George Ohleyer was a rancher in South Yuba City who served as president of the Anti-Debris Association for many years. He also founded the Sutter County Farmer newspaper and served on the Sutter County Board of Supervisors. Ohleyer Road in South Yuba City is named for him.

W. T. Ellis, Jr., for whom Ellis Lake was named, described Ohleyer in his autobiography Memories: My Seventy-Two Years in the Romantic County of Yuba, California as "a man of fine reputation and highly thought of in the two counties; he was the soul of honor and put in a great deal of his time on the efforts to protect the valley areas" from the debris dumped into rivers by hydraulic mining upstream.