This Day in History: 1907-02-25

Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U.S. 230 The first major air pollution case to reach the US Supreme Court, Georgia v Tennessee Copper was first argued on this day in 1907.  The State of Georgia alleged that sulfur dioxide fumes from the Tennessee Copper’s Ducktown smelters were killing forests and orchards and making people sick downwind in Georgia. The state of Tennessee had refused to regulate the copper smelters. Tennessee also disputed Georgia’s right to interfere. Georgia won the suit in 1915 after investigation and court-ordered attempts to reduce the pollution , including a reduction and mandatory inspections by a Vanderbilt university professor.

The majority opinion was delivered by the clearly indignant Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:  “It is a fair and reasonable demand on the part of a sovereign that the air over its territory should not be polluted on a great scale by sulfurous acid gas, that the forests on its mountains should not be further destroyed or threatened by the act of persons beyond its control, that the crops and orchards on its hills should not be endangered.”