The Anthony Grassroots Environmental Prize was established in November of 1999, by environmental activist, Juliette Anthony. The Prize recognizes an outstanding example of grassroots environmental stewardship over the previous year.

Juliette Anthony
Ms. Anthony is a consummate environmental activist. She is currently doing legislative and regulatory consulting for Californians for Renewable Energy, the San Joaquin Valley Latino Environmental Advancement and Policy Committee (SJVLEAP), and the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative. She published an article entitled “Corn Ethanol: Unintended Consequences for California" in August of 2007. Originally it was published on the Indybay Media and Renewable Energy Access and now appears on 23 web publications.

She worked to prohibit a development in the Santa Monica Mountains which successfully resulted in the acquisition of the 2000 acre Ahmanson Ranch in 2005, and the 440 acre Soka University property (the former Gillette Ranch) in early 2005 for permanent dedicated open space.

Joining other activists she helped spearhead the effort to ban the use of the cancer-causing gasoline additive, MTBE. She has advocated for alternative energy since 1991 and has worked for Sun Power and Geothermal Energy.

Juliette has worked as a fundraiser, volunteer and board member of a number of environmental groups, including Heal the Bay, Coalition for Clean Air, the Marin Chapter of the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, and Communities for a Better Environment.

Her interest in economic justice led her to volunteer for many years at the Venice Family Clinic, Lieu-Cap Shelter for Women and Children in Venice, CA and CLARE Foundation. She was given two awards for Excellent Service by the Coalition for Clean Air and an Award for dedicated service at CLARE Foundation.

Prior to becoming an activist, Juliette was a Research Librarian at Harvard College Library, the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, the University of Virginia Library, and UCLA Theatre Arts Library. She also served as Film & Music Librarian at the Beverly Hills and Santa Monica Libraries.

In 1969, she was named to Who's Who in Library Science, and in 1974 to Who's Who of American Women. She holds an A.B from Sweet Briar College, an M.A. from Brown University (Honorary Scholar) and an M.S. from Simmons Graduate School of Library Science (H.W. Wilson Company Scholar).

Publications: Healing Words: Affirmations for Adult Children of Abusive Parents (Ballantine 1991); Joint compiler: Henry James, An Exhibition Catalogue (University of Virginia Library, 1965); Robert Frost: Commemorative Exhibition Catalogue honoring his Birth (University of Virginia Library, 1965).

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2008 Anthony Grassroots Prize Winners

The two winners of the 2008 Anthony Grassroots Prize are Vecinos Unidos, and Irma Arroyo of El Quinto Sol De America.  Both Vecinos Unidos and Quinto Sol will receive a $1,000 award from the Rose Foundation, which administers the Anthony Prize.

Vecinos Unidos
Vecinos Unidos was founded by residents of the Tulare County farming towns Cutler, Orosi and East Orosi to advocate for the basic human right of safe drinking water.  Vecinos Unidos began by securing commitments from the Orosi Public Utility District to provide translation services for the primarily Spanish-speaking community to allow them – for the first time – to participate in decisions fundamentally affecting their health.  Vecinos Unidos then began helping East Orosi residents press the East Orosi Community Service District (EOCSD) to respond to repeated notices of nitrate violations in the community’s drinking water.  In response, the EOCSD, which had not met in over a year, agreed to re-establish monthly meetings to hear community concerns about safe water; Vecinos Unidos then worked with the EOCSD to identify and apply for funding sources to access a new source of drinking water.  Recognizing that many farmworker communities faced similar problems of drinking water contaminated by pesticides and agricultural runoff, members of Unidos Vecinos helped to found La Asociación de Gente Unida por el Agua (AGUA), a regional grassroots coalition seeking systemic solutions to drinking water contamination problems. AGUA has been active throughout Tulare County in advocating for safe water, and has filed a lawsuit against the Regional Water Board seeking regulations that would require the valley’s 1,600 dairies to line the bottoms of wastewater treatment ponds and improve groundwater monitoring.

El Quinto Sol De America
Irma Arroyo founded Quinto Sol to work with local farmworker communities in Tulare County to express their voice through the universal language of art.  Whether working with children to paint murals showing how pollution impacts their lives, or helping families install drift catchers to monitor airborne pesticides, Ms. Arroyo has been tireless in helping local communities speak out for environmental justice.  Through her leadership on the Coordinating Council of AGUA, she has also helped mobilize community members to testify before the Regional Water Board to urge action to protect local drinking water supplies from severe health threats.

The Anthony Grassroots Prize was endowed by Juliette Anthony, a lifelong environmental activist who has received wide recognition for her work in protecting the Santa Monica Mountains, banning the toxic gasoline additive MTBE, promoting solar power, and publicizing the negative environmental impacts of ethanol.  “Vecinos Unidos and Quinto Sol are both outstanding examples of what can be achieved by organizing at the local level,” Ms. Anthony, the chair of the prize jury said.  “Both groups have set a model for many disenfranchised communities to follow in how to seize the initiative and force powerful interests to respond positively to local environmental health concerns.”

2007 Anthony Grassroots Prize

The winner of the 2007 Anthony Prize is Jim Brobeck of Chico, California.

As a result of the award, $500 grants will be made in Mr. Brobeck’s name to two organizations for which he devotes countless volunteer hours, the Lassen Forest Preservation Group and the Butte Environmental Council.

