Ten Candles for Earth Day

Environmentalists mark a fruitful decade, but tough times loom

In the chill just before dawn, the climbers reached the 1,532-ft. peak of Cadillac Mountain on the Maine coast. Then, as the sun began to rise, Thorn White of Trenton, Me., picked up his bagpipes and played Amazing Grace. Earth Day 1980 was under way.

With festivities ranging from speeches, concerts and organic picnics to solar power demonstrations, kite-flying contests and even a few country boys operating stills, the tenth anniversary of the first Earth Day was celebrated in hundreds of other communities across the nation last week. Celebrations in Washington, D.C., started at dawn with choral music at the Jefferson Memorial, followed by a breakfast rally in Lafayette Park for more than 500 bicycling enthusiasts, among them Transportation Secretary Neil Goldschmidt. At Connecticut College in New London, students unveiled a new windmill that will generate enough power to run the campus radio station. In Boston, environmentalists offered natural foods and lectures on "Tibetan relaxation techniques."

Near Chicago, 850 Glenview, Ill., schoolchildren spent the day planting trees to beautify the town; 200 miles to the southwest, residents of the Springfield area were completing a weeklong "trash-a-thon," aimed at cleaning up the litter along some 90 miles of local roads. Traffic was banned on part of Main Street in Ann Arbor, Mich., where 5,000 Earth Day strollers examined solar water heaters and other exhibits. In Atlanta 300 people devoured a giant 180-lb. Earth Day birthday cake--made, naturally, with no artificial ingredients.

"We decided it was time to celebrate," said Earth Day 1980 National Coordinator Mike McCabe. "We've accomplished quite a lot." In the ten years since the first Earth Day participants pledged to "preserve, protect and clean up the planet," a remarkable body of legislation has been enacted, possibly comparable in its range and impact to the New Deal programs of the 1930s or the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and '60s. Some highlights from the "environmental decade":

> In 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency was established to coordinate and manage federal pollution-control programs; the Clean Air Act was amended to establish national air-quality standards; and the Occupational Safety and Health Act set federal air pollution and safety standards for the workplace.

> The federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 set standards for cleaning up the nation's water resources. As a result, the Potomac River is safe for swimming again, Lake Erie is coming back to life, and even Ohio's Cuyahoga River, which once caught fire when petroleum wastes in it ignited, shows signs of improvement.

> The Endangered Species Act of 1973 now protects American plant and animal species threatened with extinction.

> Fuel efficiency standards for automobiles established in 1975 helped spur the U.S. auto industry's shift toward the production of smaller, lighter cars that get significantly better mileage.

> In 1976 the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act opened the way for federal control of toxic substances suspected of causing a wide range of ailments. The importance of this issue was soon demonstrated when massive toxic pollution was discovered at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

For all these accomplishments, environmentalists are bracing for hard times in the '80s. Energy shortages and the industrial needs of a faltering economy, they fear, threaten to erode the gains of the past decade. "We have to change our tactics," cautions Solar Energy Research Institute Director Denis Hayes. "We've got to have responsible alternatives.'' -

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