Robust voice for green causes: As a key Spitzer aide, Judith Enck now has the power to help mold policy.

Byline: Brian Nearing

Mar. 18--ALBANY -- For years, Judith Enck was unwelcome in the governor's office. She was just too outspoken when she believed the environment was being sacrificed. Now, the 47-year-old Poestenkill resident -- a fixture in the environmental movement since coming to Albany as a college student in 1978 -- has the power to back up her passion. She is Gov. Eliot Spitzer's deputy secretary for the environment. Her voice will guide Spitzer on global warming, recycling, pollution, the state's park system, the Adirondacks, the Hudson River and virtually any issue seen as green. It's a role she is comfortable in. Enck has been Spitzer's environmental compass since he hired her in 1999 after being elected attorney general. Her fellow environmental allies from the last three decades are overjoyed. They finally have one of their own on the inside at the highest level. "When the history of New York environmental work is written, Judith will require her own volume," said Lee Wasserman, former head of Environmental Advocates in Albany. "She is St. Judith, the patron saint of the environment."

She might also be considered the patron saint of the blue recycling bin. Enck scored big at a young age, when at 23 she helped push through the state's bottle recycling law in 1982 as the executive director of the Environmental Planning Lobby, the forerunner of Environmental Advocates. After that, she helped create a statewide government-run pesticide registry, which revealed that Manhattan and Brooklyn were among the most …