Great Rivers Environmental Law Center Celebrates First Anniversary

For Immediate Release July 29, 2003
For More Information Contact:
Elsa Steward
Executive Director
(314) 231-4181 (w)
(314) 231-4184 (f)
esteward@greatriverslaw.org

(ST. LOUIS, MO) - Lewis Green founded Great Rivers Environmental Law Center in August 2002. Green fought for more than thirty years to protect the environment. He represented environmentalists, often without compensation, because St. Louis did not have a public-interest nonprofit environmental law center.

Lewis Green litigated on behalf of environmental organizations to enforce the environmental laws, particularly in the areas of air and water quality, open space, flood plains, wetlands, and forests.

Green recognized that he would not always be around to carry on the responsibility so he founded Great Rivers Environmental Law Center so that environmental organizations such as Sierra Club, or Audubon Society, would have an environmental law center to provide legal expertise to advance their missions to protect the environment.

Although Lewis Green would not have considered himself a fan of science fiction movies, he surely would have enjoyed Alec Guiness' character, Obe Wan Kenobi, a revered Jedi warrior, in the movie Star Wars--especially the scene in the movie where Obe Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness), most irreverently warns his adversary Darth Vader (a Jedi warrior who has fallen to the dark side) that his (Obe Wan Kenobi's) death will only make him more powerful than he can imagine.

On May 16, St. Louis lost its staunchest environmental legal warrior-or did it?

Great Rivers Environmental Law Center is a public-interest nonprofit environmental law center dedicated to protecting the public health and preserving the environment.