1948 - Environment

Environment

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act signed into law by President Truman June 30 authorizes the surgeon general of the U.S. Public Health Service to develop a program in cooperation with state and local agencies that will reduce pollution of interstate waters and improve the sanitary condition of both surface and underground water. Congress will amend the law many times in years to come (see 1972).

A yellowish killer smog on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh in late October affects 43 percent of the 14,000 residents of Donora, Pa. Sulfur from burning coal in the blast furnaces and zinc works at the American Steel & Wire Co. combines with dampness in the air to produce sulfuric acid that causes headache, nausea, vomiting, and irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat; 22 die within a few days, and United States Steel closes down its American Steel & Wire mills at Donora, turning the place into a virtual ghost town.

Our Plundered Planet by Princeton, N.J.-born New York Zoological Society president (Henry) Fairfield Osborn, 51, expresses concern about the growing use of DDT (see 1943; Carson, 1962).