Art Cooley, Founder of the Environmental Defense Fund, dies aged 87

As a result of the foundation’s lawsuit in Michigan, nearly every city has stopped using DDT, and the application of another insecticide, dieldrin, in Western Michigan, to combat the Japanese beetle, has been discontinued. delayed for one year. A lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee prompted it to end its use of DDT against dutch dutch disease. Another lawsuit, filed jointly with the Citizen Natural Resources Association, led the State of Wisconsin to ban DDT.

One of the group’s landmark achievements came in 1972: ban DDT by the Department of Environmental Protection, with minor exceptions. That ban stemmed from a lawsuit the EDF and other groups, including the Sierra Club, filed against the federal government.

Since Mr. Cooley is not a DDT expert, like Mr. Wurster, he did not testify in the lawsuits. He has worked in the background with the Environmental Defense Fund while continuing to teach; he takes students on river and wildlife field trips, and he advises Students for Environmental Quality, a club founded in 1970 at his high school and provides group members an opportunity to pursue solutions to problems such as pollution in Swan Lake in East Patchogue.

“Over time, it served as a vehicle for students to investigate other issues, learn about them, and map out,” Mr. a roadmap of action.

Arthur Paul Cooley was born on 2 June 1934 in Southampton, on Long Island, and raised in nearby Quogue. His father, Harvey, was a school principal and mayor of Quogue. His mother, Helen (Coller) Cooley, is a homemaker and also a furniture maker.

Mr. Cooley graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology from Cornell University and joined the staff of Bellport High School in 1956. In addition to biology, he teaches general science, ornithology, and earth science. , math and a course on horticulture and wild foods.