Environmental‐Impact Assessment for Plant Design and Operation
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The 1970s may become the decade of the environment. Congressional passage of PL 91-190, the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), which was signed by President Nixon on Jan. 1, 1970, was a signal for the ensuing decade. Implementation of the act culminated many years of effort to cause a public awareness of the national value of a goodquality environment. The fact that some features of a poorquality environmente.g., smog, DDT, and mercurythreaten sickness and death has undoubtedly accelerated action in the environmental decade. The first two years of the decade have generally been successful. The act has caused the US to cross from environmental study and speculation to environmental action. After two years the act is stimulating a change in governmental processes, especially those of federal agencies that sponsor actions potentially destructive to man's environment. (One may wish to exclude the Dept. of Defense.) Consideration for environmental quality has always been subservient to other goals or economic "necessities." Realistically speaking, this attitude will continue to a degree, but it shall be tempered with a factual analysis of the situation. Quite obviously years of tradition can't be replaced by unproved policy; an ability to achieve some environmental goals is based on economic growth, which must continue. Historically, one may look back and find that environmental concerns were there, but they were subjugated by suppositional needs to achieve "progress" or to protect certain economic interests. One common philosophy holds that economic and resource exploitations are essential in order to transmute from an undeveloped to an industrial nation. In Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People, the enemy was the village doctor, who announced that tannery wastes entering the water supply of the local spa (the source of income) were dangerous to people who drank and bathed in the water. Even the thought of pollution was damaging to business.