Tackling Pollution

Earth, Wind, and Fire

Silent Spring, 1962

Failure to regulate or properly use pesticides

First discussion of cancer danger

Emblematic of new ideas of health and disease

Connection between govt., private profit, pollution

Four themes—all themes of environmentalism

Parallel between nuclear radiation & chemical pollutants

Pesticides as symptom of several modern fallacies

Replace chemical w/biological & natural controls

Focus on environmental dangers to health

Galvanized action

Johnson’s Environmental Actions

Great Society and pollution

Lady Bird Johnson

Highway beautification

Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall

The Quiet Crisis, 1963

Key role in environmental legislation

4 national parks, 6 national monuments, 8 national seashores, 9 national recreation areas, 20 national historic sites, 56 national wildlife refuges

Cleaning up the water

Congressional hearings, ’63–’65

Industry & states: no damper on growth

Water Quality Act of 1965

Water Pollution Control Administration

Set standards in states that had no letter of intent to do so

Grants for waste treatment plants

First federal water pollution control agency

Clean Waters Act of 1966

Allows “accidental” discharge of oil

Cleaning up the air

CA Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, ’61

Kennedy calls for federal air pollution control

Clean Air Act of 1963

Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine takes up the issue

4-day New York City inversion, 1966: 168 deaths

Air Quality Act of 1967

Requires state standards, like water act

Loopholes

High-sulfur coal states prevent sulfur standards

Auto companies prevent pollution control on cars

The Wilderness Act

Quandary of permanent protection

Congress, Forest Svc., Dept. of Agriculture?

Howard Zahniser, evangelist for wilderness

Begins after 1956 defeat of Echo Park dam

Proposed extensive system: 60 million acres

Bitterly fought by development interests

Passed 1964: 9 million acres

Triumph of passage

Wilderness system expanded since (now 109 million acres)

More Dam Battles

Floyd Dominy’s Pacific Southwest Water Plan

2 Grand Canyon dams: 93 & 53 mile long

Hearings 1965–6; President Johnson & Stewart Udall support

Brower’s Sierra Club ads in NY Times & Washington Post

IRS revokes tax-exempt status

Membership: 1966 39,000; 1971 135,000

Club movie, book Time and River Flowing

1967 dams withdrawn

Udall’s float trip through the Canyon