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Dorothy Green, founding president of Heal the Bay, beloved environmental campaigner, and a mentor to generations of volunteers, scientists and public policy makers, passed away Monday, October 13th, at her home in Los Angeles after a long battle with melanoma. She was 79 years old.
A onetime stay-at-home mom, Dorothy would later embark on a journey of hands-on activism and self education, becoming one of the state’s most respected authorities on water quality issues. Spurred by the social disruptions of the early 1970s, she would serve as a passionate advocate for clean oceans and sound water policy throughout her life.
Initially gathering a few concerned colleagues in her living room in 1985, Dorothy grew Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay into one of the region’s most powerful environmental organizations. The science-driven group now boasts some 15,000 members and wields considerable influence on water-quality issues throughout the state.
Under her watch, the organization’s first major victory was successfully advocating for the upgrade of Los Angeles’ Hyperion and Carson sewage treatment plants to comply with the federal Clean Water Act. She also helped devise the trademarked Beach Report Card, which provides water quality grades to the general public for more than 500 beaches statewide.
Under Dorothy’s guidance, Heal the Bay co-authored or sponsored numerous pieces of legislation aimed at improving water quality throughout the region’s waterways, protecting the health of humans who swim and surf in the Santa Monica Bay, and sustaining the overall health of the region’s marine life. The organization’s public education and outreach programs have informed and inspired millions of Southland residents about being better ocean stewards.
“Dorothy Green was simply the most influential water quality activist in California for the last 30 years,” said Mark Gold, her protégé and current president of Heal the Bay.
“What made Dorothy most extraordinary was her ability to attract talented volunteers of all skills and turn them into tireless activists who feel privileged to protect the environment.” (Note: read more of Mark's thoughts about Dorothy at his blog).
She would later help found the California Water Impact Network, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the equitable and environmentally sensitive use of all the state’s water resources. She also helped establish the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council and remained its president emerita for the rest her life.
Dorothy’s zealous determination and innate intelligence, coupled with a warm personality, enabled her to build consensus among stakeholders. Her genuine manner defused confrontation and won her admiration and respect from all interested parties on sensitive environmental issues. Behind the scenes always supporting her was her husband, Jack Green, who died in 2005.
Born in 1929 in Detroit, Dorothy came to California to enroll at UCLA
as a music major and played the cello in the school orchestra. She would later start a family and enjoy life as stay-at-home mom raising three children.
She became swept up in the activism of the early 1970s, beginning her career as a water quality advocate in 1972 by working on the campaign to pass Proposition 20, the ballot initiative that established the California Coastal Commission. She then became president of the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, which marked her introduction to the issues surrounding sewage treatment and its disposal.
“I got involved in environmental issues generally because I was looking for a place that needed work,” she said in a 2005 interview marking Heal the Bay’s 20th anniversary. “It was a response to my depression, really, about the Vietnam War, civil rights issues -- all that was going on in this country at the time. ‘I said: “I’ve got to get out of bed and do something!’”
Most of her energy first went to the Exceptional Childrens’ Foundation. As the mother of a mentally challenged child, she established a successful greeting card business for that nonprofit organization. But that wasn’t enough. “The way I was raised was to be an active part of the community and to be charitable; it’s part of the Jewish tradition,” she explained.
Realizing there wasn’t an organization to monitor the disposal of sewage and alarmed about the harmful impacts on the Santa Monica Bay, she began holding meetings of concerned citizens in her Westwood living room. The foundation of Heal the Bay took shape there.
Lacking formal scientific training, she nonetheless plunged confidently into the complex world of public infrastructure. “Reading the [federal] Environmental Protection Agency’s analysis of sewage treatment and its disposal was my science education,” she recalled years later.
Donald Smith, president of American operations for the international environmental engineering firm Montgomery Watson Engineers, was the manager brought in to upgrade Hyperion in 1985. He and Dorothy first met 30 days after he arrived at the treatment facility.
“Two words defined Dorothy Green: steadfast and determined,” he said, comparing her to the spark of a 12-volt battery. “You’d think she might have made the challenges at Hyperion more difficult. But frankly she helped to provide the discipline to move forward. Without that external driving force, it might not have happened. Dorothy and Heal the Bay were the constituency that drove change in Los Angeles.”
Dorothy’s approach -- encouraging collaboration among groups that often had contrasting perspectives on how to tackle a problem -- was not only a hallmark of her personal style but was extremely pragmatic.
“She got everybody talking,” remembered John Dorsey, associate professor and chair of Loyola Marymount University’s department of natural science. Dorsey first met Dorothy when he was a marine biologist working for the city of Los Angeles, collecting data on the impact of the Hyperion plant on the marine environment. “She had the proper outlook that environmental organizations needed to sit down with the regulators, the regulated and the community. She took the tone of the discussion from adversarial to one of cooperation.”
Dorothy served as president of Heal the Bay until 1990, when she transitioned to a permanent status on the board as founding president. She also served as a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power commissioner for three and a half years, and chaired the most important water policy conference in the state, the California Water Policy (POWER) Conference, for the past 17 years.
"Dorothy believed strongly that California is not in a drought; there is enough water for the people and the environment. It just needs to be managed differently. Scaring people to vote for $10 Billion in new bonds to build 2 new dams and a peripheral canal is not the answer," said Carolee Krieger, President of the California Water Impact Network. "C-WIN will continue her work to stop the mismanagement and implement a sustainable water policy for our state."
“Heal the Bay is such a positive organization and Dorothy set the tone for all of us,” said Madelyn Glickfeld, a member of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board and former Heal the Bay board member. “I was in a lot of meetings with Dorothy, and it wasn’t about stopping things, but always about starting things.”
Paula Daniels, past president of Heal the Bay’s board of directors and a commissioner with the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, was a trial attorney when she met Dorothy in 1989 at Heal the Bay’s Children’s March, which attracted 4,000 participants.
“Her passion, zeal and intelligence drew me in and set me on a course that changed my life,” said Daniels.
The U.S. government honored Green’s three decades of leadership in 2006, bestowing her with the prestigious President’s Volunteer Service Award. In the fall of 2007, the University of California Press published her book “Managing Water: Avoiding Crisis in California.”
“Dorothy’s legacy is extensive, and will be amplified in the world by those whom she taught to make a difference, instead of just making noise,” recalled Laurie Coots, a Heal the Bay Board of Governors member who serves as chief marketing officer for ad agency TBWA/Worldwide.
Green is survived by three sons, Joshua, Avrom and Herschel, and three granddaughters, Jessica, Katherine and Tara.
In lieu of flowers the family asks that donations be made to Heal the Bay, the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council or California Water Impact Network.
A public memorial service will be held Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 2 p.m. at Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles.
Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills
5950 Forest Lawn Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90068
(800) 600-0076
(323) 469-6000
From the San Fernando Valley:
East on the Ventura Freeway (101) to the Pasadena Freeway (134) east. Exit at Forest Lawn Drive, proceed 1/4 mile.
From Los Angeles:
North on the Hollywood Freeway (101), exit at Barham. Turn right on Barham and proceed to Forest Lawn Drive. Turn right and continue 1 1/4 miles.
From 405 Freeway:
North or south on the San Diego Freeway (405), to the Ventura Freeway (101) east. Continue to the Pasadena Freeway (134) east. Exit at Forest Lawn Drive, proceed 1/4 mile.
In addition, on Sunday, November 23, 2008, Heal the Bay and the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council will host a memorial to give everyone a chance to share their favorite Dorothy stories. Details will be posted soon. |
