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4 unusual facts about Art Cooley


Art Cooley

In the spring of 1966, Cooley was among the BTNRC activists who testified in favor of a class action lawsuit filed by Patchogue attorney Victor Yannacone against the Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission, seeking to force the commission to stop using the insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) in the local salt marshes.

Jonathan Cooley, Art's son from his previous marriage, is a paleontologist and expedition leader for National Geographic, as well as for family programs and camps.

The group won a temporary injunction from the New York Supreme Court in August 1966 banning the county's use of DDT, and the Mosquito Commission switched to using the organophosphate Abate (temefos) instead.

Carmans River

In 1967 Art Cooley, Bellport, New York school teacher, noting a decline in the osprey population on the river was one of the founders of the Environmental Defense Fund which was to lead the fight to ban DDT.



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