thumbnail of Pollution explosion; 7
Transcript
Hide -
If this transcript has significant errors that should be corrected, let us know, so we can add it to FIX IT+
National Educational radio presents the following program in cooperation with a group w o the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. Let's not. Just be just. Everybody know the human race. Coal. Cars provide cars. Now. Group W the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company presents the pollution
explosion a 10 part study of the rising tide of air and water pollution in America. Your commentator is John. Every day you breathe the noxious chemicals like sulfur dioxide Benza pirating carbon monoxide Ackerley and and enough sun and to turn your lungs black instead of the healthy pink that's supposed to be. If you've had your fill of polluted air send your name and address to citizens for clean air. Box 1 million Grand Central Station New York. Something can be done about pollute. I'm John Daly. Yes something can be done about air pollution and water and land pollution also in the last decade America has finally awakened to this fact and realized that not only can something be done but it must be done. If breathable air usable
water and productive and attractive land are to be preserved the dangers of air pollution were perceived later than those of water pollution. Consequently the fight against dirty air has not yet caught up with the clean water programs the clean air movement however is growing rapidly. As Mrs. B brand Conn. Hi I'm president of the New York City citizens for clean air argues. We have found through informal surveys and through surveys and and. The small areas that air pollution ranks as one of the top three concerns of urban dwellers. Air pollution is not something which affects only penthouse dwellers and people with expensive draperies. Air pollution is something which
unfortunately in most areas damages those people who are least able to afford the economic cost much more heavily. One of the major difficulties in emphasising the health dangers of air pollution to the public has been the lack of definitive medical proof. But U.S. and state public health officials say there is enough evidence now to necessitate immediate action. One problem is the immediate end of ferrets with well-being. Dr. Lester Breslow Director of Public Health for the state of California as he spoke to the Air Pollution Control Association last June. If we accept the World Health Organization definition and most of us now do. Well-being is an important aspect of health. Air pollution interferes with that. Therefore that's the first problem. Secondly air pollution presents the possibility of long term adverse
effects. We know that there are very subtle changes that take place in the various tissues of the lungs and other organs that are affected by air pollutants while these are yet not very well understood. We are gaining more knowledge of them and here again is a problem presented by air pollution. And finally we have the ever present threat. Which we don't understand very well of acute emergencies which have taken place in certain parts of the world including this country in the past. And as long as we have air pollution so little understood and so little controlled we have this as a possible adverse effect a health problem. Many of the bags open air pollution are visible and others are subtle and insidious. Taken together the effects of air pollution are felt directly or indirectly in almost every fiber of our national fabric today said Gen. General William
Stewart also speaking to the Air Pollution Control Association. Air pollution interferes with sometimes and perils of transportation in the air and on the highway. Its soils corrodes or otherwise damages material goods of all varieties from skyscrapers to nylon hose from the guttering on the House to the suspension bridge linking two cities. The damage is not limited to cities and towns. Air pollution affects forests and farm plans alike. It causes hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to agricultural crops each year. It contributes to the burden of all regions of the country. Economic damages of property are billions of dollars. Attempts at smoke control programs in the United States go back to the heyday of the industrial era. A smoke control district was set up in Boston in
1910 and St. Louis in Pittsburgh among others made 19th century efforts to control the black billowing smoke that turned day into night. But no ordinances were effective. As Dr. Edward white lime now president emeritus of Pittsburgh's famous Mellon Institute recalls that time everybody had a feeling that prosperity depended upon small and everybody we had had to have and that was the whole attitude of the people in Pittsburgh get anything out of the place. And of course. Homeowner if he did anything to cause him lemonade smoke he's out of office so that I can give you some of that on the whole situation. Smoke that's four
years before. But as I've said time and again it took me 40 years to get it out of politics I'm five years clean and in New York City the prosperity attitude prevailed prior to World War Two. Former Air Pollution commissioner Arthur Ben lyne tells of the LaGuardia administration preceding the war may not be and never would believe that smoke or air pollution was anything to be concerned about. As a matter of fact and specifically he used to say that during the Depression when the factory chimneys were not smoking this was a terrible situation and nothing pleasing gladdened his heart more than to see a nice big smoking factory chimneys which was indicative to him push parity. However the old American custom of passing a law then hoping the problem it was supposed to cure would just go quietly away was never quite as evident as in the 19th century. Pittsburgh Dr wide Lyme recounts how the city council passed smoke control ordinances in the late
