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Continuing the Promise of Earth Day (continued)
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New Protections and Newly Discovered Threats
Also remarkable is what happened in the years following Earth Day. President Richard Nixon established the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) eight months later. Congress passed a series of laws that regulated the introduction of pollutants into the nation's air and waterways, controlled the production of pesticides and other toxic substances, and required "cradle-to-grave" tracking of hazardous waste.
The 1970s have been called the "golden age" of environmentalism in the United States, but it was also a time when the nation first became aware of a serious threat to human health and the environment.
Love Canal, New York (August 7, 1978) -- President Jimmy
Carter declares a State of Emergency, freeing Federal funds
to move residents from this Niagara Falls community built
over and around a former landfill. In the 1940s and 1950s,
the landfill had been a dumping ground for tons of chemical
wastes, but the landfill had been closed and covered in 1953.
Through the 1960s, and increasingly in the 1970s, residents
reported odors and incidents of chemical residues seeping
into their basements and lawns. Later studies indicated that chemicals from the landfill had risen up along with the water table to contaminate surrounding land, as well as sewers, creeks, and the Niagara River. This contamination coincided with increased local cases of miscarriages, birth defects, respiratory ailments, and cancer. For example, a survey conducted by the Love Canal Homeowners Association found that 56% of the children born from 1974-1978 had a birth defect. |
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