in people."

Dr. Edmondson is also survived by a brother, Frank Edmondson, of Bloomington, Ill. No services have yet been planned.