eighteen hundred for which neither the technology nor the will for implementation existed. Hardness it was ever passed a clean smoke out of Pittsburgh this fast in 1900 for then the past and I mean I guess an eighteen hundred sixty nine ol emanation on small but the one in 1869 was rather interesting because it read no bituminous coal or wood shall be used in an engine or any locomotive employed in conducting cranes by any railroad. Now that is typical of the type of things that are put on it's impossible in Pittsburgh smoke abatement was the only concern of those early air pollution control efforts. Since they were ineffectual the city's very name became a word for dirty unhealthy air in the 1930s. Pittsburgh like St. Louis. Another smoke lighted city took a good hard look at itself and recalled in horror from a picture of a
dying community park each mountain known fondly as the sparkplug of the Pittsburgh Renaissance still remembers how bad the diagnosis was. I was very conscious. I think as I. First studied the problem that Pittsburgh was. Was on the decline. I think I was her constant. That's right I was a pretty dirty city. I like a lot of people I found something had to be done pretty well want to efforts to control air pollution never got off the ground however industry and the low income household were still too blind to the problem. And when will it want to came along it pushed all ideas of air water or land pollution cleanup way into the background. Although Pittsburgh's modern smoke control ordinance was actually passed in 1041 It wasn't until 1946 that enforcement and Pittsburgh's remarkable job of pulling itself up by its bootstraps began. A planning and a coordinating group called the Allegheny conference
plus the technologists of the Mellon Institute planned the renaissance and a frightened citizenry co-operated smoke control legislation was finally considered important enough to be placed above political partisanship and the eventual result was a new Pittsburgh sparkling in the sun its residents hadn't seen clearly for almost a century. How much has all this cost over the 20 years since the program was initiated. Edward Stockton head of Pittsburgh Air Pollution Control Bureau has the figures as a part of the ordinance requiring the purchase of another. More i.e. more expensive coal. Plus the fact that gas then became readily available and it became much more convenient and less expensive to install gas and so homeowners invested in the order of 82 million dollars to convert from coal to gas. The steel companies have invested to date over 48 million dollars in cleaning devices.
The electric power companies have invested something over 10 million dollars in cleaning devices. The cement plants have spent over 6 million dollars. Other industry has spent over a million dollars. One of the major changes it was made occurred when the railroads changed from fuel coal fired locomotives to diesels. This required an investment of two hundred million dollars in the steamship line down on the river converted over to diesels and they've invested in. Good of 12 million dollars. All this adds up to something over three hundred sixty. Million dollars that have been spent since this program really went into high gear. And that does not include the cost of maintaining these facilities it's run somewhere in a neighborhood of 16 million dollars a year just to maintain it. As some studies are made back about that time indicated it was costing each person in the neighborhood of $65 a year for cleaning and great clothing etc..
Certainly this has been reduced the first year costs were the heaviest to the homeowners. It was a hard winter. People complained and a lot of policing was necessary. Soon however people realized what dirty air had been costing them and how much they were now saving in everyday bills again. Edward Stockton has some studies that were made back about that period of time indicated it was costing. Each person in a neighborhood of $65 a year for cleaning and great clothing etc.. Certainly this has been reduced. Nobody has to carry an extra shirt to work afternoon meeting anymore such as they used to do. The housewives don't have to clean up the spills every day like they used to do. So there's definitely been a change. I don't know what the cost would be today but certainly there's been a major reduction in this cost in the last analysis. The power of the United Community saved Pittsburgh the same
power that energised smog controls in Los Angeles in the early 50s. And just last spring began the job of controlling New York City's air pollution. Pittsburgh Dr. wide lime makes a strong point of this citizen cooperation. It was no use to go ahead in any development program of any time. If we didn't have 100 percent cooperation in the whole thing had to be taken out. There was an end to bad arguments and put it on the books unless you got the people back into the community. How effective in actual tonnage reduction has the smoke control ordinance been. Here is Edward Stockton again with the figures to date. We estimated that the potential emissions from fire plants steel process. Says open our Selectric boundaries and so on this includes both gases can
articulate matter amounted to something like nine hundred thirty three thousand tonnes per year. We're collecting over 500000 of that right now. But we estimate that there's something in the neighborhood of four hundred thirty three thousand tons still being emitted into the atmosphere. A major part of this remainder is gases sulfur dioxide from a Cope making process and this is being studied and analyzed in further than at major plant that we have the largest one in the world here is almost where they expect to be done this year with a new facility which will cost in the order. 100 million dollars which will take out most of that sulfur compound sulfur dioxide probably a barge load of sulfur per day. Something in that order. So a major part of even this problem will be taken care of pilot by the end of this year.
