A SELECTIVE HISTORICAL TIMELINE of Environmentalism in the USA

To the Reader: The following time line was inspired by urgency, designed for its overall impact, and created by a confluence of personal experience, historical recall, and dogged if speedy research. In spite of the chronological format, it aims to address ecology as a complex web of natural and social forces. By doing so, it is my intention that it demonstrate the demanding scope and challenge of a sound, ecosophical future as well as highlight the conflicting interests that have often shaped the past. That said, I apologize for any errors or inaccuracies contained within, and do so with the hope that they will not render the overall project any less interesting or thought-provoking. Corrections, suggestions or clarifications are appreciated and can be sent to the site administrator at kwedachi.ocascadia@gmail.com.

1780-1850 

1781-1820 Independence from England secured, New York State begins selling off public lands en masse, with most being sold to private interests by 1820.

1790-1820 Faced with diminished British coal imports, the foundries and forges of the young American nation rely on the poorly-managed soft coal yields of the Richmond Basin in Virginia.

1792 John Chapman begins a five decades-long vocation as nomadic orchard nurseryman and advocate of subsistence living. His work and reputation will inspire the legend of Johnny Appleseed.

1795 The once plentiful Connecticut River salmon fisheries, already strained by over-fishing during the War for Independence, continue to be challenged by the building of dams and mills along its course.

1818 Massachusetts bans the hunting of horned larks and robins, each an important source of food for the common people. Commercial netting of North America's most abundant bird, the passenger pigeon, becomes ever more prevalent, even as the specie's habitat is threatened by deforestation.

1828 John James Audubon publishes Birds of America.

1828-1842 Pennsylvania hard coal gains market advantage over Virginia soft coal and British imports.

1829 Some 90% of the fishing boats harvesting Atlantic salmon in Canadian waters are owned by Americans. Atlantic salmon are difficult to find in the rivers and creeks of lower New England as mills and factories continue to proliferate along with the influx of immigrant populations.

1830 Some 200 steamboats are operating on American rivers and canals. Transport of coal, timber, and livestock by boat gains prominence over turnpikes, thus transforming commerce as well as relations between specific cities and rural regions.

1830-1850 American poets, writers and artists draw fresh inspiration and insight from Man's relationship with Nature. Romantic and Transcendentalist schools of experience and thought gain favor.

1832 George Perkins Marsh and Henry David Thoreau win a formative victory for the early 19th century American conservation movement by successfully petitioning Congress to designate Hot Springs, Arkansas a federally-protected reserve and de facto national park.

1836 Cattle, which were introduced to the New World by Spanish and French settlers, become popular with ranchers in Texas and Arkansas who typically drive their livestock to markets in New Orleans.

1840 The rate of deforestation east of the Mississippi River remains consistent with the clearing of land for small farms. Yearly timber yields account for some 1 billion board feet.

1846 Vigilante farmers in Missouri intercept northbound drives of disease-ridden Texas longhorns.

1847 Citing Man's destructive impact on Nature, US Congressman George Perkins Marsh makes a passionate plea for improved land management practices and conservation of natural resources.

1848 Yankee ships sailing from Nantucket and New Bedford begin hunting whales in Alaskan waters. The American fleet accounts for 80% of the commercial whaling ships operating around the world.

1849 Drawn to the region by the California Gold Rush, settlers pour into San Francisco and in a short few years consume and mismanage the Bay Area's rich oyster cultures to meager proportions.

1850 In spite of new railroads which facilitate livestock transportation, Americans have yet to develop a taste for beef, and regional demand for the meat is weak enough to undermine the enterprise.

1850 European settlers begin gill-netting salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Folklore informs that so great are the salmon counts that “you can cross the Columbia River walking on their backs.” Meanwhile, back East, unregulated timber harvests are gravely degrading the habitat of the last commercially viable salmon fisheries in Maine.

1850 On entering the Union, the new government of California State begins what will be a thirty-year campaign of legislation, treaties, and genocidal policies designed to secure land from American Indian tribes while all but annihilating their traditional cultures.

1851-1900 

1851 Hard coal replaces wood as the fuel of choice in US cities. Compared to soft coal, it is relatively clean and smokeless.

1854 Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden.

1854 The US Government signs the Treaty of Medicine Creek with nine Puget Sound Indian tribes. The treaty cedes 2.24 million acres of land to the recently established Washington Territory of the United States. In return, three reservations are established for native tribes along with the right to fish and hunt on their traditional lands.

1855 The US Government signs the Treaty of Neah Bay which establishes a Makah Indian Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest. The treaty allows the Makah people to continue their traditional hunting for whale and seal.

1855 The Nisqually tribe that co-signed the Treaty of Medicine Creek a year earlier is resettled away from their traditional fishing grounds. War breaks out between the tribe and the territorial authorities.

1857 Landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux are chosen to direct the construction of Central Park in New York City. Their Greenwards design policy will influence urban park development across the nation well into the twentieth century.

1857 American Plains Indians convene at sacred site Bear Butte in the Black Hills to discuss the increased influx of white settlers into the region.

1857 Stephen H. Hammond envisions New York State's Adirondack mountains as site of a constitutionally-protected Forever Forest.

1857 The Ohio State Legislature considers a bill to protect declining numbers of passenger pigeons. The State of Vermont commissions the study of depleted fish stocks in the Connecticut River.

1857-1858 Nisqually leader Chief Leschi is convicted on a disputable charge of murder and hanged.

1859 Edwin Drake drills the first commercial oil well on US soil near Titusville, Pennsylvania.

1860 The accelerated industrialization of the US economy demands ever greater use of soft, dirty coal to make steel and drive steam engines. Demand for the fuel will double every ten years well into the next century.

1861-1865 The American Civil War will usher in a new era of industrialized warfare in the way of ballistics innovation, the development of armored and submarine naval craft, and the extensive logistical importance of railroads and telegraph communication. Military losses alone will account for some 1.2 million persons killed or wounded.

1861-1865 During the American Civil War, some 300,000 head of cattle are stolen from Choctaw Indians in Arkansas.

1862 Congress passes the Pacific Railroad Acts. By authorizing right-of-way, bonds sales and extensive land grants, the federal government facilitates the building of the first transcontinental railway by three private companies.

1864 In an effort to protect the natural beauty of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, Abraham Lincoln signs an act of Congress which cedes both areas to the State of California. 

1864 Congress charters the Northern Pacific Railway Company by authorizing a 60-million acre land grant in exchange for the building of a railroad connecting the Great Lakes with Puget Sound. A new age of railroad development becomes a key instrument in unlocking the natural resource wealth of the nation's western states.

1864 George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature.

1865 The end of slavery in the United States ushers in a new if complicated era of policy-making that will aim to increase land ownership by African-Americans, particularly in the way of farmland.

1865 Armour and Company opens a meat-packing plant in Chicago. Long-distance cattle drives become a prominent feature of economic life west of the Mississippi River.

1866 The first salmon cannery begins operating on the Columbia River.

1866-68 Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted envisions a regional plan for then rural Staten Island, one that many will cite as a prototype for the first United States national park.

1867 A gas explosion rocks a coal mine in Clover Hill, Virginia, killing sixty-nine miners, 39 of whom are African-Americans.

1867 The United States purchases Alaska from Russia, adding some 600,000 square miles to its North American territory. Russian fur trade and missionary work are replaced by American passions for wilderness, a zeal for gold, and a growing demand for natural resource extraction.

1868 John Muir visits Yosemite Valley, California. His further travels in the American West will inspire a preservationist movement which believes that large tracts of the American continent should be protected as wilderness in the name of environmental continuity, scientific research, natural beauty, and public recreation.

1868 Fisheries Commissioners Charles Atkins and Nathan Foster begin to assess ways to address salmon recovery in the State of Maine. Ultimately, they recommend 1) unpolluted waters, 2) fishways on dams, 3) regulating harvests, and 4) restocking rivers and streams. The government ignores all but the last recommendation and an era of hatchery production soon proliferates nationwide.

1869 John Wesley Powell leads an expedition through the Colorado River Basin.

1869 The first transcontinental railway  is completed, connecting Council Bluffs, Iowa with Oakland, California and San Fransisco Bay.

