Marian Rose, 104, Bedford resident, scientist and longtime activist

Marian Rose

By JEFF MORRIS 

Marian H. Rose, Ph.D. of Bedford, a scientist and passionate advocate for environmental causes, died Aug. 20 after suffering a stroke.

Born Marian Heineman on Oct. 11, 1920, in Brussels, Belgium, to American parents, she had been a Bedford resident since 1973.

Rose was the founder, former president and president emeritus, and former board director of the Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition, protecting the watershed’s reservoirs. It later became the Community Watersheds Clean Water Coalition, protecting New York state watersheds.

She was a former member of the Bedford Conservation Board and the Bedford Wetlands Control Commission; former chair, Sierra Club Lower Hudson Group; former chair, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter Energy and Conservation Committee; former chair, Sierra Club Northeast Regional Conservation Committee; and former member of the Land Use/SEQRA Committee for Westchester County.

Rose earned her Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College in 1942, and her Master of Arts from Columbia University in 1944, both majoring in physics. She earned her doctorate at Harvard University in 1947. Her published research, “Kinetic Theory of Resistance in Rarefied Gases,” was an early attempt to fully calculate how much drag a satellite would undergo in orbiting the Earth. She recognized that slight drag from the very low density outer atmosphere would lead to a gradual spiraling in of the satellite.

She was engaged in early research for the Manhattan Project at Columbia in 1942-43. In 2022, during all the attention being paid to the film “Oppenheimer,” Rose described her Manhattan Project involvement as very “hush-hush.” She was the only woman on a team of about a dozen low-level scientists in a basement at Columbia working on separating isotopes of uranium, prior to Oppenheimer’s involvement. But as a student, she was in classes taught by Edward Teller and Enrico Fermi — and she recalled Albert Einstein being a family friend in Belgium, after he left Germany.

She was a teaching fellow in physics at Harvard in 1946-47; a physicist and senior research scientist at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU, 1953-1973; and a visiting fellow at Yale University, 1981-1992.

For most of her post-Ph.D. career, Rose concentrated on magnetically confined hydrogen fusion reactors. Hydrogen fusion, a still unrealized source of unlimited energy, involves fusing hydrogen into helium, with an enormous release of energy in the process. Her approach was to use intense magnetic fields to confine the hydrogen gas under the very high temperatures required to produce energy.

As a physicist, Rose believed that scientific research could prove how harmful chemicals pollute the environment. In her retirement she became an activist on behalf of  water protection and led, advised and supported grassroots environmental advocacy across the Hudson Valley, opposing environmentally destructive developments through educational outreach to municipal governments and communities. Her belief was that, in the long run, protecting the watershed not only was the right thing to do, but it made more sense to prevent water contamination rather than use expensive and energy intensive remediation afterwards. She also noted that large industrial treatment plants usually are built in poorer neighborhoods. She spearheaded the legal response to the Trump administration’s repeal of the Clean Water Rule.

After she founded the Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition in 1997, it grew to have 50 member groups from New York City, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Dutchess counties. It succeeded in eliminating or reducing footprints of many proposed developments that would have harmed wetlands, forests, reservoirs and unjustly impacted communities. In 2001, the group persuaded Gov. George Pataki to designate the East of Hudson Watershed as Critical Resource Waters, thereby subjecting proposed developments in the watershed to increased scrutiny and regulations. It later protected all New York state watersheds and wetlands from the perils of methane gas drilling and pipelines, and prevented gas drilling in New York state forests in perpetuity.

While still growing up in Europe, Rose protested during the Spanish Civil War against general and dictator Francisco Franco. She continued lending her support to causes she believed in, and was among those joining rallies in Mount Kisco against the actions and policies of President Donald Trump up until weeks before her death. “I’ve protested against fascism all my life,” she said.

In 1948 she married Simon Rose, a British army volunteer who became a major during World War II; he was a veteran of the North African and Italian liberation campaigns; and a senior attorney in London, England, and subsequently in New York. He died in 1981.

She led a family of four children, 10 grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren. Rose founded her own nonprofit, the Rose Family Foundation, dedicated to environmental causes. It continues today under the leadership of her children and grandchildren, who intend to carry on her legacy.

In 2020, on her 100th birthday, the town of Bedford issued a proclamation making Oct. 11, 2020 “Marian Rose Day,” saying, “Dr. Rose has had a substantial positive influence in protecting our environment” and calling her dedication to the environment “legendary.”

At the time, she said in her characteristic self-effacing way, “I don’t know why 100 is considered special.” She called 100 a boring number. And she said her greatest accomplishment was, “Choosing the right parents.”

On Sept. 17, state Assemblymember Chris Burdick issued a resolution in which he said, “I was fortunate to count Marian as a friend and wise advisor, from our days together on the Wetlands Control Commission, where she always followed her strong moral compass. Some 25 years later, when I became a member of the Assembly, I called on her often to discuss environmental initiatives and how we were working to move them forward.” He concluded, “Both as a duly elected member of the State Assembly of New York and as Marian’s friend, I recognize that it is not enough to say Marian H. Rose was a force of nature, not enough to say that she had a powerful impact on protecting water quality throughout the state, not enough to say that she was driven by the highest values and integrity I’ve ever seen, not enough to say that her enormous legacy will be a beacon of light for years to come. I will miss Marian terribly. The community will as well.”

The family is holding a private celebration of her life.