Carroll Cox

Carroll Cox is a tireless watchdog, putting in countless hours combing through government documents, attending public meetings and following up on tips from whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing.

Last week he was busy in Leeward Oahu, shooting photographs and video of tons of construction concrete dumped in Mailiili Stream, home to the endangered Hawaiian stilt and other rare birds. Cox was alerted to the dumping by city workers who he said were told to dump the debris and keep quiet. His video ended up on the local news, exposure that caused the city to stop the practice and prompted city, state and federal investigations.

The approach is vintage Cox, who through his nonprofit Envirowatch Inc. is plugged into a community network that alerts him to potential misconduct, environmental and otherwise.

Accessibility aids his work — he's reachable through his Web sites www.carrollcox.com and envirowatch.org and a Sunday morning radio show on KWAI — but what really drives him is the personal knowledge that a government without oversight is capable of terrible things.

Q: What strategy works best, in terms of lobbying for change?

A: Going to the legislators has proven fruitless over the 15 years I've been doing this, so I try to take it to the public. There's an informal network of agencies, businesses, people who are willing to talk, willing to blow the whistle, without becoming too involved. They want to solve a problem, but they don't want to be an activist.