1869 Ellen Swallow Richards collects food and water samples for the new Massachusetts State Board of Health, thus beginning a life-long advocacy of ecological sanity, and not eugenics, as central to improving social welfare and the human condition. Her efforts will eventually lead to the Massachusetts pure food laws of 1882, the first such laws in the nation.

1871 Refrigerated railroad cars begin transporting western beef to consumers back East from slaughterhouses that begin to spring up throughout the Midwest. Cattle production quickly expands across the Great Plains.

1872 Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming becomes the first national park officially designated as such by Congress.

1872 The first federal fish hatchery is established on the McCloud River in California.

1873 A New York State commission begins to recognize the economic importance of protecting Adirondack Mountain forests, siting threats of deforestation, soil erosion, contamination of water supplies, and deterioration of navigable waterways. 

1874 Breaking an 1868 treaty, General George Custer leads a military expedition onto lands assigned to the Lakota and Cheyenne nations. Custer confirms rumors of gold, thus prompting waves of white prospectors to enter the region. The tactic instigates a new round of Indian Wars.

1874 President Ulysses S. Grant “pocket” vetoes legislation that aims to protect the American Bison.

1874 California attempts to introduce non-native Atlantic salmon to state waters for sport fishing. The project fails, as would future attempts in 1890 and 1929-1932.

1875 Citing the ongoing war with American Indians, General Philip Sheridan urges Congress to exterminate bison herds in order to deprive Native Americans of their food supply. Over the next 10 years, commercial hunters slay thousands of bison each day.

1875 The US Fish Commission initiates what will become a 100-year policy of hatchery propagation as the preferred way to combat declining numbers of Pacific Northwest salmon.

1880 New England ships combine sail power with new steam engine technologies to increase the efficiency of hunting whale in the distant waters of the northern Pacific.

1880 West Coast rivers and tributaries are beset with a steady proliferation of logging splash dams, impeding the upstream course of salmon returning to spawning sites.

1880 Logging overtakes agriculture as the primary cause of deforestation.

1880 The recreational interests of downstate residents compel New York State to begin buying back private lands toward an end of establishing districts of protected public forests.

1880-1910 Dams, pollution, and aggressive harvests continue to undermine Atlantic salmon restoration efforts in spite of hatchery programs. The species is all but extinct in many Northeast waterways.

1881 Over the last decade, commercial fishing boats on the Columbia River have increased 12-fold.

1881 The New York State Association for the Preservation of Fish and Game oversees the massacre of 20,000 passenger pigeons as part of a Coney Island fundraiser event. The commercial passenger pigeon industry employs some 1200 trappers.

1881 A power station near Niagara Falls begins to convert water power to electricity. A year later, the first hydroelectric dam is built in Appleton, Wisconsin. By 1889, there are 200 such dams in the United States.

1884 The American Bison is threatened with extinction. Yellowstone National Park remains the only safe haven for what will become the nation’s only surviving wild herd.

1886 George Bird Grinnell forms the first Audubon Society for the protection of wild birds.

1886-1887 Swelling populations of cattle, a non-native species, graze freely across public lands in Western precincts where arid and often depleted grasslands fail to support their numbers. A harsh winter decimates herds, and many owners go bankrupt. The economic catastrophe ushers in an era of leasing lands from the government and fencing in herds. The golden era of cattle drives ends.

1887 Oregon State and Washington Territory fishermen partake in vigilante Salmon Wars contesting fishing rights along the Columbia River.

1887 A special committee of the Oregon State Legislature concludes that reports of over-fishing on the Columbia River are “prejudice and misinformation”.

1888 After 40 years of seriously depleting the number of whales in Alaskan waters, American whaling expeditions begin to hunt in Canadian waters where the whales are “thick as bees”.

1890 Building on decades of European research and development, William Morrison of Des Moines, Iowa showcases the first electric-powered, American-made "horseless" wagon. The vehicle carries 6 passengers and can attain a speed of 14 mph.

1890-1900 Tensions between cattle ranchers and homestead farmers escalate at Great Basin lakes Malheur and Klamath over water management and land reclamation policies.

1891 Future President Theodore Roosevelt visits the lands surrounding Yellowstone National Park. His trip helps bring about the establishment of a Yellowstone Timberland Reservation.

1891 The Forest Reserve Act formally withdraws from the public domain all wilderness forest in the western United States while stating that thereafter it will be recognized as federal forest reserve to be managed under the auspices of the US Department of the Interior.

1892 John Muir helps found the Sierra Club and is elected its first president.

1892  New York State establishes a 2.6 million acre state park in the Adirondack Mountains.

1893 In a speech to the Los Angeles International Irrigation Conference, John Wesley Powell warns that in the Colorado River Basin "there is not sufficient water to irrigate all the lands which could be irrigated, and only a small portion can be irrigated."

1894 Responding to the threat of unbridled deforestation, New York State adds 3.4 million acres of private holdings to Adirondack State Park as a regulated forest reserve. While the additional lands incorporate some preexisting farms, towns and villages, the total, contiguous, Forever Wild expanse now accounts for an area larger than that of established and future national parks Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Great Smoky and Grand Canyon combined.

1896 Gifford Pinchot, the father of American forestry, is asked by President Grover Cleveland to develop a plan for managing the nation’s western forest reserves.

1896 The first off-shore oil well in the United States is drilled at the Summerland field on the California coast.

1896 Agricultural scientist George Washington Carver is asked to join the African-American Tuskegee Institute by its president Booker T. Washington. Carver's work will encourage poor farmers to restore depleted soil by alternating cotton production with the planting of sweet potatoes and legumes.

1897 A short-lived friendship between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot ends abruptly after the latter advocates sheep-grazing on wilderness lands outside Seattle. The split accentuates the divisions between Muir’s preservationist vision and Pinchot’s conservationist policy.

1898 Pinchot is named head of the Division of Forestry, which becomes the US Forest Service in 1905.

1899 Congress first addresses water pollution with the Rivers and Harbors Act and the Refuse Act.

1899 American ranchers begin raising American Bison herds.

1899 One year after a gold strike in Alaska sparks the Klondike Gold Rush, a prestigious gathering of naturalists and wilderness enthusiasts, known as the Harriman Expedition, tours 9000 miles of Alaskan coastline aboard the steamship George W. Elder.

1900 Some seventy salmon canneries are now operating in the Pacific Northwest.

1900 Prompted by growing interest in electric-powered cars and carriages, Thomas Edison embarks on a decades-long effort to produce a better electric automotive battery.

1900-1920 American whaling ships modernize the “floating factory” techniques that allow them to process whale oil and whale bone at sea while discarding the meat that has no commercial market in the United States.

1901-1950 

1902 The newly-created US Reclamation Service begins to oversee government-sponsored water development programs. By 1907, the agency has initiated some 30 irrigation projects in western States.

1902 Ransom Olds produces the first affordable, assembly-line automobiles at his Oldsmobile plant.

1903 Acknowledging a substantial depletion of spring chinook runs in the Pacific Northwest, commercial fisheries attempt to manage fish population by advising species-emphasis policies. The project is of little consequence since sockeye, chum, coho, steelhead, and even sturgeon have already been over-harvested as substitute species to meet the demands of canneries. Hatchery programs are cited by critics as a political ruse that coddles poor science and lax regulation.

1903 Then US Captain and future Colonel Charles Young becomes the first African-American Superintendent of National Parks.

1903 Inspired in part by the Harriman Expedition, President Theodore Roosevelt moves to preserve under federal authority vast domains of Alaskan wilderness as national forest or wild bird reserve while also recognizing a need to protect the Alaskan Federal District's many indigenous peoples and cultures. Alaskan loggers, miners, and commercial salmon fishermen oppose the plan as an elitist policy that will constrain the economic fortunes of settler communities.

1904 Timber production yields some 46 billion board feet nationwide, compared to a yield of one billion board feet in 1840. Total deforested acreage nationwide peaks and stabilizes for the first time in a century.

1905 The US Bureau of Reclamation builds the first significant dam on the Colorado River to divert water for irrigation to Yuma County, Arizona and Imperial County, California.

1905 To secure productive farmland and facilitate the growth of new cities, Governor Napoleon Broward of Florida launches an ambitious plan to drain the Everglade wetlands.

