ENVIRONMENTAL PRESERVATION
It could be argued that the inception of environmental protection in the US took root in the 1960s with the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. She documented the effect of pesticides on the shells of bald eagle eggs. The combination of this publication with high profile environmental disasters throughout the 1960s ultimately lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. As un undergraduate student in the mid-1970s, I personally witnessed the impact of untreated wastewater on a freshwater river. As a technician for the US Geological Survey during summer breaks from college, I traveled the State of Connecticut recording water discharge rates from rivers and streams. One particular measurement location was downstream from a tire manufacturing facility. I discovered that the banks of the river were coated with a black rubbery material. Nearly 50 years later its difficult for Americans to fathom the range of aquatic pollution that was accepted as the norm prior to the establishment of the USEPA. If the photos in the gallery below are any indication, environmental protection has been a resounding success story and is now an accepted part of our modern life that provides us with benefits beyond description. Frank Doherty.