And so Pittsburgh a city in a desperate plight has made its air breathable again. And in the process rejuvenated the entire community. So good is the 1946 code. Today more than 20 years later it is still effective without changes. And by 1970 all local industries will have complied with its regulations under a current 10 year agreement. Yes through the White House. When you live in these small bits as Alan Sherman so cleverly points out Californians especially those living in or near Los Angeles have been affected by another type of air pollution. Once caused as much by pure physical location as by anything else as black smoke was synonymous with Pittsburgh. So has smog come to mean the Los Angeles basin. It's a condition so familiar to
Californians that most of them can rattle off its claws as quickly as most of us can say the alphabet. Governor Brown has one of the simplest explanations. The sunshine chemical changes the pollutants in the chemical. Only the air stretching over the Pacific from the Hawaiian Islands acts as a lid trapping these poisons in the cooler air below. And some Los Angelenos sit in their beautiful sunny valleys with tea is streaming down their faces from the smog that's trapped in their famous canyons out of absolute necessity. When smog became Los Angeles is number one problem in the late 40s and early 50s. California launched its control program one which is still held up as a model to all other states by 1947. The state had authorized the formation of county control districts ensuring one set of regulations for each
county. As Robert boss of the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control Board recalls Los Angeles county district of alarm and mediately thereafter and under the control of what we call stationary sources that is now moving sources. Right of the state it south got into the air pollution field and took over the automotive sources. The air pollution control district in Los Angeles county covers an area this county of about 4000 square miles. And the largest part of our population is concentrated in some twelve hundred square miles that we call the Los Angeles basin. That's the area between the mountains and the sea. The river in the county there are about seven million people and this is the most populous county in the United States right in our area we have about 20000 industrial units. These are
industries of one sort or another which are pretty substantial screw up. In addition we constitute the third largest free dining complex in the country. We have a tremendous petroleum industry here. We have a tremendous automobile a population of nearly 4 million vehicles. We have metallurgical industries here. We have a large frontage you're fabricating industry. We have the petrochemical industry. We have many of the types of operation that elsewhere are looked upon as being very difficult. Air pollution control problems. Today. We're getting near two decades of existence for this district now. We have run under control through the various measures and we've instituted about five thousand tons of pollution every day and
being kept out of the air. The California counties with the big stick of criminal sanctions to wield over industries head have had fairly good cooperation from the big manufacturers. Kaiser Steel in Fontana is one of the most farsighted. John H Smith Kaiser recalls that the company incorporated some air pollution control devices into their plants as early as 1942. Long before the state required them being in the midst of an agricultural section some twenty nine thousand acres of citrus and 26000 acres of grapes it was necessary that they take air pollution controls to prevent damage to the crops in that area. And I also want to be is Mr. geyser said a good neighbor. Now. At that time he instructed his chief engineer to incorporate all the air pollution control devices that were practicable at that
time as controls became available they then were incorporated. Kaiser Steel is most active in industry efforts at air pollution control and the success of the company is an excellent answer to manufacturers who still complain that the expensive pollution controls will ruin them through persuasion and enforcement. Great strides have been made in the Los Angeles area with all industries. Yes Bob I ski again with the story of the refinery cleanup. The petroleum industry which used to be a tremendous problem here today we were looked upon as a very minor problem we've got for example in all of the storage tanks out in the tank farms where they keep the gasoline near the refineries. All of those have floating roofs which prevent the evaporation of gasoline into the air and in tanks that were already existing that have solid roofs and they can be converted. They put in sort of a vacuum cleaner system
that sucks the vapors out and re condense of it and we have many other refinements of this sort of control within the refineries. They don't burn any asses slides. They have all our flyers are of the smokeless type. This whole inherently dirty industry is very clean here in Los Angeles County and you can walk through the refinery wearing the right suit and white shoes and you'll come out of there just as clean as when you went in as Los Angeles air pollution control officials will be the first to admit getting industry compliance with their regulations. Has it been all moonlight and roses for instance because of economics. It was the resistance of the petroleum industry. Resistance still not completely ended to lowering the sulfur dioxide content of fuel oil. Contents John East Hagen senior staff engineer of Chevron's research division.
