Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and Welfare before moving to Interior. Other environmental responsi-
bilities belonged to the AEC, the Food and Drug Administration, and the
Department of Agriculture. To bring order out of the confusion, President
Nixon created the new Environmental Protection Agency, using presiden-
tial authority to reorganize without going to Congress for permission. Its
unglamorous legal foundation is Reorganization Plan 3 of 1970. Nixon
wanted to avoid Congress because at that time both the Senate and the
House of Representatives were controlled by the Democratic Party. Even
though the issue enjoyed strong bipartisan support, he did not want to
expose himself to unnecessary complications and pressure.
Public participation was high. On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans
rallied in cities from New York to San Francisco to proclaim the first Earth
Day. The idea was the brainchild of Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson
of Wisconsin. Popular support for the environment had been growing
for several years. In January of the previous year, the Union Oil company
was drilling in the Pacific Ocean five miles of the coast of Santa Barbara,
California, when the casing blew out, and crude oil gushed out. Enough
escaped to cover 800 square miles of ocean, and coat the shore for 35 miles
with crude oil up to 8 inches thick. The public was outraged. Senator
Nelson decided this was the time to organize, copying the anti-Vietnam
War movement. He issued a call to action, and immediately thousands of
people volunteered to help. The Common Cause organization gave office
space, and Nelson recruited a Harvard student, Dennis Hayes, to head the
effort nationwide. In Coral Gables, Florida, citizens marched in front of an
electric utility carrying dead fish to call attention to the fish its plant had
killed. In New York City 100,000 people attended an ecology fair in Union
Square, and in Omaha, students paraded wearing gas masks. The holi-
day was an instant success and has been repeated ever since. Twenty years
later, 200 million people participated in 140 countries.
During the 1950s the environmental movement began to use public
rallies, marches, and picket lines. This was both spontaneous and copied
from the Civil Rights and the anti-war movements. In 1954 citizens from
Maryland and Washington, DC, had walked 184 miles on the towpath
of the old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal when they learned of plans to
pave it as a highway. The abandoned canal ran from Cumberland to
Georgetown. They found a prominent leader in Supreme Court Justice
William O. Douglas, who personally led “the blister brigade.” Four years
later Douglas organized a similar hike along a primitive section of beach
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