In 1962, a biologist named Rachel Carson published a book called The Silent Spring, which examined the role humans play in modifying the natural environment, particularly through the use of wide-ranging pesticides like DDT. She said they were more properly called “biocides”, and their effects were not limited to the targeted pests; rather, they accumulate in the environment, and will eventually make pest problems worse by encouraging pesticide resistance in the insects and weakening the ecosystem in which they (and we) live. Additionally, she presented evidence that these chemicals were human carcinogens. Carson acknowledged the value of pesticides in controlling the vectors of human disease, and she did not advocate discontinuing their use. She recommended their judicious and minimal use integrated into a biological control program (Lytle, 2007).
Carson’s book provoked publicity and controversy. She was invited to testify before President Kennedy’s Scientific Advisory Committee in 1963. By 1967, the citizen group Environmental Defense Fund was bringing lawsuits to limit the use of DDT, and in 1972 it was removed from the market (Lytle, 2007).
Greenwich switched its mosquito program to insecticides of lower toxicity in 1966 (Annual Report 1966).
Carson’s book was one of the seminal documents of the growing environmental consciousness in American society. This led to the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1971 to enforce the strengthening of the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is a comprehensive Federal law regulating the discharge of pollutants into the air from both stationary and mobile sources. It sets standards for major air pollutants and required each state to achieve these standards by 1975 (History of Clean Air Act website). In Greenwich, air pollution had been a concern since 1962, when the Board of Health passed regulations concerning the use of private incinerators (Annual Report 1962).
The urban atmosphere is a far cry from a pristine mix of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide, but rather a witch’s brew of substances resulting from human transportation and manufacturing activity. Once thought to be the inevitable price tag of human development and progress, by the 1970s their concentration was having unacceptable effects on the quality of life. Sulfur from the combustion of petroleum fuels dissolved in water to form a weak solution of sulfuric acid, which fell to the earth as acid rain, eating away at metal and marble structures. Nitrogen dioxide, a deep red gas tinting the air, was another component of acid rain. Hydrocarbon molecules absorbed infrared radiation reflected from the earth’s surface and warmed the atmosphere, contributing to the climate change we see in the present day. One hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, can replace the iron atom in the hemoglobin molecule and reduce the capacity of blood to carry oxygen. Particulate matter- small solids from smoke suspended in the air- can penetrate deeply into lungs and cause asthma. Lead in the air (from fuel additives) can interfere with the neurological development of children. Ozone can cause chest pain and coughing (Atkins, 1987).
The Greenwich Department of Health Laboratory responded aggressively to this challenge. It had been re-established on a full time basis in 1966, and its director applied for funding under the Clean Air Act for an educational and source sampling program. One part of this program involved pumping air samples through fiber filters (on the roof of the Cos Cob Firehouse) and weighing them in the laboratory to determine particulate matter load. Results were reported to the state as part of a statewide air pollution monitoring system. Five monitoring stations were being maintained by 1968. The laboratory purchased electronic instrumentation to test the air, and it reported test results for sulfur oxides and airborne lead in 1970. It also obtained a carbon monoxide meter. By 1972 air pollution work occupied 37% of the lab’s time. The 1971 laboratory report noted an appreciable reduction in air pollution compared to 1966, due to the use of lower sulfur fuel and restrictions on open burning and apartment incinerators. However, this tended to be offset by an increase in automobile traffic. In 1974, the laboratory purchased a gas chromatograph, which allowed the testing of hydrocarbons (volatile organic compounds, or VOCs). The year 1975 was to be the Clean Air Act deadline for compliance for standards for particulates, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Greenwich, however, being designated an air pollution “hot spot”, was not expected to be in compliance by the deadline (Annual Report: 1966, 1972, 1974, 1975).
