[Awclist] Fwd: Martin Litton, February 13, 1917 - November 30, 2014

[Tim Scofield]

Martin Litton was instrumental in the fight against the damming of the 
Grand Canyon

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	GCPBA RiverNews 12/2/14 - Martin Litton, February 13, 1917 - 
November 30, 2014
Date: 	Wed, 3 Dec 2014 18:47:33 +0000
From: 	GCPBA <newswire at gcpba.org>
To: 	timscofi5 at gmail.com



GCPBA RiverNews 12/2/14 - Martin Litton, February 13, 1917 - November 
30, 2014
GCPBA RiverNews 12/2/14 - Martin Litton, February 13, 1917 - November 
30, 2014
	
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GCPBA RiverNews 12/2/14 - Martin Litton, February 13, 1917 - November 
30, 2014

John Blaustein sent out the sad news about Martin Litton's passing, 
quietly in his sleep with his wife, Esther, at his side.  Some of us 
directly had our lives greatly impacted by this man. Because of what he 
and others successfully did to fight proposed dams in the Grand Canyon 
we have a river to run today.

Dave Mortenson

 From Ryan Cooper of The Week:

Conservationist Martin Litton, who kept dams out of the Grand Canyon, 
has died at 97.

Boatman, conservationist, businessman, journalist, and political 
activist Martin Litton passed away yesterday at his home in Palo Alto, 
California. He served as a glider pilot for the Army Air Corps in the 
Second World War, and later worked as a journalist for /Sunset/ magazine 
and the /Los Angeles Times/.

Environmental activism would become his lifelong passion. In 1955, he 
was the 185th recorded person to traverse the Colorado River through 
Grand Canyon, and still holds the record for oldest person to row 
himself down the river, from a 2004 trip he did at age 87. He also 
founded and operated his own river company, Grand Canyon Dories, which 
ran unconventional wooden boats.

He is best known for the political struggle in the 1960s over damming 
the Grand Canyon. Dams were one of the major vectors of pork-barrel 
politics in those days, and the Bureau of Reclamation had large 
hydroelectric dams planned at two points within the canyon. Together 
with David Brower, then-director of the Sierra Club, and other activists 
like Edward Abbey, Litton managed a successful political mobilization 
against the projects.


 From Dave Boyce of The Almanac:

Portola Valley environmental champion Martin Litton dies.

Martin Litton of Portola Valley, California, a World War II glider pilot 
and a writer for Sunset magazine, was a great friend to the natural 
world, working tirelessly to preserve its wonders.

Mr. Litton was instrumental, for example, in preventing construction of 
several dams in the American West, including in the Grand Canyon and at 
Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado, he told the Almanac for a 2012 
story. He also helped foil plans that would have put transmission towers 
through Portola Valley to provide electricity to the SLAC National 
Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, he said.

Someone else will now have to tell his stories. Mr. Litton died 
peacefully at his home on Bear Gulch Drive on Sunday, Nov. 30, according 
to his wife Esther. He was 97.

Mr. Litton came to the Peninsula in 1954 with Esther to take a job as 
travel editor for Sunset magazine in Menlo Park. He had acquired a 
reputation for nature writing with the Los Angeles Times and as an 
ardent defender of natural wonders. He also had a recommendation from 
David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth, Mr. Litton said.

After residing in Menlo Park for a year and Los Altos for four years, 
the Littons in 1959 moved to a steep four-acre parcel in Portola Valley 
and built a house on the one spot suitable for construction, a house in 
which they stayed and raised four children, he said in the Almanac 
interview.

It was Mr. Litton's idea to bring wooden dories to the Grand Canyon, and 
he owned a river-running business there for decades. A recent 
documentary of Mr. Litton's life shows him making the case against a 
Grand Canyon dam by familiarizing reporters with the thrill of wild 
river rides in wooden dories, according to Mr. Brower.

The group "Save our Skyline," of which he was a member, went to court in 
1965, and beat back a plan by the Atomic Energy Commission to run power 
lines to feed the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park. 
"They were going to come right through here," Mr. Litton told the 
Almanac, looking around Triangle Park at the corner of Alpine and 
Portola roads. "We beat them out of Portola Valley. They would have 
really been ruinous here."

Mr. Litton continued as a champion of the environment well into his 90s. 
Asked about climate change, he was pessimistic. "It's too late, too 
late," he said. "It's unbelievable that (the debate) has gone the way it 
has."

What should be done? "Stop multiplying right now," he said. A big part 
of the problem, he said, are religions that encourage large families and 
preach human subjugation of the Earth. "A lot of them aren't reachable 
because they don't care," he said. "They don't feel the problem in their 
individual lives."

"It's not a popular subject because it's unpleasant," he added. "People 
don't want to hear about it (but) who's kidding who. Global warming is 
here. The polar ice is breaking up." There used to be ice in his 
birdbath for three or four days every winter. No longer, he said.


John Blaustein:  This is a profound loss for all of us who knew and 
loved Martin.  He lived a long and incredibly full life, and we all will 
miss him. His legacy will live on!


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