When the People Speak Up
When the People Speak Up Although the crisis of survival is man-made, the chances of survival and the achievement of a balance between man and nature are also in man's hands. Pollution and...
...2.35) A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold (Oxford University Press...
...1.95) The Hungry Planet, by Georg Borg-strom (Collier...
...they voted an amendment to their constitution that gave the state government new powers and responsibility to stop air and water pollution, end unnecessary noise, and protect wetlands, shorelines, and other priceless resources from reckless development and exploitation...
...The phosphorus count was down to almost a third of its previous levels...
...2.95) Famine—1975, by William and Paul Paddock (Little, Brown...
...The Editors...
...W. Norton...
...1.45) Moment in the Sun: A Report on the Deteriorating Quality of the American Environment, by Robert and Le-ona Rienow (Ballantine...
...Early this year, the massive Congressional, environmentalist, and citizen effort to prevent the park's destruction led to a White House-backed agreement with the Dade County Port Authority that a new, environmentally-safe site would be found for the big jetport, and that a pilot-training strip already constructed at the Everglades site would operate under environmental safeguards and would be abandoned when the new airport is put in operation...
...Because people acted in time, even if belatedly, Lake Washington is on the road to recovery...
...Congressional hearings pointed out the tragic irony of one taxpayer-supported project, the park, being threatened by another Federal aid project, the airport...
...95 cents) The Subversive Science: Essays Toward an Ecology of Man, edited by Paul Shepard and D. McKinley (Houghton Mifflin...
...Army Corps of Engineers "water conservation" project that threatens to choke off the vital natural water supply through the Everglades—is still unresolved...
...1.95) The Urban Prospect, by Lewis Mum-ford (Harcourt, Brace...
...But in 1968, the proponents were back at the legislature with the proposed constitutional change...
...The massive project was to occupy a thirty-nine square-mile site only six miles from the park...
...f The rapid increase in the use of throw-away bottles and cans has made scarce space in municipal dumps even scarcer...
...95 cents) Poisons in the Air, by Edward Edel-son and Fred Warshofsky (Pocket Books...
...95 cents) Air and Water Pollution, edited by Gerald Leinwand (Washington Square Press...
...6.95) Too Many...
...A study for the Department of the Interior pointed out the folly in graphic terms...
...Powerful interests are lobbying against the Commission's position, but the citizens who halted the real estate developers and the industrial demand for land fills realize that while they have won a major battle, the war to save the Bay still goes on...
...Concerned about the problem, University of Wisconsin students provided leadership in developing public support for a proposed city ordinance which, if enacted by the Madison City Council, would outlaw the use of all sorts of non-degradable containers— aluminum beer cans, non-returnable bottles, and the like...
...6.95) Population, Resources, Environment: Issues in Human Ecology, by Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich (W...
...1.95) The Population Bomb, by Paul R. Ehrlich (Ballantine...
...Foreword by Ralph Nader...
...But in New Orleans, environmentalists scored a victory last year...
...The Everglades In 1934, Congress established 1.4-million-acre Everglades National Park to be "protected in perpetuity" as a unique subtropical wilderness...
...The improvement in the lake seems incredible...
...The campaign was accompanied by full page newspaper advertisements that stimulated a letter writing campaign which the Senators and Congressmen—on the receiving end—said was unprecedented in its volume and intensity of protest...
...5.95) Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson (Fawcett...
...In last November's statewide general election, voters approved the amendment by five to one, the greatest margin for any constitutional change in the history of New York, and the amendment was adopted...
...Although local highway and planning agencies already had approved the route, the U.S...
...The Save San Francisco Bay Association was formed and with the support of thousands of citizens defeated the Berkeley Bay fill plan by making it a local election issue...
...1.45) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs (Vintage...
...16.50) Searchers at the Gulf, by Franklin Russell (W...
...It passed, and in 1969, it passed again, meeting New York's requirement of approval by two legislatures before submission to the people...
...Since 1850, more than forty per cent of the Bay has been filled for industry and homebuilding...
...A few years ago an Army Corps of Engineers' report disclosed that two-thirds of the Bay was less than twelve feet deep, and "susceptible to reclamation" or further filling, and that half of this area belonged to private owners or local governments...
...One Senator received 400 letters of support after a national television program mentioned him as being concerned about the situation...
...And at the national level, Senator Gaylord Nelson, Wisconsin Democrat, introduced a one paragraph amendment to the U.S...
...A four-year campaign by conservation organizations and millions of individuals persuaded Congress to reject both the Grand Canyon dams...
...A Study of Earth's Biological Limitations, by Georg Borg-strom (Macmillan...
...1.95) The Unclean Sky, by Louis J. Battan (Doubleday Anchor Books...
...Industrial development, for example, is causing Venice to sink into the sea and is corroding the surfaces of its ancient architectural treasures...