For many years, Mr. Brobeck has been at the forefront of community environmental stewardship in  Lassen, Tehama and Butte Counties.  As a volunteer with the Lassen Forest Preservation Group, he has donated countless hours helping to lead community participation in environmental reviews of forestry projects.  As a former firefighter in Butte County, he has brought his unique perspective to help disparate groups achieve consensus on difficult issues, especially around environmentally sustainable solutions to fire safety issues that impact rural communities.

Mr. Brobeck is also very active with the Butte Environmental Council and the Sacramento Valley Watershed Caucus helping local communities to monitor and model long-term groundwater trends – crucial knowledge that helps local citizens participate effectively in the sometimes contentious debate amongst water users, agricultural interests, water districts, environmental organizations and state officials.   Throughout 2006, he also hosted a weekly radio show called “Dialogues” on KZFR, presenting well-researched, informative and entertaining segments exploring local, regional and statewide topics.  In the midst of all this volunteer work, he also made time to advocate reduced pesticide use in the local schools, took personal responsibility for keeping Chico’s Bidwell Park clean, and helped raise his grandchildren – often taking his granddaughters home from school on his bike – his preferred means of transportation.

Prize Committee Chair Juliette Anthony, herself a lifelong grassroots environmental activist, explained the factors that led to this year’s Anthony Prize award, “We had a record number of deserving applicants, but just look at everything Jim Brobeck does. He’s a voice of reason who facilitates consensus amongst diverse interests on forestry and water issues.  He sets a personal example to the community by keeping the local park clean and commuting by bike or bus.  And then he finds time educate the school district about pesticide use.  The only thing I can’t figure out is how he finds time to sleep!”

2006 Anthony Prize Winner

The winner of the 2006 Anthony Prize, Dana Dillworth, has been tireless in boosting community involvement in Brisbane Baylands' redevelopment planning. Ms. Dillworth helped found CLEAN (Citizens' League for Environmental Action Now) 15 years ago to give the local community a voice in the proposed redevelopment of the Brisbane Baylands. She serves as Chair of the Brisbane Baylands Community Advisory Group - an advisory committee which Ms. Dillworth worked with CalEPA's Department of Toxic Substances Control to form in 2005 to solve historically poor outreach to adjacent low-income neighborhoods in San Francisco and Daly City. Because of Ms. Dillworth's advocacy, the process is now supervised by a diverse community-based board and public notification significantly exceeds minimum requirements, targeting a broad array of community, civic, environmental and homeowner groups. In addition to making sure there is full public notification about this complex and long-running redevelopment debate, she has been at the forefront of promoting economically sound sustainable redevelopment solutions including tertiary treatment wetlands, energy farms, zero-emissions vehicle zones and a Post-Carbon Conference Center.

2005 Anthony Prize Winners

In an unprecedented step, this year the Anthony Prize selected two recipients. Each recipient will receive the full $1,000 no-strings award. There was also an honorable mention that went to Friends of Franklin Canyon:

Sandra Meraz won the 2005 Anthony Prize for leading her hometown of Alpaugh's struggle for safe drinking water. A small, predominantly Hispanic farming town in Tulare County, Alpaugh's drinking water wells have been completely contaminated with arsenic. Initially volunteering as a translator, Ms. Meraz soon learned that the residents' pleas for help were falling on deaf ears no matter what language was spoken. The community elected Ms. Meraz to a seat on the local water board, and Ms. Meraz used her new position to petition for State assistance. She secured donations of bottled water from local businesses for the school and residents, and launched a campaign to drill a new well that would be free of contamination. With other volunteers, she spends two days every week in an unventilated steel container filling five gallon jugs for Alpaugh residents - providing a weekly ration of 25 gallon to each family, which is often their only clean drinking water.

Teresa DeAnda won the 2005 Anthony Prize for her leadership in helping her community, Earlimart, a small, predominantly Hispanic farming community in Kern County, respond to pesticide drift. The founder of El Comité Para el Bienestar de Earlimart, Ms. DeAnda led a successful community-based effort that resulted in the passage of new state law (SB 319 - Florez) that requires emergency response plans for pesticide drift accidents and makes violators responsible for community medical costs. Frequently arising before dawn, Ms. DeAnda organized busloads of witnesses from impacted communities to go to key legislative meetings in Sacramento - making sure that legislators saw the faces and heard the voices of hundreds of asthma sufferers and victims of pesticide drift.

The Anthony Prize Committee also singled out a nominee for honorable mention, Friends of Franklin Canyon in the San Francisco Bay Area community of Hercules, for leading a successful, all-volunteer initiative campaign that protected their community's last large tract of undeveloped land despite being outspent 10-1 by the developers. "They are living proof of the power of an organized community," said Ms. Anthony, "and a textbook example of how, with creativity, savvy and persistence, David can beat Goliath."

2004 Anthony Prize Winner

The winner of the 2004 Anthony Prize is San Joaquin County activist Sylvia Kothe. A long time community leader in the Stockton area, Ms. Kothe was awarded the Anthony Prize for building a broad-based community coalition that waged a successful grassroots campaign - opposed by the Stockton City Council - that gives the citizens of Stockton the final say in any water privatization contract. Since then, the organization chaired by Ms. Kothe, the Concerned Citizens Coalition of Stockton, has successfully defended the initiative against legal challenges and won a court ruling ordering the City to return the water supply to municipal control.

"Sylvia Kothe is on the cutting edge of a tremendously important national and international issue - the privatization of our drinking water," explains Anthony Prize Founder and Selection Committee Chair Juliette Anthony. "The struggle to preserve public access to water for all people has just begun, and Sylvia has demonstrated significant leadership in an issue that should concern us all. She has shown us how a group of committed, ordinary citizens can win, even against big money and an entrenched political machine."