1905 The National Audubon Society incorporates local Audubon societies across the United States. The organization expands its mission of scientific research and grassroots activism to include the protection of wild birds and animals as well as the conservation of habitat.

1905-1910 The newly-named US Forest Service is placed under the auspices of the Bureau of Forestry, which will later become the Department of Agriculture. With the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot stays on as the agency’s chief officer and continues to promote a policy of conservation and resource management on public lands by way of a four-point program that emphasizes grazing, timber, mining, and recreation.

1906 Passage of the Antiquities Act assigns to President Theodore Roosevelt the power to designate "protected"  federal land reserves by proclamation and without the approval of Congress. An avid outdoor sportsman, naturalist and conservationist, Roosevelt will wield this authority liberally over the course of his eight years as president.

1906 President Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot successfully press for passage of the General Dams Acts to compel private companies to erect multipurpose dams that address the issues of flood control, navigable inland waterways, and hydroelectric power in ways that best serve the public interest.

1907 Congress opposes the creation of more western forest reserves. President Roosevelt designates 16 million acres of new National Forests before the legislature can strip him of his power to do so.

1907-1908 Preservationists William Finley and Herman Bohlman persuade President Roosevelt to grant refuge status as nesting grounds to wetlands in Oregon and Northern California. Lakes Malheur and Klamath are cited as necessary habitat for migrating birds on the Pacific Flyway.

1908 Ford Motor Company begins manufacturing the Model T.

1908 The US Supreme Court upholds surface water rights of American Indians on federal reserves. The ruling is known as the Winters Doctrine.

1909 Before leaving office, President Roosevelt creates Mount Olympus National Monument in Washington State to better protect the region from rampant timber extraction. It is the nineteenth national monument established by his administration, along with 5 new national parks, 51 federal bird reserves, 4 national game preserves, and 150 national forests.

1910 Gifford Pinchot loses favor with pro-business Republican President William Taft and is relieved of his post at the US Forest Service for criticizing the policies of Richard Ballinger, the new Secretary of the Interior. This hastens an ideological split within the Republican Party, and Pinchot eventually assumes a leading role in the new Progressive Party whose impassioned conservationist policies are spearheaded by former President Theodore Roosevelt.

1910 African-Americans own a historical high 14% of farmlands in the United States.

1910 First federal regulation of the use of pesticides.

1910 A firestorm burns through some 3 million acres of National Forest in Idaho, western Montana, and eastern Washington, taking the lives of 87 residents and firefighters. African-American Buffalo Solders of the 25th Infantry gain favor by saving the towns of Wallace and Avery. Known as the Big Blowup or Big Burn, air-born ash and soot from the inferno reaches cities on the East Coast of the continent.

1911 In spite of an alarming depletion of salmon and sturgeon populations on the Columbia River, commercial fisherman record a peak harvest.

1911 The United States joins Russia, Britain and Japan in signing the North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty in order to rein in the commercial slaughter of seal and sea otter in Alaskan waters.

1911 Congress passes the Weeks Act, enabling the federal government to expand its holdings by purchasing private lands and placing them under administration of the Department of Agriculture and US Forest Service. The legislation also mandates what will become a long-term policy promoting fire suppression on all public lands. Planned, ground-level management burns as traditionally practiced on American Indian reservations are accordingly outlawed.

1912 The US Public Health Service is charged by Congress to study the problems of pollution, sewage, and sanitation.

1913 Congress approves the building of the O'Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite National Park, flooding John Muir's beloved Hetch Hetchy Valley.

1914 A Ford Model T is coming off the assembly line every 15 minutes. An assembly line worker can purchase one with four month’s pay.

1914 A dam on Oregon's Wallowa River is removed in the hope of restoring salmon runs.

1914 The world's last passenger pigeon dies in a Cincinnati zoo.

1916 The National Park Service is established by Congress. Businessman Stephen Mather is appointed its first director. Recruiting the support of influential benefactors while forging partnerships with railroad companies, he embarks on an ambitious campaign to expand the system's reach, institute professionalism among the staff, enhance accessibility and promote visitation.

1918 Salmon runs on Wallowa River fail to return in any significant numbers. Due to what seems to be a loss of their natural homing instincts, many are found dead in irrigation ditches. A new and larger dam is constructed to improve the irrigation system while abandoning plans to restore fish populations.

1918 Coal mine output in the United States tops 650 million short tons. Total coal output in 1850 was less than 9 million short tons.

1918 The United States signs a treaty with Japan, Canada, Mexico, and Russia to better protect migratory birds including the American Bald Eagle.

1919 Millions of birds are purportedly dying in Great Basin wetlands, the result of inadequate policies born of competing federal, state and private interests. Preservationists William Finley and Ira Gabrielson intensify their campaign for greater wildlife and habitat protections in the region.

1920 Congress passes The Water Powers Act and thus authorizes federal hydroelectric power projects.

1920-1932 Incited by the pro-business agenda of three, successive Republican administrations, the wilderness preservationist cause gains power and prestige through a new wave of stalwart activism, one that will shape public opinion and environmental policy well into the future; among its leading proponents: Aldo Leopold, Rosalie Edge, Rockwell Kent, Bob Marshall, Mardy and Olaus Murie.

1922 Biologist Willis Rich finds no evidence that fish hatchery programs as practiced are restoring salmon populations. The following year, the US Bureau of Fisheries concurs.

1922 The Colorado River Compact is created to appropriate and manage equitably the water resources of the Colorado River Basin among seven southwestern states.

1923 The O'Shaughnessy Dam is completed. The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir begins to provide water and electricity to the San Francisco Bay Area and parts of the San Joaquin Valley.

1923 Annual sales of the Ford Model T tops 2 million. Over two decades, the company will produce 15 million and control some 50 percent of the world's automobile market. Historic sales of gasoline-powered automobiles, along with the cheap cost of Texas crude oil, sound a death knell for the once popular electric-powered vehicle.

1924 The Oil Pollution Act prohibits the intentional discharge of oil into coastal waters.

1924 Rudolph Steiner, the German founder of anthroposophy, delivers eight lectures in Silesia ( now Kobierzyce, Poland ) that will establish the founding principles of biodynamic agriculture without the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Formulated around the central idea that a farm is an organic whole, Steiner instructs his followers to record and evaluate empirical data when applying his theories.

1924-1927 British marine biologist Alister Hardy applies the concept of complex food webs to the whale and its place in the ecosystem.

1925 New netting and processing technologies significantly increase the harvest volumes of Atlantic Ocean fisheries, a trend that will continue for two decades.

1927 The once formidable New England whaling industry dies an economic death as demand for whale oil and whale bone dwindles. Citing dangerously depleted numbers of Humpback and Gray Whales, the US government prohibits the hunting of both species and extends the ban to the traditional practices of the Makah Indians in Washington State.

1927 Ford Motor Company phases out the Model T, but has revolutionized American Industry through advancements in mass production and pay scales that transform workers into consumers. Some economists will argue that Fordism is a capitalist application of certain Marxist theories.

1927 The Great Mississippi Flood displaces some 700,000 persons, half of whom are African-Americans. When the swelling river threatens New Orleans, city leaders strategically dynamite levees and inundate the poorer precincts of St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes in an attempt to divert a catastrophe in the Big Easy proper. The desperation tactic proves to be nothing less than a scandalous blunder when dikes upstream from the city are breached and river waters in New Orleans subside to safe levels.

1928 The “Radium Girls” win an out-of-court settlement in their lawsuit against U.S. Radium. The five former-employees claim that the company had neglected workplace safety. All five die of radiation-related cancers within five years of the settlement.

1929 The Army Corps of Engineers recommends that ten dams be built on the Columbia River.

1929 National Park Service Director Stephen Mather dies one year after suffering a stroke. At the time of his death, the service administrates 20 national parks and 32 national monuments, and increased visitation has spawned new enthusiasm for preserving the nation's wilderness and natural wonders.

1930 The Army Corp of Engineers begins construction on an extensive system of levees whose purpose it is to direct the flow of the Mississippi River through the coastal wetlands of Louisiana and into the Gulf of Mexico. The system will ultimately deprive the region of a natural flood cycle and subsequently the silt deposits that replenish the delicate wetlands terrain.

