Lee Botts

Leila (Lee) Carman Botts (February 28, 1928 – October 5, 2019) was an American environmentalist known primarily for her work related to conservation and restoration of the Great Lakes.

She founded two non-profit organizations, directed a subagency of the U.S. Department of the Interior in the administration of President Jimmy Carter, authored or co-authored a number of books and reports on environmental issues, served in the administration of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, and co-produced a documentary film called Shifting Sands: On the Path to Sustainability, on the history of the Indiana Dunes region.

She grew up in the heart of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, describing it as a formative experience; growing up around her grandparents' wheat farm.

Working as a researcher, journalists, editor, advocate and consultant using her roles to enhance protection and preservation of the Great Lakes.

[5][6] Botts started off her career writing a garden column for the weekly Hyde Park Herald in Chicago in the 1950s, becoming the paper's editor-in-chief in the 1960s, the Post-Tribune previously reported.

Within the wave of new interest in environmental issues in the U.S. during that period, the Federation was the first independent citizens' organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of a specific Great Lake.

The new organization persuaded Mayor Richard J. Daley to have Chicago become the first Great Lakes city to ban phosphates in laundry detergents, led U.S. advocacy for the first binational Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (1972), was a key advocate for the landmark federal Clean Water Act of 1972, and played a key role in persuading Congress to ban PCBs via the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act.

[10] Later, she led a workshop on citizen participation in Kyiv, Ukraine; and helped organize a conference in Tartu, Estonia, on watershed management for government officials, environmentalists and academic experts.

The film, which depicts the natural history, the course of industrial development, and subsequent environmental restoration in the northwest Indiana dunes and surrounding region, has been shown on dozens of PBS stations and was nominated for a Midwest Emmy Award.

[16] Botts collaborated on that film with producer and director Pat Wisniewski, co-director and co-writer of the award-winning 2013 documentary about the great Kankakee marsh, Everglades of the North.

[18] In 2008 more than 200 colleagues, family and friends gathered in downtown Chicago for an 80th birthday celebration event to benefit the Alliance for the Great Lakes.