...95 cents) Ecotactics: The Sierra Club Handbook for Environment Activists...
...2.45) The City Is the Frontier, by Charles Abrams (Harper & Row...
...Secondary treatment of sewage does a poor job of removing the persistent phosphorus compounds that are rapidly increasing in our environment because of—among other things—heavy detergent use...
...There was influential opposition to the legislation but Association members turned out en masse at Sacramento when the bill was before the legislature, flooded lawmakers with petitions, letters, telephone calls, and telegrams...
...Then the city of Berkeley proposed to double its size by filling 2,000 acres of the Bay...
...Twenty million gallons a day, all treated at secondary (two stage) levels, were pouring into the twenty-two-mile long lake from the ten sewage plants servicing the Lake Washington area...
...What happened next was an inspiring example of the power of an angry citizenry when aroused by a ruthless assault upon the environment...
...In spite of pressure from the timber industry and Nixon Administration support, the logging bill was defeated be built in the area, that road construction would be halted and a new route sought, and that the board of trustees would be requested by the school administration to set aside the fifty-acre marsh and thirty surrounding acres as a natural preserve...
...The United States and every State shall guarantee that right...
...Department of Transportation supported the environmentalists' contention and denied Federal highway aid for the proposed riverfront expressway...
...Some inventive Oakland citizens mailed small bags of sand to their legislators with tags that read: "You'll wonder where the water went, if you fill the Bay with sediment...
...Planning big, the Miami area's Dade County Port Authority last year was scheduling construction of the world's largest airport—at a cost of $250-$300 million...
...The campaign began with efforts to elect delegates to the state's constitutional convention in 1967 who were committed to strong environmental provisions...
...National conservation groups formed an Everglades coalition, and in a skillful educational effort convinced public officials from Florida to the White House that the proposed airport site could not be tolerated...
...Pollution and destruction have been the trademarks of our lust for profit and growth, but in recent years there have been signs—slight, to be sure—that an enlightened populace, mobilized for political action, can halt if not reverse the poisoning of our environment...
...10) Population, Evolution, and Birth Control, edited by Garrett Hardin (W...
...95 cents) Pesticides and the Living Landscape, by Robert L. Rudd (University of Wisconsin Press...
...Other states—Illinois, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Maryland among them —are now embarked on similar efforts...
...H. Freeman...
...Although the suggested ordinance would not take effect for several years, discussion of this pioneer measure, which is likely to be proposed in other cities, could force bottlers, the packaging industry, and manufacturers of goods sold in non-degradable containers to step up the search for degradable materials...
...National Forests Environmentalists sometimes are startled by the nature of their allies on a given issue...
...When the People Speak Up Although the crisis of survival is man-made, the chances of survival and the achievement of a balance between man and nature are also in man's hands...
...1.65) The Last Landscape, by William H, Whyte (Doubleday Anchor Books...
...95 cents) Science and Survival, by Barry Commoner (Viking Compass...
...H. Freeman...
...95 cents) Chemical & Biological Warfare, by Seymour Hersh (Doubleday Anchor Books...
...Engineering studies pointed the way, and a comprehensive plan was adopted for a vast new treatment system that would direct all sewage away from the lake...
...In large part, the culprit was phosphorus, an element that can fertilize plants in a lake or river until the water is murky and stinking with recreation-destroying algae and other signs of decay...
...Thus a successful lobbying effort against passage of a bill to permit increased logging in national forests was led by the Sierra Club and included such diverse groups as the United Auto Workers, the Audubon Society—and the National Rifle Association, the nation's chief lobby against gun control laws...
...We have brought together below a few examples of modest success achieved by an aroused people confronted by environmental challenge...
...1) The Frail Ocean, by Wesley Marx (Ballantine...
...The Department of Transportation—without consulting Interior—had contributed nearly a million dollars toward construction of the airport...
...1.95) Our Plundered Planet, by Fairfield Osborn (Little, Brown...
...W. Norton...
...Pertinent Books Tn his prologue to The Population Bomb, written in 1968, Paul Ehr-lich warned that "we must take action to reverse the deterioration of our environment before population pressure permanently ruins our planet...
...8.95) Our Precarious Habitat, by Melvin A. Benarde (W...
...12.50...
...Far from it...
...When plans were announced for an expressway that would have plowed through the city's Vieux Carre, the historic French quarter, and separated it from the Mississippi River waterfront, they argued that the commercial benefits were far outweighed by the ugly mark the expressway would leave on the historic waterfront...
...Constitution in January that reads: "Every person has the inalienable right to a decent environment...
...The dams, backed by a powerful coalition of Southwest power and water interests, would have been a massive intrusion into the Grand Canyon, altering forever a natural area that has been held in awe by Americans for generations...
