Today is the 50th Earth Day observance. It started in 1970 when Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson came up with the idea for a national day to focus on the environment after Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, in 1969.
According to the Earth Day website, in the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, Americans were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Until this point, mainstream America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health.
Local Earth Day Spokesperson Angela Quast who is with Washington’s Wastewater Treatment Department, says fifty years ago was a time when the awareness started..
A very successful Earth Day celebration took place locally last year at East Side Park in Washington. Because of the pandemic, this year’s event had to be cancelled. But, Quast says there is always something we can do to make the earth cleaner and it starts in our own neighborhoods..
You can hear more from Quast this weekend on WAMW’s Focus on the Community program.
