Dorothy Green

Dorothy Green ( – ) was an environmental activist and grassroots organizer. She was the founding president of the environmental group, Heal the Bay. Green was considered a mentor to officials and leaders active in California water issues and she founded several organizations that have effectively shaped policy on a variety of environmental issues. Early life Dorothy Green was born in on March 16, 1929, in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Polish immigrants. She came to Los Angeles and enrolled at UCLA as a music major, playing cello in the school orchestra. She graduated in 1951 from University of California at Berkeley, according to an obituary article in the Los Angeles Times, and in that same year, she married Jacob Green. They had three children together: Joshua, Avrom, and Herschel. Her husband was at her side until his death in 2005. Career Dorothy Green began her career as a water quality advocate in 1972 when she worked on a campaign to pass Proposition 20, the ballot initiative that established the California Coastal Commission. In the 1980s, she joined the fight against the peripheral canal, was coordinator of Working Alliance to Equalize Rates, and president of the Los Angeles chapter of the League of Conservation Voters. Her brother's discovery of untreated wastewater spilling into Santa Monica Bay spurred her to bring concerned citizens together in her Westwood home, an effort that would eventually lead to the founding of the group, Heal the Bay. Under her leadership the group held beach rallies to gain new members and generate publicity. They offered testimony at public hearings and successfully applied public pressure that helped to eventually bring an agreement to stop dumping sewage sludge into the bay and to upgrade the Hyperion sewage treatment facility.