The reason for this was the presence of a major source of air pollution in town that showed no signs of abating. The New Haven Railroad ran through Greenwich and connected it to New York City. Its importance to Greenwich is shown by the fact that four of its stations are located in Greenwich, more than any other town in Connecticut. When the railroad was electrified in the early 20th century so that the locomotives could run through the access tunnels to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, a power plant was built on the shores of the Mianus River between Cos Cob and Riverside in Greenwich. It was a convenient location for coal barges to dock and supply the fuel for boilers which made steam to turn the generators that produced electricity to run the trains. The clouds of coal smoke produced by the plant were a major source of particulates and every class of air pollution molecule, and this had become unacceptable by the 1960s (Baisley, 1999). Soot from the plant settled on houses and boats, and residents were sometimes unable to open their windows because it was so thick (Greenwich Time, October 27, 1988). Unfortunately, the Penn Central Railroad, the successor to the New Haven Railroad, was facing bankruptcy and was unwilling to make the investment needed to remediate the problem (Baisley, 1999). In 1969, legal action was initiated by the Town of Greenwich and the Riverside Association, and hearings were conducted before the Connecticut State Public Utilities Commission. The laboratory, using air pollution microscopy techniques, identified particulate samples collected from various locations in Riverside and Cos Cob as originating at the plant, and these data were submitted as evidence. The issue continued on for years. In 1975, the laboratory director testified at a hearing held by the EPA, which ruled that Connecticut Transportation Authority facilities (i.e., the Cos Cob Power Plant) must comply with air pollution regulations (Annual Report, 1969, 1975). The laboratory continued to conduct surveys documenting emission violations in 1977. The plant was closed in 1986, but the presence of a large amount of asbestos in the plant meant that the problems on the banks of the Mianus River would continue until the plant was demolished in 1999 (Baisley, 1999).
Mianus Pond, an impoundment of the Mianus River created in 1925 to provide water for the Cos Cob Power plant (Greenwich Time, October 27, 1988), came under study at this time. The Greenwich Department of Health Laboratory had long been interested in monitoring the surface waters of Greenwich along the coast and inland. The laboratory conducted a survey of the Mianus River to identity and remediate pollution sources while World War II was still going on. In 1945 they extended this to the Byram River, and in 1957 this survey was repeated. A systematic program of monthly surface water monitoring was in place by the mid-1960s, in which the Mianus Pond, Byram River, and Tom’s Brook were monitored for bacteriological and chemical pollution. In the 1980s Mianus Pond was identified as a potential emergency water supply source by the EPA. Systematic monitoring of the public bathing beaches began at this time also (Annual Reports, 1944, 1945, 1957, 1966, 1981).
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 and the Clean Water Act of 1972 provided a basis to bring legal action against polluters who discharged wastes into public waters. The Greenwich Department of Health took action, based on data from the laboratory, against the GAF Corporation, a division of the American Felt Company, which was discharging waste into the Byram River. This situation had been occurring sporadically since 1919 (CT Health Bulletin, February 1919). This was finally resolved in 1973 (Annual Report, 1993).
Shell fishing- the harvesting of clams and oysters- had ceased in Greenwich due to the danger of contracting infections from the shellfish. Thirty-six cases of infectious hepatitis were traced to contaminated shellfish from Greenwich waters in 1961, prompting the Board of Health to forbid the taking of shellfish. The waters over the shellfish beds continued to be regularly monitored, however. In 1974, for example, the laboratory did the analysis for an FDA survey of the shellfish beds. Although they did not pass, there was a slow improvement over time. The beds were officially reopened for public shellfish harvesting in 1992 (Annual Reports, 1966, 1992).
The Greenwich Department of Health Laboratory was reorganized into a full time public health laboratory in 1966. Mr. H. Richard Hoopes became the director, working with an assistant. He stressed that the growing urbanization of the town resulted in a potential resurgence of sanitation problems and that the laboratory’s role was to detect these before they became serious. Mr. Hoopes resigned in 1970, to be replaced by Laura Morrison, who had been instrumental in the development of the air pollution program. Mrs. Morrison, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had been a laboratory technician with the chemical weapons division of the Army in World War II (Greenwich Time, 1999). During this period, the laboratory was staffed with a full time environmental chemist, a part time bacteriologist, a part time chemist, and summer workers. The laboratory was located in the Town Hall Annex, and was renovated in 1970. It moved to the new Town Hall in 1980 (Annual Reports: 1966, 1971, 1980).