...A seventy-five-man committee was formed which quickly became the nucleus of a tremendous citizen push to clean up the lake...
...Here is an informal list of some of the pertinent books on the explosive issues of population, pollution, and the environment: Paperbacks The Environmental Handbook, edited by Garrett De Bell (Ballantine...
...The community became aware of the lake's deterioration in the early 1950s, but a decade later, pollution was still continuing to ravage this magnificent body of water...
...From this success, the Association went on to a broader approach...
...Given widespread support by citizens, such a right could well become a fundamental doctrine of the society within a few years and a part of the U.S...
...5.95) Streets for People: A Primer for Americans, by Bernard Rudofsky (Dou-bleday...
...On top of all this, the university president agreed to request the faculty senate to set up a standing committee on the university environment...
...Last summer there was only one serious algae infestation, which meant that people could swim again without being coated with slime...
...Grand Canyon Another threat to America's scarce wilderness—this time to the Grand Canyon—was halted in 1967 after a four-year national debate...
...But in an age where the most enduring mark of American "Progress" threatens to be a ravaged continent, the Everglades wilderness predictably faced a tenuous foothold in rapidly developing south Florida...
...It lined up some key leaders of the California legislature and with massive citizen support succeeded in getting a bill passed that created a Bay Conservation and Development Commission to explore ways of developing San Francisco Bay's maximum values without harming its scenic or recreational potential...
...The amendment failed that year along with the rest of the proposed new constitution...
...Since then, municipal bonds supported by the voters have financed construction of more than $140 million in treatment facilities...
...When the increasingly environment-sensitive public learned—through widespread press reports—of the danger to this world renowned park, outrage began to sweep the land...
...The Urgent Future: People, Housing, City, Region, by Albert Mayer (McGraw-Hill...
...But they do suggest that an organized, militant community can achieve a measure of success in its own area even as the larger struggle is fought out on the national and global fronts...
...The state legislature was prevailed upon, in 1957, to pass a bill that led to the establishment a year later of a metropolitan council with the power and the resources to tackle the problem...
...15) Our Natural World, edited by Hal Borland (J...
...95 cents) The Population Dilemma, edited by Philip M. Hauser (Spectrum...
...San Francisco Bay For more than a century man has been ravaging the San Francisco Bay area, a fifty-mile long chain of inland seas comprising one of the world's most beautiful regions, and one endowed with great natural resources...
...Bluntly put, the airport-associated air, water, and noise pollution, and the massive urban development the airport would bring would destroy the national park...
...Lake Washington Seattle's Lake Washington, a beautiful residential and recreation mecca for a growing metropolis, was gravely polluted until just a few years ago by, of all things, treated sewage...
...New York State Last year New York State citizens swept aside familiar arguments that environmental controls might cut into industry's profits, slow down highway building projects, or, in some way, alter the American way of Progress at Any Price...
...These examples are not intended to indicate that the struggle ahead will be an easy one...
...1.95) The Quiet Crisis, by Stewart L. Udall (Avon...
...And all oyer America, cultural pollution has replaced old and beautiful buildings with new and ugly ones—or with miles of freeways and acres of parking lots...
...The Commission's report, submitted in January 1969, declared that the Bay must not be considered "ordinary real estate" but must be protected as an asset belonging to the people of the area, state, and nation...
...In the 1950s and 1960s, one shoreline community after another announced plans to expand their land areas into the Bay...
...B. Lippincott...
...7.95) Water, Health and Society, edited by Gilbert White (Indiana University Press...
...In the late 1950s, the first step was taken toward what was to become a dramatic success in halting the destruction of Lake Washington...
...Pocket Books...
...Constitution...
...The issue was raised by a proposal to build two large hydroelectric dams on the stretch of the Colorado River that runs through the Grand Canyon in Northern Arizona...
...New Orleans Modern man not only scars the beauty of nature, he frequently mars or destroys the priceless cultural creations left him by his ancestors...
...A key provision of the law prohibits any new fill during the Commission's three-year study without a public hearing and Commission approval...
...Clark Kerr, wife of the then president of the University of California, and two friends enlisted the aid of the Sierra Club, the Save the Redwoods League, the Audubon Society, and other groups to save the Bay...
...1.95) The Meaning of the Twentieth Century, by Kenneth Boulding (Harper & Row...
...1.45) The Care of the Earth, by Russell Lord (Mentor...
...Houghton Mifflin...
...The metropolitan council will finish a year ahead of the ten-year deadline set for completion of the massive first stage of the cleanup...
...Recently, there were reports that, for the first time in years, one could see the lake bottom in sixteen to twenty feet of water...
...Another major danger to the park ¦—a U.S...
...75 cents) Hard Cover Since Silent Spring, by Frank Graham, Jr...
Vol. 34 • April 1970 • No. 4
