Green Will Receive Conservation Award

HUNTINGTON BEACH — City Councilman Peter M. Green has been selected to receive the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Award for outstanding achievement in preservation of natural resources, the White House announced Friday.

Green, who helped found the Amigos de Bolsa Chica to restore the Bolsa Chica wetlands, will receive the award Oct. 1 in a White House ceremony. He was nominated for the award, created in 1990, by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach).

“I’m overwhelmed,” he said. “Theodore Roosevelt, environmentally, was the greatest president. And to be mentioned with his name in the same sentence is a great honor.”

Green, one of 56 Americans to receive the conservation citation this year, is a professor at Golden West College and a past president of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, a coalition of environmental advocates, local elected officials and business leaders.

In 1988, his group participated in an agreement with officials of the state, county and city that allows residential development around the wetlands, including about 100 acres of the wetlands themselves. In return, any builder wanting to develop the site would be required to donate land and money to help restore other parts of the wetlands.

Green was first elected to the City Council in 1984 and served one term as mayor in 1990.