1930-1940 A decade of severe drought descends on much of the American Heartland. Farming techniques employed during years of ample rainfall and lucrative profits now compound the problem of soil erosion and aggravate the massive dust storms that bring ruin to many a homestead.

1931 Emergency Conservation Committee founder Rosalie Edge wins a lawsuit against the Audubon Society on grounds that it misrepresents its mission by claiming to be a wildlife protector.

1931 The United States is party to the first of many international conferences on regulating the hunting of whales.

1931-1932 The United States recognizes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which opens the door for expansive oil exploration by Standard Oil on the Arabian Peninsula.

1931-1936 A consortium of six private companies build the multipurpose Hoover Dam at Black Canyon on the Colorado River. The dam is designed to provide flood-control, irrigation for agriculture, and the generation of hydroelectric power. It is the ninth significant dam to be constructed in the river basin.

1933 As part of his New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the government-sponsored Civilian Conservation Corps for the dual purpose of creating employment during the Great Depression while helping maintain the nation’s natural resources. Over nine years, the corps will see some three million men serve in its ranks, although the environmental impact and economic results of some of its programs are open to criticism.

1933 Hunters successfully lobby Congress to pass the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Act which places an 11% tax on all hunting equipment for the purpose of funding the establishment, restoration, and protection of wildlife habitats.

1933 Congress charters the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide the region with hydroelectric projects and economic development.

1933 Hugh Hammond Bennett heads the newly formed Soil Erosion Service in Washington DC ( renamed the Soil Conservation Service in 1935 ). Assisted by workers from the CCC and WPA, Bennett educates farmers in techniques such as crop rotation, contour planting, and soil and water conservation. By as early as 1937, erosion-endangered farmland in drought-ravaged areas is reduced by 50 percent.

1934 Selective logging and reforestation programs are much discussed by government and industry even as timber production is deeply curtailed by the Great Depression.

1934 Naturalist Adolph Murie joins the Wildlife Division of the National Park Service. His studies on biological integrity in Yellowstone, Denali, and the Alaskan Arctic will radically alter predator eradication policy.

1934 Rosalie Edge founds the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in eastern Pennsylvania.

1934 The Roosevelt Administration approves the “high dam” design for the Grand Coulee Dam, thus ending a thirteen-year debate by dealing defeat to the advocates of gravity-driven irrigation canals in eastern Washington State.

1936 A ten-year study in British Columbia concludes that fish propagation programs in general have no positive impact on anadromous fish populations. The US government ignores the study results and instead embarks on a more ambitious, more complex policy of artificial propagation and management.

1936-1950 National City Lines, a holding company formed by General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, and Phillips Petroleum, buys out 100 durable streetcar systems in 45 American cities and replaces the track-bound electric cars, which are often delayed by growing automobile congestion, with gasoline-powered GM buses. Over the coming decades, urban and suburban transportation will undergo an extensive, often entangled transformation that will include the municipalization of mass transit systems; the seemingly relentless construction of expressways, bridges, and tunnels; and the razing or partition of residential neighborhoods.

1937 Congress creates the Bonneville Power Administration to promote hydroelectric development in the Pacific Northwest. The Bonneville Dam at Columbia River Gorge begins to generate hydroelectric power.

1937 The term “Greenhouse Effect” is coined by geographer Glen Thomas Terwartha at the University of Wisconsin. The science however can be traced back to French physicist Joseph Fourier in 1824.

1937 The United States signs the International Whaling Agreement.

1937-1950 Twelve more significant dams are built on the Colorado River bringing the total number of significant dams in the Colorado River Basin to twenty-one.

1938 The Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association is founded in New York State.

1938 William Albrecht begins his decades-long research of agricultural soil fertility and its effect on the nutritional benefits of crops consumed by humans and livestock. 

1939 William O. Douglas is appointed associate justice of the US Supreme Court. Over the next four decades, as jurist and citizen, he will defend and promote greater federal protection of wildlife and wilderness areas.

1940 Congress enacts legislation to protect the Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle by prohibiting the commercial trapping or killing of the birds.

1940 Funded by the US Department of Interior, photographer Ansel Adams begins a nationwide tour, documenting iconic landscapes of American national parks and monuments.

1942 The Grand Coulee Dam is completed on the Columbia River. Aside from generating hydroelectric power, the dam will eventually support some 60 crops with its potential capacity to irrigate as much as 1.1 million square acres of land. Some 3000 people are displaced by the dam's construction, notable among them American Indian tribes and their traditional way of life. Because of the “high dam” design and absence of fish ladders, already depleted numbers of anadromous fish are now unable to reach their spawning grounds in the extensive reaches of the Upper Columbia Basin.

1942 With no end of World War II in sight and large numbers of American men serving in the military, Congress ends funding for the Civilian Conservation Corps.

1942 J. I. Rodale publishes the first edition of Organic Farming & Gardening magazine. Eight years later he will launch Prevention magazine.

1944 Supported by private funding from the United States, the Green Revolution is launched in Mexico. The international movement calls for 1) modern, commercial management applications; 2) large-scale irrigation projects; 3) a preference for high-yield seed and crops; 4) the use of chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers; and 5) the extensive mechanization of agricultural techniques.

1945 Emboldened by war-time research, the United States enters what some will deem the “pesticide era”. Over the next 50 years, synthetic chemical pesticide use in the country will increase some fifty-fold.

1946 The United States is one of 17 nations that participate in the first International Whaling Commission, which, under the auspices of the United Nations, aims to establish international cooperation in the resource management and conservation of whales. Under the original agreement, aboriginal peoples like Alaskan Eskimos are granted the right to continue traditional, non-commercial whaling within the limits of certain set quotas.

1947 Superior Oil builds the first oil-drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. The event marks the start of a new era of oil and natural gas exploration, one which will contribute significantly to the erosion of the state’s coastal wetlands.

1947 Nine corporations and seven individuals associated with National City Lines are indicted on two counts under the Sherman Antitrust Laws.

1947 Created in 1944 as the mascot of the US Forest Service, Smokey Bear is assigned his iconic slogan - "Only you can prevent forest fires" - as part of a public awareness campaign that will continue well into the next century. Since the campaign focuses on human-caused wildfires, critics charge that it misinforms by not addressing the natural role that fire plays in the life cycles of woodland and meadow.

1948 The Federal Water Pollution Control Act sets standards and appropriates funds to improve water quality in the nation's interstate waterways.

1948 The Fresh Kills Garbage Landfill opens on Staten Island, New York City.

1948 To better protect new development from flooding, the US Congress approves a massive project of levees and canals in the Florida Everglades. The world's largest water management system will seriously degrade remaining wetlands and wildlife habitats.

1949 Defendants in the National City Lines antitrust case are found guilty of conspiracy to monopolize the provision of parts and supplies to their subsidiary companies. They are acquitted of trying to monopolize transportation services. Corporations are fined $5000 each; individuals $1each.

1949 Governor Earl Long of Louisiana, in an attempt to control all revenues garnered from oil and gas extraction, refuses an offer from President Harry S. Truman to share with the federal government any royalties received from the licensing of drilling sites in his state. The decision will ultimately cost Louisiana citizens some $160 billion over the next 60 years.

1950 The Wizard Falls Hatchery in Oregon begins to propagate successfully non-native Atlantic salmon for recreational fishing.

1950 The US Department of the Interior files its first of many lawsuits against Louisiana with the aim of stripping the state of its submerged land property-rights.

1950-1960 Amid growing Cold War tensions and the anti-Communist witch-hunts, scholars, scientists, artists, and peace advocates protest against the dangers of nuclear testing.

1951-1975 

1951 Washington State attempts to naturalize non-native Atlantic salmon in Puget Sound. The project is unsuccessful.

1951-1970 Sixteen more significant dams are built on the Colorado River bringing the total number of significant dams in the Colorado River Basin to thirty-seven.

1952 Beef production increases dramatically as the meat becomes an Everyman’s symbol of prosperity. The average American consumes 62 pounds of it in a year.

1953 The United States joins Great Britain in supporting a plot that successfully overthrows the popular, constitutionally-elected Prime Minister of Iran, Dr. Mossadeq, who had successfully led the fight to nationalize the Iranian oil industry.

1953-1980 The United States is the world-leader in uranium production.

