1920 – 1940 enviormental laws and statutes

1. 1920 – 1940enviormental laws and statutes By- Evin Calderon AP Enviormental Science Academy

2. 1920 - 1921 • 1920 - US Water Power Act authorizes federal hydroelectric projects. • They realized that hydroelectric power is better for us than depending on natural oil. • 1921 - Thomas Midgley of General Motors demonstrates car powered by 30 percent alcohol-gasoline blend at Indianapolis SAE meeting. • When we first started using gas to power our automobiles. • 1921 -General Motors researchers discover tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock gasoline additive. Despite strong private warnings about its danger, and a secret Public Health Service inquiry, the new gasoline goes on sale without safety tests 14 months after it was invented.

3. 1922 - 1924 • National Coast Anti Pollution League formed in Atlantic City, New Jersey to stop oil dumping. Elected as president is Gifford Pinchot. • In support of the National Coast Anti-Pollution League, the Philadelphia Ledger writes of a time when fish were common in the Delaware River: (next slide) • 1924 - Five refinery workers die at Standard Oil refinery making tetraethyl lead gasoline additive. News then surfaces that seven other workers died previously at G.M. and DuPont plants. New York and other cities and states ban leaded gasoline. In all, 17 workers would die.

4. "How any sane person deliberately go into such black and vile-looking water? ... [Only twenty years ago] the haul of the shad net brings that thrilling moment when the encircled fish break water and the whole surface inclosed in the arc of bobbing corks suddenly bursts into silver flame as a hundred fine big fellows leap and churn in a last desperate effort ... There's a lot more than sentiment in such reminiscences as these... They mean happiness and health in an age when the tendency is to sleep away from the turmoil and the 'twice breathed air' of the city... The lack of such things means millions of dollars in good, hard cash, to say nothing of the less material considerations. Philadelphia, of all cities, should support the Anti-Pollution League and should welcome the election of Gifford Pinchot to its presidency."

5. 1933-1937 • 1933 - Dust Bowl storms begin in the Midwest. • 1934 - Francis Perkins established the Division of Labor Standards, which later becomes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. • 1937 - The term "greenhouse effect" is coined by Glen Thomas Trewartha

6. Refrence page • http://www.runet.edu/~wkovarik/envhist/6twenties.html