Recreation needs in the 1960s became a motivating rationale for pollution control policy

Evidence

By the early 1960s, a number of experts had concluded that the effort to preserve open space for recreational use forced a reckoning with the problem of water pollution. “Although few surveys have been made of waters available for recreation,” a technical report to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission argued in 1962, “widespread evidence indicates that water pollution is diminishing the number of recreation waters.” Untreated sewage and industrial wastes often made rivers and lakes unsuitable for boating and swimming. By killing fish and waterfowl, pollution also destroyed opportunities for sport fishing and hunting. Even the banks of rivers could be ruined for recreation by noxious odors and unsightly scums. Accordingly, the commission’s final report argued, recreational needs should be “a motivating purpose” in the fight for “pollution control.” By 1964, the commission’s argument had persuaded a cabinet-level committee of federal officials. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 547

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Parks are society’s best hope for teaching fruitful use of leisure — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 608; Groundwater contamination was reframed as a conservation problem in the early 1960s — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 409