As October begins this week, the first of many 50th environmental anniversaries is soon to take place. It’s a good time to remember — and celebrate where possible.
Less than four months after Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River infamously caught fire on June 22, 1969, Michigan’s Rouge River broke out in flames in October 1969. “The oil-matted Rouge River in Detroit caught fire, shooting flames 50 feet in the air and sending smoke billowing near the I-75 highway bridge,” a signal of environmental abuse chronicled by John Hartig in his book, Burning Rivers: Revival of Four Industrial Rivers that Caught Fire. The environmental crisis had come home to what tourism promoters called the Water Wonderland.
The Rouge fire attracted relatively little attention, but Michiganders sat up and took notice when, in the spring of 1970, the discovery of toxic mercury shut down the Lake St. Clair fishery. And there are numerous other golden anniversaries for Michigan’s environment.
1970 was the year Governor William Milliken proposed an ambitious list of environmental reforms in his January State of the State message.
1970 was the year of the first Earth Day — April 22, 1970 — and students at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor jumped out front of the nation with an Environmental Teach-In.
1970 was the year when, under heavy public pressure, the Michigan Legislature passed the Michigan Environmental Protection Act.
1970 was the year the Michigan Legislature passed a “truth-in-pollution” law and the Great Lakes Shorelands Act.
1970 was the year Congress enacted the authorizing legislation for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
1970 was also the year the National Environmental Policy Act took effect and the US EPA was created.
We’ve come a long way in 50 years, but we have a long way to go. A remarkable percentage of Michigan’s waters don’t meet Clean Water Act standards, and pockets of unacceptable air pollution persist. There are contamination advisories for fish on every Great Lake, 6,000 orphan contamination sites in Michigan, the threat of the Line 5 pipeline, exploitation of the public’s water for private profit. We still have not learned to put water and the environment on which we depend ahead of the profits that depend on environmental exploitation.
Let’s celebrate all the good that happened in 1970 on its 50th anniversary — but let’s not forget we’re only about halfway home.