1954 Puyallup tribe member and fishing rights activist Robert Satiacum begins to fish for salmon “illegally” on Puget Sound.

1955 The American Bald Eagle, once numbering half a million, becomes a gravely threatened species, with less than 500 mating pairs of the bird surviving in the wild.

1955-1975 Accelerated "conservation" projects along the Mississippi River and its tributaries transform some half-million acres of wetland into productive farmland each year.

1956 The US Congress authorizes construction of the Interstate Highway System at a cost of $25 billion over 12 years. In fact, the project will be completed in 35 years at a cost of $114 billion.

1956 The Puget Sound oyster farm industry wins a benchmark battle against Rayonier, Inc. when Washington State orders the company to cease dumping waste sulfite liquor from its Shelton pulp mill into Oakland Bay.

1956 Record harvests of Northeast fishery Atlantic cod.

1956 Arctic Wild is published by Lois Crisler. The memoir recounts her experiences living with filmmaker husband Herb Crisler among the caribou, wolves and indigenous peoples on Alaska's North Slope.

1956 M. King Hubbert introduces the term “peak oil” into the scientific lexicon, assigning it to that point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, and after which global petroleum production enters a period of terminal decline. Over the years, models for assessing peak oil will varyaccording to changes in global consumption, the introduction of new extraction technologies, and the discovery of additional crude oil reserves.

1957 The National Academy of Sciences recommends an underground repository for radioactive waste disposal.

1957 The US Army Corps of Engineers completes the Dalles Dam on the Columbia River. Celilo Falls, the ancient and still economically viable fishing grounds of local Native Americans, is submerged beneath a newly-created reservoir lake.

1957 Eight plutonium production reactors at Hanford, Washington dump 50,000 curies of radiation into the Columbia River daily. Traces of the radiation can be detected along the Pacific coast.

1958 Walt Disney releases the film White Wilderness, based on the Arctic adventures and research of Lois and Herb Crisler. The movie is well-received by the general public and conservationists alike, but it triggers debate about production techniques and what some critics deem the “Disneyfication” of wildlife and nature.

1958 Hatchery-supported Atlantic salmon are successfully introduced to "land-locked" Hosmer Lake on the Deschutes River in Oregon.

1958-2002 Responding to the catastrophic flood of 1953, engineers in the Netherlands undertake construction of the Delta Project sea wall system which is designed to reduce the risk of flood to one event every 10,000 years in the vulnerable province of Zeeland. The American Society of Civil Engineers calls the project one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

1960 The average American consumes 99 pounds of beef a year.

1960 Before leaving office, the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower creates the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

1962 Marine biologist and author Rachel Carson publishes the ground-breaking book Silent Spring which demonstrates the many health and environmental risks of pesticides. Despite an ambitious campaign by chemical companies and government officials to discredit her research, the public outcry against the indiscriminate use of DDT and like chemical agents amplifies.

1962 Results of a 12-year study by the US Public Health Service link cancer rates to uranium mining.

1963 Congress passes the Clean Air Act with the aim of reducing smog and air pollution.

1963-1973 Following in the footsteps of Robert Satiacum, Puget Sound Indians organize acts of civil disobedience known as “fish-ins” to protest for the restoration of tribal fishing rights as guaranteed by The Treaty of Medicine Creek. The actions result in mass arrests, even threats and violence, but ultimately succeed in drawing national attention to the issue.

1964 Employment in the logging industry declines some 90% since 1947 as a result of automation and the loss of old-growth forests to cutting. Meanwhile, the federal Wilderness Act creates tens of thousands of new jobs in the way of environmental science and stewardship.

1964 Black activist Hattie Carthan founds an urban tree-planting effort in her Brooklyn, New York neighborhood. It will inspire new generations of community greening and farming projects in cities across the United States.

 1964 Peabody Western Coal gains aquifer rights on Navajo and Hopi tribal lands by way of an agreement whose misrepresentations will fuel controversy and conflict for decades to come.

1965 The United States is importing about 25% of its oil.

1965 Bear Butte is registered as a National Historic Landmark.

1965 The US Forest Service begins implementing policy changes to better emphasize conservation in its multipurpose management scheme for National Forests. Critics are not impressed, citing that agency prestige remains overly oriented toward the revenues gained from timber sales.

1966 Folk-singer Pete Seeger and his wife Toshi found the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. with the aim of raising public awareness about industrial pollution, pesticides, dredging, waste disposal, and unsustainable shoreline development, all of which are degrading the life of the river and its communities.

1967 The Bald Eagle is listed as an endangered species.

1969 The Sloop Clearwater is launched. It begins to take its environmentalist message and educational mission to cities and towns up and down the Hudson River.

1969 An oil spill caused by faulty equipment on an off-shore rig near Santa Barbara kills an estimated 10,000 sea birds along the California coast.

1969 Native American students and community leaders establish a working village and education collective on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, the site of a decommissioned federal prison. The 18-month occupation will usher in a new generation of indigenous demands regarding Native American sovereignty, compensation for broken treaties, and the restitution of indigenous lands.

1969 Land ownership by African-Americans continues a decades-long decrease at an alarming rate. Critics blame discriminatory policies of the US Department of Agriculture.

1969 The National Environmental Policy Act ( NEPA ) is passed by Congress. The law requires that all federal agencies evaluate and publicly disclose the environmental impact of any proposed action.

1970 The first Earth Day is celebrated.

1970 Congress amends The Clean Air Act with the aim of protecting persons against toxic airborne particles.

1970 The Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) is created by Congress. Proposed by President Richard Nixon, a number of federal pollution control programs will be reorganized under its authority.

1970 The average American consumes 114 pounds of beef a year.

1970 President Richard Nixon signs bipartisan legislation that enacts the return of sacred Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo nation of New Mexico. The transfer marks the end of a 64-year legal struggle and the first restitution of indigenous land by the US government.

1970-1980 Solar energy technologies begin to capture the interest of a public concerned with high gasoline prices, pollution, and dependency on foreign oil. At the same time, alternative energy activists begin to emphasize the advantages of decentralized energy sources with regard to the enhancement of community life and democratic institutions. Contrary to such citizen-based initiatives, the US government continues to subsidize the nuclear power industry while ignoring fledgling solar ventures, many of which will be bought-out by large energy corporations and oil companies whose design it is to monopolize and centralize new, alternative technologies.

1970-1980 Energy shortages spark an economic boom in the Louisiana oil and natural gas industries. Intensified exploration and extraction continue to undermine the integrity of coastal wetlands.

1970-1990 New policies for the high-yield harvesting of old growth forest are put in place on federal, state and private industry lands in Washington and Oregon states. Critics assert that these clear-cut and replanting schedules are unsustainable.

1971 Biologist and environmental activist Barry Commoner publishes The Closing Circle which focuses on his simply-stated Four Laws of Ecology: Everything is connected to everything else; Everything must go somewhere; Nature knows best; There is no such thing as a free lunch. Commoner also asserts that the capitalist paradigm is prone to producing flawed technologies.

1971 The United States comes off the gold standard and allows its currency to float while the price of oil is set in dollars. This effectively allows the US government to print money for the sake of buying oil from supplier nations while allowing those very same supplier nations to easily reinvest their profits back in the US economy.

1971 The Greenpeace Foundation is founded in Vancouver, Canada to oppose American nuclear devices in Alaska.

1971-1972 In an attempt to compete with Congressional Democrats in the area of environmental protection, President Richard M. Nixon endorses the Marine Mammal Protection Act which effectively ends all commercial whaling in the United States. At the time, only two small American companies based in California are still conducting commercial whale hunts.

1972 Congress passes The Clean Water Act with the aim of regulating source points of water pollution.

1972 Congress bans the use of DDT.

1972 The first Atlantic salmon fish farm on the West Coast is established in Puget Sound.

1973 President Nixon calls the current wildlife protection laws ineffective and joins Congress in signing the Endangered Species Act.

1973 In the wake of the Yom Kippur War, the Arab States which dominate OPEC decide to use the “weapon of petroleum” against nations that support Israel. The price of gasoline nearly quadruples in the United States and the country suffers its first oil shortage since World War II.

1973 Responding to the Arab Oil Embargo, Congress passes the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency Act or CAFE for the purpose of improving the fuel efficiency and mileage standards of US-made cars and trucks.

