Environmental Efforts in the 70's

Environmental disasters such as the Cuyahoga River suddenly bursting into flames, acid rain, the Love Canal incident, and the Three Mile Island accident prompted people to become more aware of the state the environment was in and wanting to improve it. The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, and millions of Americans took the day to clean up rivers and parks or held marches to promote awareness. The EPA was made after Earth Day, and it was an important part of the policies that would be made to protect the environment. For example, the Clean Water Act of 1972, which regulated the amount of sewage and pollutants that made its way into waterways, was made after the Cuyahoga River incident. The EPA was able to oversee the quality of public drinking water two years later with the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Love Canal incident, where the community of Love Canal found that their higher rates of cancer and birth defects were due to a chemical waste dump below them, prompted the government to make laws forcing companies to clean their toxic waste dump areas after it became a big media event. After the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station had a partial meltdown and released some radioactive gas, Americans stopped trusting the reliability of nuclear power plants. This led to the end of new nuclear plants being constructed in the United States. All of these events boosted membership in environmental groups, such as the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, and the creation of new ones like the Zero Population Growth, which wanted to decreases the population growth in order to decrease environmental destruction.