Suburban pollution protests produced the major federal water laws of 1965-74.

Evidence

Over the course of a decade, from 1965 to 1974, Congress passed a series of major water-pollution measures. The first – the Water Quality Act – sought to ensure the fitness of surface waters for municipal, industrial, and recreational uses. In 1972, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act promised “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.” For the first time, Americans accepted responsibility for reducing the impact of pollution on the nonhuman life of rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. Two years later, the government made a commitment to protect underground sources of drinking water. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 423

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off the polyad’s central question: how a land-use pattern generates institutional/legal responses — connecting to the LGST course on legal institutions and justice. — connects to: Suburban septic tanks threatened to reverse a century of urban sewer reform — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 389; Planners used septic failures to argue for metropolitan growth control — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 394; Suburban septic-tank threats converted water pollution from local into national policy. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 421 (+1 more)