1973 Oil shortages foster expansion of mountain top coal removal in West Virginia and Kentucky.

1973-1974 President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger promote the Independence Project whose aim it is to free the country from dependency on foreign oil. Among its recommendations: a 55 mph speed limit, expanded use of coal, and the building of an Alaskan pipeline to better access domestic oil reserves.

1974 Congress passes the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act.

1974 Greenpeace mounts its first anti-whaling campaign against Russian whalers off the coast of northern California.

1974 Judge George Boldt upholds the right of Puget Sound tribes to 50% of all salmon that can be legally harvested. Non-Indian commercial and sport fishermen remain violently opposed to the decision. Tempers are further fueled by the already strict harvest limits on depleted salmon populations.

1975 The United States is importing about 35% of its oil.

1975 The last two of fourteen large, hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin are completed on the Snake and Kootenai Rivers. More than 400 smaller dams can also be found on tributaries throughout the region.

1976-2000 

1976 Wild salmon populations continue to crash worldwide due to harvests conducted in ocean waters. Over the next quarter century, national and international efforts to regulate open-water catches are confounded by political wrangling, economic pressure, and the intentional circumvention of conservation agreements.

1976 Greenpeace brings attention to the slaying of baby seals in Newfoundland.

1976 Singer John Denver creates the Windstar Foundation to promote sustainable living.

1976 The US Supreme Court extends the Winters Doctrine to uphold the groundwater rights of American Indians on or near federal reserves.

1976 The National Forest Management Act is passed by Congress to better assure sustainable timber policies on National Forest lands in compliance with the Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974.

1976-1980 Amid growing energy concerns, high inflation, and a second OPEC-generated oil crisis, President Jimmy Carter, a former naval nuclear engineer, turns his back on alternative energy sources such as solar or wind power while promoting the production of synfuels from coal, gas, biomass, and even waste plastic. In addition to emitting twice as many pollutants as petroleum-based fuels, it soon becomes evident that synfuels cannot compete with oil products when the price of crude begins to fall. Consequently, many energy companies direct the monies garnered from synfuel tax credits toward other projects.

1977 The Trans-Alaskan Oil Pipeline is completed

1977-1978 The Alaskan Eskimo Whaling Commission ( AEWC ) is created. It successfully petitions the United States government and the International Whaling Commission to allow nine Arctic villages to continue their limited, non-commercial hunting of Bowhead and Gray whales. The victory reaffirms the spiritual, cultural, and subsistence value of aboriginal whaling.

1978 Congress passes the American Indian Religious Act. The desecration of lands considered sacred or pertinent to tribal nation culture and history gains fresh attention.

1978 Alarmed by the recurring health problems of their children, residents of Niagara Falls, New York discover that their Love Canal neighborhood has been built on 21,000 tons of toxic waste. President Carter and the Congress establish a Superfund to pay for federally-mandated clean-ups of environmentally hazardous sites and to award compensation to the victims of such catastrophes.

1978-1980 The Iranian Revolution deposes the Shah, a staunch US ally, and eventually establishes an Islamic Republic.

1979 The US Supreme Court upholds the Boldt decision.

1979 The worst civilian nuclear disaster in US history occurs at the Three Mile Island electric-generating facility near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The event revives the national and international anti-nuclear movements and leads to a moratorium on the construction of all new nuclear power plants in the United States.

1979 Navajo and Pueblo Indians lead demonstrations at Mt. Taylor, New Mexico where Gulf Oil operates the world's deepest uranium mine. Joined by Chicano and non-Indian supporters, the event marks the beginning of what will become a decades-long, nationwide call to action against radioactive pollution and the desecration of sacred Native American sites.

1979 Congress launches a program to subsidize corn farmers for the production of ethanol. Over the next thirty years, critics of the policy argue that the program in fact does more harm than good by driving grain and meat prices higher and even causing food shortages, all for what is little more than another dirty fuel posing as a green alternative to petroleum.

1979 Musicians, scientists, and activists stage “No Nukes” concerts and rallies at Madison Square Garden and the Battery Park landfill in Manhattan, New York City.

1979 Earth First!, a radical environmental advocacy movement, emerges in the southwestern United States and gains supporters across the country and around the world. Over the next decade, it will raise public awareness of the ecological crises at hand by way of its high-profile publicity campaigns and confrontational acts of resistance.

1980 Before leaving office, the administration of President Jimmy Carter places 157 million acres of formerly unprotected Alaskan wilderness under federal jurisdiction in the name of conservation. Congress doubles the size of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ( ANWR ) on Alaska's north shore.

1980 Drawing its support from the ranks of the labor and environmental movements, the Citizens Party nominates ecologist and anti-nuclear activist Barry Commoner as its candidate for President; feminist and Comanche Indian, La Donna Harris, is his vice-presidential running mate. Critics accuse Commoner of being an eco-socialist. The Party appears on the ballot in 30 states but wins less that 1% of the popular vote.

1980 In the midst of the Iranian Revolution, the New York Times publishes a small but informative booklet, Resurgence of Islam, edited by journalist Flora Lewis. The booklet brings together the expert opinion and commentary of economists, theologians, and energy analysts from the United States, Europe and the Arab World. Among their summary conclusions: 1) the Iranian Revolution is a wake-up call to the West; 2) the US and Europe need to decrease their consumption of energy in general and their dependency on foreign oil in particular; and 3) the inflated oil wealth and rapid modernization of certain Arab nations are fostering the sort of uneven economic development that could prove dangerously destabilizing for those cultures in the future.

1981 Washington State once again attempts to naturalize non-native Atlantic salmon in Puget Sound by releasing cultured smolts. No salmon adults return to the site of their release. Meanwhile, the state's Atlantic-salmon fish-farm industry has grown to return a commercial profit.

1981 Ronald Reagan is elected president. He appoints James Watt as his Secretary of the Interior, an act which is seen by many as a first step toward reversing a decade of environmental activism on the part of the federal government. Watt plainly states that since the Second Coming of Jesus is upon us, we might as well use up all our natural resources as soon as we can.

1981-1989 The Reagan Administration pursues a policy of greater privatization in the National Park System.

1982 Citing the Winters Doctrine, members of the Navajo Nation plan to challenge the Colorado River Compact amid the growing water "needs" of seven southwest states. In the end, however, the tribal government sells-off 95 percent of Navajo water rights for a controversial sum of money.

1982 Congress passes the Nuclear Waste Policy Act which calls for the study and implementation of a plan to manage the long-term disposal of radioactive materials. Yucca Mountain, Nevada is designated as site of a prospective repository.

1982 American Indians go to court but fail to overturn regulations that limit their access to the sacred site Bear Butte for spiritual ceremony.

1982 Black Civil Rights leaders in Warren County, North Carolina lead civil disobedience actions in opposition to a hazardous waste dump that is leaking contaminants into community groundwater. Protests fail to shut down the state-sanctioned site, but they raise public awareness of the racial disparities that plague environmental policy nationwide.  

1983 The American Bald Eagle now numbers 100,000 in the wild. This comeback from the brink of extinction is attributed to the banning of the pesticide DDT which studies show weakens the shell composition of the bird’s egg.

1984 A two hundred mile stretch of the Hudson River is declared an EPA Superfund site because of PCB contamination from General Electric plants. Clean-up begins soon after.

1985 Congress creates the Off-Site Source Recovery Project ( OSRP ) to oversee and regulate, under the auspices of the Department of Energy, the removal of hazardous, radioactive waste from laboratories and research facilities.

1986 Inspired by aquaculture efforts in Norway and Scotland, Atlantic salmon fish farms begin to proliferate on the Maine coast. This in spite of growing concerns regarding the environmental impact and sanitary standards of open-water pens and their fish-farm stocks.

1986 People are mobilized nationwide by the alleged health risk posed by the agricultural chemical Alar when it is ingested with fruit or fruit products, in particular, apples or apple sauce. Supermarkets respond to public concerns by not selling Alar products and many growers - some of whom doubted a need for the product at the time of its introduction - voluntarily stop using it. Two states ban it.

1986 The United States, which has not engaged in any significant commercial whaling for decades, supports the International Whaling Commission’s worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan, a major commercial whaling nation, criticizes the US for allowing non-commercial whaling as practiced by Alaskan Eskimos.

