PUEBLO – Ross Vincent, an environmentalist who worked in Colorado and Louisiana for decades, has died. He was 75.

Vincent, the face of the Pueblo area Sierra Club, died Saturday of cancer at a hospice, a newspaper reported.

“He is already missed and will be for a long time to come,” the Sierra Club’s Sangre de Cristo Group said on its Facebook page.

Vincent, who studied chemical engineering in graduate school, fought battles over pollution during two decades in New Orleans before moving to Pueblo with his wife, Dr. Velma Campbell, in 1988, The Pueblo Chieftain reported .

The move was acknowledged as a loss to Louisiana in an editorial in The Times-Picayune.

“I think Ross thought he’d moved to Colorado to relax, only to discover we needed him here, too,” Sierra Club colleague David Cockrell said.

In southern Colorado, Vincent is credited with helping stop the Army from using old-fashioned incinerators to destroy mustard agent weapons at the Pueblo Chemical Depot, working to limit pollution from Pueblo’s newest coal-fired power plant and using the Sierra Club’s clout to fight the Army’s planned expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site.

“I’m devastated,” Pueblo County Commissioner Terry Hart said. “I don’t think most people know how lucky we were to have Ross on our side, the public’s side. He was incredibly intelligent and determined and never sought any attention for himself.”

In the past few months of his life, Vincent continued to serve on the citizen advisory committees for the Pueblo Chemical Depot and the Colorado Smelter Superfund site in Pueblo.