WEST MILFORD — Ella Filippone, the pioneering environmental advocate and preservationist who founded the Passaic River Coalition, died this week in Morristown. She was 78 years old.
Friends and associates remembered Filippone as both a warm soul and a shrewd tactician in matters of environmental protection.
“When you see those clean streams flowing into reservoirs and those beautiful mountains surrounding West Milford — that’s Ella’s legacy,” said N.J. Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel.
The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior, The Office of the Governor of N.J., and the American Water Resources all association awarded Filippone for excellence in environmental activism and education over the course of her career.
Filippone founded the Passaic River Coalition in 1970 to organize for the protection and mitigation of one of the most polluted waterways in the country.
As a major mission of the organization, she negotiated for the purchase of lands surrounding the river and its headwaters.
The coalition in 2012 purchased the 221-acre Stanford Tract in West Milford, protecting sensitive wetlands that flow into Belcher’s creek, a main waterway that empties into Greeenwood Lake.
“That was a biggie,” said friend and fellow environmental campaigner, Doris Aaronson. “It was zoned for 500 townhouses and a school at one point. For some reason West Milford had it pegged as a major area for development. It is now called Emerald Forest.”
Aaronson praised Filippone for her belief that preservation had the ability to bring benefits to all.
“Her view was broad,” she said. “She is always looking out for what would be environmentally good for large sections of the population.”
Her firm opposition helped stop a 1986 plan by the Army Corps of Engineers to build a massive 22 mile tunnel to channel water from Pompton Lakes to the Newark Bay to mitigate flooding on the Passaic.
“It would have cost $2.2 billion, and it wouldn’t have worked,” said Tittel, who joined Filippone in halting the project. “The real purpose was to redraw flood lines in places like Wayne so that development could expand, but it would have caused a huge plume of water that would’ve disturbed silt that had dioxin and PCBS.”
Tittel said that Filippone was a true activist who fought hard for meaningful environmental protections.
“There’s a saying in Iowa about a ham and eggs breakfast: the chicken was involved in the process, but the hog was committed,” said Tittel. “Ella and people like myself were activist. We were more willing to step on toes to get things done, while there are others more willing to be quiet and compromise.”
Though death of Filippone is loss to the environmental community in the state, Aaronson is working on an unlikely project to secure her friend’s legacy.
As part of a negotiation with the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, one of the last parcels of land Filippone received was 10-acre tract of wetlands that was unwanted for development.
“Her plan was, because it bordered Belchers Creek, it would be a very wonderful place for middle school and high school students to have an environmental lab,” Aaronson said. “She was glad to get it because it was a good spot for future environmental education.”
Aaronson, a trustee of the organization Skylands CLEAN, said one day she hopes to see that vision become a reality.