1988 Global warming, ozone depletion, and Greenhouse Gases become hot topics of discussion.

1988 "New Forestry" techniques gain prestige in the Pacific Northwest where the fate of the region's dwindling old-growth forests has become a heated point of contention among policy-makers. The innovative approach puts emphasis on the promotion of "messy" clear-cut logging practices, consideration of wildlife habitat, and the protection of creek and river environs from timber harvests.

1989 In the face of new scientific evidence and an exposé on Sixty Minutes, the Environmental Protection Agency bans the chemical Alar. But before the ban goes into effect, Uniroyal, the only manufacturer of Alar, voluntarily stops selling it in the United States. Ironically, the whole affair becomes synonymous with consumer hysteria, and 13 states pass food libel laws.

1989 The Exxon oil tanker Valdez runs aground in Alaska and spills some 11 million gallons of crude into Prince William Sound. By conservative estimates, the catastrophe results in the death of a quarter million seabirds, 1000 otters, 300 harbor seals, and millions of salmon and herring eggs.

1990 With the support of the Congress, President George H. W. Bush issues an executive order which bans further off-shore oil and gas drilling along most of the American coastline.

1990 The Bush Administration and Congress enact the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act which aims to allocate federal funds to states for the management and preservation of coastal wetlands. Some critics of the policy charge that it creates a land grab in the name of regulated, responsible development. Others cite problems that arise from the fact that US wetlands sometimes fall under the jurisdiction of five different federal agencies.

1990 The US Department of Commerce adopts a dolphin-safe label for cans of tuna fish to assure consumers that the product was obtained with fishing methods that do not deliberately trap dolphins. Observation by US government fishing authorities takes place in only certain designated sea zones, and tuna caught in other zones are allowed to carry the label without government inspection of fishing methods.

1990 Amid growing concerns over global warming, an amended version of the Clean Air Act focuses on a quantitative points system for “emission trading” among nations with regard to addressing problems like acid rain and ozone depletion.

1990 The Steller Sea Lion is placed on the Endangered Species List. This raises new concern and speculation about commercial fishing in Alaskan waters and its impact on a complex marine food web.

1991 A court order prohibits logging on National Forest lands in the Pacific Northwest that serve as habitat for the Northern Spotted-Owl, now cited as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The decision incites an angry backlash from the timber industry and a logging workforce that is already reeling from significant job loss due to the dwindling export demand for regional forest product, a trend which according to some analysts is due to the unsustainable economic strategies that were put in place by government agencies and the timber industry 20 years earlier.

1991 A new PCB contamination site is located in the upper Hudson River.

1992 Black communities of Louisiana's infamous “Cancer Alley” win a landmark battle against Formosa Plastics, forcing the Taiwanese-based corporation to build its new facility elsewhere. The 85-mile stretch of petrochemical industries upriver from New Orleans becomes a flash point of public awareness and activism regarding racial environmental justice.

1993 Atlantic cod harvests bottom-out after decades of overfishing. International coordination on the issue is lacking, and the US government belatedly issues a total ban on harvesting the species. The ban inadvertently results in the overfishing of haddock stocks.

1993 The worst flooding of the Mississippi River since 1927 displaces nearly a million people.

1994 The Gray Whale is removed from the Endangered Species List.

1994 Western Shoshone elder and spiritual leader Corbin Harney inspires the creation of the Shundahai Network whose aim it is to organize non-violent civil disobedience strategies to be used in the struggle for ecological justice and nuclear disarmament, first and foremost on his native Treaty Lands in Nevada.

1994 A 40-mile stretch of the Hudson River is opened to recreational fishing on a catch-and-return basis. A general improvement in the river’s water quality as commonly perceived underscores what will soon be described as the challenge of “shifting baselines”, misguided notions of “natural” and “normal” which subsequently can influence ecological studies and environmental advocacy.

1994 US Courts order Exxon to pay $5 billion dollars in damages for the Valdez oil spill. At the time, that dollar sum is consistent with Exxon’s profit margin for one year.

1994 US Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbit proposes the selective removal of Pacific Northwest dams.

1995 French-American fisheries biologist Dr. Daniel Pauly coins the phrase “shifting baselines” to describe how short-term perceptions of an ecological system can foster misleading conclusions and lowered standards for judging the long-term health of the environment.

1995 Studies show that the average American family ( 3.2 persons ) produces 30 times more garbage than an average, economically-stable Nepalese family ( 6.5 persons ).

1995 Four populations of Columbia River sockeye and chinook salmon are placed on the endangered species list. Watershed restoration and management gain preference over hatchery programs in the campaign to stabilize anadromous fish populations.

1995 The longest-lasting road-blockade protest in US history begins at Warner Creek in Oregon and will successfully shutdown logging in the area for 343 days. Civil disobedience becomes a popular tactic among activist "tree-huggers" when demonstrating their opposition to controversial logging policies as practiced by the US Forest Service on National Forest lands.

1996 Congress votes to begin drilling in the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but President Bill Clinton vetoes the bill. Environmentalists pressure Clinton to declare ANWR a national monument, but he chooses not to do so while granting that status to other sites.

1996 Conservationists argue that the hunting of Gray Whale and Bowhead Whale by Alaskan Eskimos is not sustainable. 

1996 Operating as a nationwide network of autonomous cells, the Earth Liberation Front, already active in Great Britain and Europe, establishes itself in the US and launches an ongoing guerrilla campaign against properties and businesses it deems complicit in the environmental destruction of the planet.

1996 Due to its consumption of fossil fuels, the United States produces 25% of the world’s atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most prominent Greenhouse Gas.

1997 In spite of some small number gains in particular salmon runs, Columbia River populations remain less than 10% of what they were when European settlers first arrived, and on average more than 75% of those fish are hatchery-produced.

1998 The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository is unable to open as originally planned because of an array of legal challenges. Critics of the government plan cite fraudulent geological assessments and safety concerns regarding the long-distance transport of hazardous materials.

1998 Vice-President Al Gore signs the Kyoto Protocol on global warming along with the representatives of 181 other nations. After returning to Washington, he and his future running-mate, Senator Joe Lieberman, inform President Clinton that the US Senate, as so declared in a 1995 resolution by a 95-0 vote, will not accept a treaty that does not state timetables and emission targets for developing countries. The treaty is never sent to the Senate for ratification, and the American public is denied hearing the issue debated by its elected officials.

1998 President Clinton extends the moratorium on most off-shore drilling until 2008.

1999 The Green Earth Society estimates that US computers and cyber-infrastructure account for 13% of US electricity consumption and that by the year 2020, they will account for 35-50%.

1999 Against the wishes of animal rights activists, the Makah people receive permits to resume the non-commercial hunting of the Gray Whale. The Makah will kill one Gray Whale in 1999 and, according to tribal sources, another in 2000.

1999 Republicans in Congress enact legislation that will allow for increased road construction on forest lands administered by the federal government, but President Clinton vetoes the measure.

2000 US Courts reduce the Exxon Valdez settlement to $4 billion.

2000 The United States begins the new century with one automobile on the road for every person of driving age.

2000 Louisiana coastal wetlands are disappearing at a rate of one football field every 30 minutes, threatening the livelihood of some 700,000 people who are connected with the shrimp, crab, and oyster industries, and further eroding the state’s natural buffer against hurricanes.

2000 Wild Atlantic salmon in eight Maine rivers are listed as endangered under federal law.

2001-Present 

2001 The controversial Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, New York, arguably the largest man-made structure on the planet, is closed, spawning new debates over what to do with New York City’s garbage.

2001 The US Forest Service begins to reevaluate its service road construction policy in accordance with current timber sale trends and new environmental standards. There are currently some 373,000 miles of classified service roads on National Forest Lands, and another 60,000 miles of unclassified roads. By comparison, the US Interstate Highway System comprises some 47,000 miles of road.

2001 The International Whaling Commission upholds the right of the Makah people to resume the limited hunting of Gray Whale even as anti-whaling activists successfully petition the US government to temporarily ban the practice.

2001 The FBI deems the Earth Liberation Front an "eco-terrorist" movement. While ELF maintains a strategy that targets property and guards against doing injury to all living things, including humans, its high-profile attacks on universities and research centers speed the demise of its already controversial approach for gaining public support.