Within moments a software content. Can we do this by certain refining techniques. However again this is very expensive. Rather the additional costs can be justified. A question that is now under investigation. Los Angeles obviously feels the expense is worthwhile. In fact the increasing amounts of sulphur dioxide being spewed into the air in the overall use of fuel. Is of such concern that Los Angeles has ordered natural gas to be used whenever it's available. A procedure that other cities faced with a high Esso to pollution of their air are trying to copy. Now we burn natural gas. All summer that is we burn from April 15th and of Ember the 15th and then during the cooler part of the year we burn a natural gas whenever it's available but of course there's such a demand for it than for household heating that these power plants don't have to burn some oil. Speaking is Bob right
now we're locked in a tremendous battle before the Federal Park Commission trying to get enough gas here so that gas can be burned all year round. Now on that particular rule we have had a lot of resistance from the petroleum industry. The impact of the rule is it will put them out of business in the Los Angeles basin as far as a market for fuel oil. And this represents somewhere in the neighborhood of perhaps 40 million dollars worth of business a year. And even to a large drop company that is a considerable amount of business. So our They have resisted that rule. Hammer and tongs they have fought ASC-P in the courts and fought us before the regulatory agencies such as the federal park commission the Public Utilities Commission. And they have been losing steadily and it appears that they are going to take appeals on some of these setbacks they have are confident that we read
continue to prevail and be upheld in the higher courts and that we are going to get the gas from the Federal Power Commission and that ultimately this problem will be pretty well solved here in the L.A. basin. The realistic petroleum companies have admitted that practical ways to reduce the SOTU content of fuel oil will simply have to be found or eventually no amount of protest will save their product for commercial consumption. As another control element Los Angeles has also outlawed all open incineration. Most homes now have garbage grinders for soft waists and the rest is picked up by the county and deposited in sanitary landfills. What has been the result of the 20 years of Los Angeles is air pollution control district by bosky sums up. We think we've got a pretty good grip on the stationary source problem we have one rule that we are going to. Put into effect which effects the emissions of organic solvent by banning sovereigns
have a tremendous variety of uses in our industrial system their use and almost every process so the solvent loss of the MT about 600 tonnes and we found through a search here that they are highly reactive and will cause i are patients so we believe they should be controlled and we have worked out a very elaborate rule for controlling them and that's going to go into effect. Now that would give us. The last big chunk that we know about here if we can get the additional gas that we need for our power plants. And then from there on we think that it will be a matter of simply refining the kind of controls that we already have and we don't expect we're going to be able to squeeze out a lot. I've been stationary sources beyond the particular thing that I just mentioned. So. From there on our problem is going to be largely in the hands of people who are beyond our jurisdiction. Name of the state people and the federal government and the end customer in that line. The automobile industry what will they do about the controls
have to be controlled if we're going to get rid of the supply here. California of course pioneered in the smog reduction legislation for individual automobiles. And therein lies another tale one so complex that a full program of this series has been devoted to the internal combustion or as some federal officials have been known to say. The infernal combustion vehicle. The pollution explosion in the study of the increasing pollution of America's air and water was produced for group w the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company by Robert and John Franklin. Written and recorded by Stephanie Shelton executive producer William J Cain. It's birth material courtesy of station KDKA in Pittsburgh. Here again is John Day in California and especially Los Angeles County the country and air pollution controls in the next program the story of New York City a Johnny-Come-Lately perhaps too late
will be told as well as that of Chicago another city which is trying hard to clean itself up. The ending on network has presented this program in cooperation with a group w o the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. This is the national educational radio network.
Please note: This content is only available at GBH and the Library of Congress, either due to copyright restrictions or because this content has not yet been reviewed for copyright or privacy issues. For information about on location research, click here.
Series
Pollution explosion
Episode Number
7
Producing Organization
Westinghouse Broadcasting Company
Group W Productions
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-610vv34m
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-610vv34m).
Description
Episode Description
This program presents a variety of speeches, music clips, and commentary to analyze the pollution problem in the United States.
Series Description
A discussion of environment-related issues.
Date
1968-01-11
Topics
Environment
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:06
Credits
Host: Daly, John Charles, 1914-1991
Producing Organization: Westinghouse Broadcasting Company
Producing Organization: Group W Productions
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 68-8-7 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:28:50
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “Pollution explosion; 7,” 1968-01-11, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-610vv34m.
MLA: “Pollution explosion; 7.” 1968-01-11. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-610vv34m>.
APA: Pollution explosion; 7. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-610vv34m