Rethinking Our Relationship to Nature, 1920–1959 107
water. Often makeshift efforts have been neces-
sary to meet emergencies, especially in years of
low rainfall. Such efforts have often hastened the
depletion of the limited reserves in underground
reservoirs, generated disputes with other cities
or industries drawing on the same sources of
water, introduced conflicts with the use of water
for recreation, and threatened the permanent
flooding of lands valuable for farming, forestry,
wilderness, or wildlife.
Use continues to rise; advancing standards
of health and comfort, the application of more
intensive farming practices, and the develop-
ment of new products all impose demands.
Source: Bernard Frank, “Our Need for Water,” in Water:
Agricultural Yearbook of 1955 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Agriculture, 1955), pp. 4-5.The impact of new inventions and new
developments and growth in population and
industry has not commonly been given the atten-
tion it has merited.
Many critical local water shortages there-
fore occurred that could have been forestalled.
For example, rural electrification has brought
about such heavy increases in the use of water
for household and production purposes that the
limited well-water supplies of many farms have
been severely strained.
Similarly, factories have been built without
prior studies to determine whether water would
be available to operate the factories and to pro-
vide for the communities around them.
Towns, cities, industries, and farms have kept
expanding beyond the safe limits of available
Document 92: Bernard Frank on Land Development and Water Availability (1955)
Americans have often considered water—whether for drinking, for industry, or for farm use—as an unlimited
resource owed to us, almost as a constitutional right. Bernard Frank, who worked in the Watershed Management
Research Division of the Forest Service, warns that we must give greater attention to water resource limitations.Document 93: Clean Air Act (1955)
Air pollution and air quality have been a problem in the Western world since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution, and Americans have been concerned about these issues since the mid-nineteenth century [see
Documents 41 and 67]. Until 1955, however, responsibility for clean air in the United States rested with states and
local communities, which frequently ignored the problem. In 1955, the federal government, having recognized
that the smoke produced in the Midwest moved with the air as it flowed from west to east, ultimately causing
pollution problems in the East, took its first, tentative steps to encourage a nationwide advance toward clean air
by funding state and local air pollution prevention and control programs.A. Congressional Findings and Decla-
ration of Purpose
The Congress finds—
(1) that the predominant part of the Nation’s
population is located in its rapidly expanding
metropolitan and other urban areas, which gen-
erally cross the boundary lines of local jurisdic-
tions and often extend into two or more States;
(2) that the growth in the amount and
complexity of air pollution brought about by
urbanization, industrial development, and the
increasing use of motor vehicles, has resulted in
mounting dangers to the public health and wel-
fare, including injury to agricultural crops and
livestock, damage to and the deterioration of
property, and hazards to air and ground trans-
portation;