This Day in History: 1922-08-10

National Coast Anti-Pollution League is formed on this  day in 1922  in Atlantic City, N.J.  at a conference of mayors and mainstream civic groups. The organization is a reaction to the growing problem of oil pollution. Gifford Pinchot,  founding director of  the US Forest Service, is elected president.  The NCAPL’s David Neuberger writes in the New York Times:

“About twenty miles below Sandy Hook (NJ) one is greeted by four miles of … oil, sludge, tar and bilge water resting on the ocean. It is steadily increasing and defiles everything it touches… The question presents itself: Shall industrial waste be held superior to the public weal, public health, sanitation and the conservation of food? Shall this sort of industiral progress be permitted at the expense of our people, and shall all these be made subservient to industrial waste? It was to overcome these conditions by drastic laws and their enforcement, compelling ship owners to find a method by which all these ills might be alleviated, and the owners of industrial plants shown the way to cooperate, that this League was organized. There are methods which, if properly applied, would stay the menace and avert the consequences.”