Chico State College held a major conference on air pollution aimed at stimulating action to safeguard air resources. The two-day conference demonstrated today's real air pollution dangers and reviewed economic, sociological and political problems which entrench factors causing pollution. The conference was sponsored by the college, its extension service and its Political Science Institute on Local Government. Frostburg State College (Md.) is managing a two-year pilot project in the Potomac River Basin. Problems surveyed under the pilot umbrella: Polluted water, poor mining practices which destroy and erode land, unsafe and insufficient roads, inadequate information and education for citizens and community leaders who would like to help solve these problems. Florida Technological University has received a research grant from the Florida Department of Air and Water Pollution Control to help establish an Institute of Fresh Water Ecology at the university. The mission of the new Institute at Florida Tech is to assist state authorities to control pollution and weed growth, protect sport fisheries and other recreational facilities, and ensure water conservation within the fresh water natural resources of the state. The Institute will promote research and teaching in all areas of fresh water ecology and will serve as a center for conferences and a clearing house for information. In addition to state funds expected to total $93,000, FTU itself has budgeted about $47,000 for the program. Cleveland State University's Institute of Urban Studies is offering a new undergraduate course on Environmental Problems and Planning designed for urban studies students and industrial and government workers. The course which is taught by instructors in chemical engineering, biology, and geology, centers around water and air pollution, solid waste disposal, and traffic problems related to new highway construction. Cleveland State was the location of a conference sponsored by nine universities in Ohio and Michigan on May 13 and 14 to provide industry and municipalities with the latest information on the means and cost of pollution controls. The twoday meeting was expected to place 300 participants in direct contact with environmental control experts and displays of anti-pollution equipment. State University of New York at Albany is the location of an organization of the SUNYA Chapter of the P.Y.E. (Preserve Your Environment) Club, which began at the Thomas School in Rowayton, Connecticut and is seeking to form chapters through-out the country, particularly in schools and colleges. Interest in the club at SUNYA is an outgrowth of a three-credit, interdisciplinary environmental forum course initiated last semester and developed over a two-year period by members of the College of Arts and Sciences. State University College at Potsdam (N.Y.) has inaugurated a new seminar in local and national environmental problems. Thirty faculty members, additional faculty from Clarkson College of Technology, students, and local officials are expected to take part. Bemidji State College (Minn.) has three active programs and others in the planning stage. Geographic location provides natural unspoiled ecological resources for astronomic, atmospheric, and earth science investigations. Undergraduate and graduate programs stress conservation of natural resources and investigation of special problems dealing with environment and conservation. A group of scientists recently formed the BSC Center for Environmental Studies to answer some of the questions currently raised about the nation's natural resources, especially those of Northern Minnesota. Northeast Louisiana State College A Committee on Environmental Research and Information will study problems related to the quality of the environment and ways to apply scientific technology to their solution. California State Polytechnic College, San Luis Obispo President Robert E. Kennedy has formed a college-wide Ad Hoc Committee to Promote Elimination of Environmental Pollution by acting as a clearing house for ideas and a catalyst for effective action. The president called for appointment of up to two faculty members and up to two students from each of Cal Poly's academic schools plus representatives of the Student Personnel and Business Affairs Divisions and the Cal Poly Foundation. East Central State College (Okla.) has been authorized by the Board of Regents to establish a School of Environmental Sciences beginning in September 1970. The new ECSC program will be one of three in the U.S. offering such a program for undergraduates. Eastern Washington State College A committee will set up an Environmental Science Institute to study the problems of pollution and ecology in the region. Two projects already planned include study of the sewer system and the treatment of sewage. North Texas State University A team of student and faculty micro-biologists evaluated a unique waste disposal system established by the Campbell Soup Company at Paris, Texas. In 1964 the company leveled and terraced 500 acres of croded, depleted cotton land on which it planted grass. Water laden with grease and tiny food fragments flows slowly over the grass, and micro-organisms in the soil devour the organic impurities so that they are not swept into the general water shed. Some 99 percent of the impurities in the soupy waste water are removed by the process, one almost as effective as complex filtration plants. As a by-product, the process fosters the growth of grass, and the system turns out far more hay than surrounding crop lands. The NSU biology team helped establish the effectiveness of the system. Bowling Green State University's (Ohio) Environmental Studies Center with a full time director, uses an interdisciplinary system which expects to draw most heavily from the disciplines of business administration, education and the liberal arts college. The Center plans a future consortium approach. Though the present scope of this work is limited, demographic and economic advantages of the surrounding growing megalopolis will provide incentive for growth. Slated primarily as a service capability for the community rather than as a study center, the Center aims to identify basic ecological problems and deal with their fundamental causes. Main emphasis will focus on pollution control and land utilization. California State Polytechnic College at Pomona, using a decentralized approach, is planning to work in environmental design, the biological sciences and water resources management through the college's various departments. Located in an area with diverse natural conditions, their on-campus facility which can stimulate mechanically different types of climate is most useful. Fresno State College provides instruction through its center of operations at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. The program was initiated through cooperative action by five California State Colleges-Fresno, Hayward, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose. The center specialized in instruction and research in marine environment. It emphasizes field study executed and documented by students with independent research projects planned, and is open to upper division undergraduates and graduates. Louisiana Polytechnic Institute's location provides opportunity for regionoriented research such as pollution due to extensive papermill manufacturing in the immediate vicinity. The Water Resources Center plans to expand its areas of education, research and public services, and to study and interpret developments in water resources. The program is open to undergraduates and to post and predoctoral for supplementary training. McNeese State College (La.) has an Environmental Science Program which operates in a fertile region for concerted research studies. Natural resources and the area's petrochemical complex present a broad scope. Purpose of the program is to train sanitarians. Degree: undergraduate. State University College at Oswego (N.Y.) enjoys easy access to lake areas conducive to environmental and weather modification studies. The laboratory program stresses the effects of Lake Ontario upon the surrounding area and vice versa. Open to undergraduate and graduate students. State University College at Fredonia (N.Y.) is located in an area relatively free of contamination and pollution. The Lake Erie Environmental Studies Program researches the other Great Lakes, as well, and provides continuous monitoring of meteorological information and water quality. Open to undergraduates, graduates and post-doctorals. Winona State College (Minn.) is located on the least polluted portion of the "greatest river system in the world." Its program encourages river research in line with its initial purpose of establishing and maintaining a Mississippi River research facility. Open to undergraduate and graduate students. Wisconsin State University at River Falls uses its region to study problems related to maintaining quality environment in growing urban areas associated with modern agriculture. A scientific land management curriculum stresses environmental management, exposure to different resources, facilities and disciplines in natural resources. Purpose: to strengthen environmental quality control and land use planning. Open to undergraduate students. Shippensburg State College (Pa.) President Gilmore B. Seavers has given the Director of Safety and Security the additional responsibility of serving as "environmental ombudsman." A telephone number is available for anyone on campus who wishes to make a suggestion or report a "violation" of the environment. These calls are taken by the ombudsman, with an electronic recording device putting service on a 24-hour basis. Lamar State College of Technology (Texas) has a new program in oceanography which is being conducted by the science and engineering departments with participation by the Texas A&M University department of oceanography. All specialized courses are scheduled for the last two years, so that second-year students and junior college transfers can enter the program with no loss of time or credit. Lake Superior State College President Kenneth J. Shouldice has announced a new two-year program in the management of natural resources to begin next Fall. The program, funded by a $39,000 Kellogg Foundation grant, will lead to an associate degree in natural resources management technology. Hon. JOHN BRADEMAS, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, Chairman, Select Subcommittee on Education, New York, N.Y., January 19, 1970. DEAR CONGRESSMAN BRADEMAS: Your January 9 invitation to comment on the proposed Environmental Quality Education Act (H.R. 14753) is most welcome, and I hope that you will find these views to be both constructive and helpful to you and your colleagues. Before discussing the bill itself, I would like to offer a word of caution with regard to the manner in which we should develop public concern with the quality of our environment. In some respects this has already been carried to extremes by certain well-intentioned conservationists, some publicity-seeking opportunists, and even a few politicians in their zeal to champion popular causes. As a result, there have been many irresponsible scarehead statements and omens of doom that have brought emotional reactions bordering upon hysteria from some segments of the public. This emotional reaction is highly inhibitive to the programs and projects that are needed to improve environmental quality. It is interfering seriously with our rational analysis and approach to specific problems, and will cause increasing delay and waste of money and resources in bringing about their solution. Particularly unfortunate is the tendency to impose unrealistic standards and unduly burdensome controls as the result of ill-founded public pressure. Our standards of environmental quality must be realistic and achievable within our technological and economic capacity. This does not mean that these standards cannot be raised in the future, of course, as we become able to meet them. They should be dynamic. It is respectfully urged, therefore, that you base your environmental education program on the premise that our present environmental problems have arisen from an advancing technology in the service of a burgeoning population, and that this same technology has solved many of these problems, it is now solving others, and will continue to solve those of the future. Public confidence and support of such efforts is vital, but irrational public pressures only add new dimensions to the complexity of these problems. With regard to the bill, I heartily endorse the statement of need for the legislation as set forth in Section 2(a). In its purpose, however, I respectfully urge that primacy be given to public information and education in the broad sense rather than to formal education through academic curricula and teaching. My reasons follow: 1. The need for adult education is immediate so that the public will support environmental programs that are needed today. We must educate the spectrum between the casual litterbug and the industrialist who conceives such atrocities as undisposable packages. We need to reach the individual householder as well as the real estate developer and mass housing entrepreneur. We need to engender the support of the taxpayer and consumer who must pay for the control of air, water and land pollution as well as the municipal and industrial officials who make the key decisions in these matters. 2. The inculcation of environmental awareness in our children and youth is very important as a long range goal, but I am not at all sure that it can be taught like arithmetic or chemistry. It seems to me that this is more a matter of training and general character development in the youngster. Such training will be enhanced if parents and teachers are strongly conscious of environmental quality. The provisions in the bill for training of teachers are very good, and could be given even greater emphasis. Concern and appreciation for environmental quality should be woven through the entire fabric of the elementary and high school educational experience. I do not, however, consider special environmental curricula or courses to be practical. Special non-academic programs for reaching children could be extremely effective, and should be covered in the bill. I refer here to such media as the comic book and the animated cartoon on television. These are powerful tools. I am not enthusiastic about the proposed use of funds as set forth in Sections 3(a), paragraphs (1) and (2) of the bill. I subscribe strongly, however, to the uses of funds proposed in Section 3(a), paragraphs (3), (4) and (5). The Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality Education proposed in Section 5 of the bill could serve a highly worthwhile function, and I would endorse this provision. It is respectfully urged, however, that the membership of the Committee, as prescribed in Section 5(b), include one or more environmental design professionals with actual problem-solving background. This will afford insurance against the scaremonger syndrome on which I have cautioned at the beginning of this letter. Thank you again for the opportunity to express these views. I am intensely interested in bringing about the understanding, rapport and cooperation that is so sorely needed between the public and the civil engineer as a "professional environmentalist." Your legislation is certainly a significant proposal toward that end. Sincerely, WILLIAM H. WISELY, MANAGING KNOWLEDGE TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT (By McGeorge Bundy, a Ford Foundation Report) There is a characteristic impulse in our society Senator Gaylord Nelson, in introducing the Education, I believe, is the only proper way to in- A number of questions ought to be asked |