2001-2008 President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney imply that central to their energy policy is speculation that the US will need 50% more energy resources by 2015, perhaps 100% more by 2020.

2002 Black land loss continues dramatically. African-Americans own only 1% of rural property in the United States.

2002 The Environmental Protection Agency locates another PCB-contaminated stretch of the Hudson River and prepares for another clean-up.

2002 President Bush signs a Congressional Resolution that aims to facilitate a construction license for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain by declaring the site plan safe and secure. Construction is scheduled to begin sometime between 2010 and 2015.

2002 Japan persuades member states of the International Whaling Commission to ban limited, non-commercial whaling by Alaskan Eskimos. Nations like Japan and Norway continue to legally kill 100 whales a year in compliance with guidelines of the Commission’s research whaling program.

2002 The US Court of Appeals overturns a lower court decision and upholds a moratorium on the traditional hunting of Gray Whale by the Makah people. While the Gray Whale is no longer listed as an endangered species, critics of the hunt insist that whale aggregations in the Puget Sound area cannot sustain the 5-kill yearly quota now in effect.

2003 The National Park Service now administrates 392 holdings.

2003 Drought, flooding, and the serious species decline of land-locked redband trout present complex challenges to riparian management of Great Basin bird refuges but also inspire newfound cooperation among ranchers, farmers,  government officials, and environmentalists.

2004 Amid growing concern over a long-term rise in ocean temperatures worldwide, scientists forecast a serious increase in violent tropical storms and hurricanes. The warming trend is especially ominous for the Gulf of Mexico. Subsequently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) simulates a category 4 hurricane scenario with public officials and first responders from the state of Louisiana.

2004 The US Court of Appeals rules that the Makah people must pursue a waiver to the Marine Mammal Protection Act in order to once again engage in regulated, non-commercial whale hunting. The same court also orders that further scientific study be done regarding the resource management of whales in the Puget Sound.

2004 Amid continued environmental concerns and legal challenges, Congress reduces funding for the construction of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository.

2004 Consumption of salmon in the United States has more than doubled over the last 15 years, some two-thirds of which is now imported from foreign fish farms. Meanwhile, some two-thirds of the wild salmon harvested by American fishers is exported overseas.

2005 In April-March, Republicans in Congress try once again to allow oil drilling in ANWR by attaching an amendment to the federal budget, but House Democrats sign a letter stating that they will never accept any such proposal. A similar tactic in December by Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens is defeated by a Democratic filibuster.

2005 The Environmental Protection Agency refuses to allow 17 states to raise standards limiting automobile emissions.

2005 Mountain top removal of coal and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas begin to gain public attention for their negative impact on biodiversity, water quality, health and community.

2005 The Makah people submit appeal for a waiver to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

2005 Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma batter the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida with high winds and coastal flooding, causing catastrophic death and destruction across a land area equal in size to the United Kingdom. Levees in the city of New Orleans are breached, and the ensuing floods displace some 350,000 people.

2006 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issues a license for a major commercial nuclear facility for the first time in almost 30 years. The approved New Mexico plant would become on completion the nation's first private source of enriched uranium fuel. Opponents of the plan claim that the facility will pollute the environment, deplete scarce water supplies, and burden the small town of Eunice with tons of radioactive waste without a place to store it.

2006 “Peak oil” is hotly debated. Some government reports and industry analysts cite the year 2030 as the date when a terminal decline in petroleum availability, relative to worldwide consumption, will begin. Others, including many environmental activists, assess that "peak oil" is already upon us.

2006 With the support of the Bush Administration, Republicans in Congress begin a campaign to lift the ban on off-shore oil drilling.

2006 US Courts reduce the Exxon Valdez settlement to $2.5 billion.

2006 Extensive honey bee die-offs gain national attention under the banner "Colony Collapse Disorder", with pesticide use and forage depletion cited as the cause. Remediation and maintenance present new economic challenges to commercial honey-producers. Meanwhile, the news of threatened pollinator populations sparks fresh interest in amateur beekeeping as a way to stabilize local ecological integrity.

2006 A burst oil pipeline on Alaska's North Slope releases some 265,000 gallons of crude into the environment, five to six times more than pipeline owner BP first reports.

2006 The United States is importing about 65% of its oil. Its citizens make up 5% of the world’s population, yet consume 25% of the world’s resources.

2006-2007 An Inconvenient Truth, a film about global warming as championed by former Vice-President Al Gore, is premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and goes on to win an Academy Award for best documentary.

2007 Sporadic if catastrophic events on Atlantic-salmon fish farms in Norway, Scotland, Canada and Chile continue to confirm ongoing concerns of the industry's harshest critics. These concerns address: 1) the transmission of disease; 2) sea-lice infestation; 3) fish feed logistics; 4) overuse of antibiotics, and 5) the environmental impact of stationary, open-water "feed lots".

2007 The Department of Energy seeks to double the size of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository which it now says should be active by 2020, not 2017. Despite estimates that millions of gallons of radioactive waste and thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel are being stored across the country, the Department still envisions their total relocation to the repository by 2025.

2007 Resisting efforts by pro-whaling nations like Japan, the United States joins an overwhelming majority in voting to strengthen the international moratorium on whaling.

2007 A survey conducted among staff scientists with at least 10 years experience working for the Environmental Protection Agency, finds that 40% of respondents think that political interference during the last five years has been greater than at any previous time during their tenure.

2007 Five members of the Makah people harpoon and shoot a Gray Whale in defiance of US courts and government agencies that have failed for eight years to restore the tribe’s whale hunt permit. The five are indicted under federal and tribal law.

2008 The blue crab of Chesapeake Bay is feared to be gravely endangered.

2008 The United States is home to 25% of the world’s cattle. Cattle are a major source of methane which accounts for 18% of the world’s Greenhouse Gases.

2008 The Yucca Mountain controversy continues as the US Congress once again reduces funding for construction of the proposed nuclear repository. Without such a repository, the federal government contractually owes to utility companies $300-500 million for each year since 1998 that it fails to provide a safe site for radioactive disposal.

2008 Refusing a plea bargain deal and denied a First Amendment defense, two charged Makah tribesman are found guilty of illegally killing a Gray Whale in 2007. Makah leaders fear that the court case will complicate their efforts to have non-commercial whale hunts restored. The federal government asks for public feedback on the controversy while admitting that no resolution should be expected for at least another year.

2008 The US Supreme Court reduces the Exxon Valdez settlement to $507 million.

2008 A federal government report states that the air in hundreds of US cities is unhealthy to breathe.

2008 A University of Michigan study concludes that since the year 1600, some 90% of the virgin forest that once covered the lower 48 states has been cut. Most remaining old-growth forests are on public lands, and in the Pacific Northwest, some 80% of these woodlands are targeted for logging.

2008 For the first time in 35 years, the federal government revises CAFE and overhauls its standards for fuel efficiency in US-made cars and trucks. The new requirements will not become mandatory until the year 2020.

2008 President Bush issues an executive order lifting the ban on off-shore oil drilling and calls on Congress to follow suit with new energy-policy legislation. The governors of California and Washington are quick to voice their opposition to lifting the ban.

2008 Three years after Hurricane Katrina and just in time for the general election, local politicians and the Army Corps of Engineers promote the reinforced levees of New Orleans. Critics lament that the new structures are designed to withstand no more than a category 3 hurricane sea surge; that many weak links in the system still exist: and that specifications fall far short of an engineering effort like that of the Delta Project in the Netherlands. Funding for further improvements becomes a political football for local, state, and federal authorities.

2008 The largest coal ash slurry spill in US history occurs when a dike ruptures on a containment pond at the coal-fired TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee. The released slurry amounts to some 1.1 billion gallons and covers 300 acres of land, damaging homes and polluting Tennessee River tributaries. The event compels the EPA to order a review of coal ash slurry containment facilities nationwide.

2009 An economic stimulus package proposed by President Barack Obama and approved by the US Congress includes unprecedented government funding for the development of green, renewable energy production. Critics complain that the program does not go far enough since it will only provide a small fraction of the nation's future energy needs.

2009 Lisa P. Jackson becomes the first Black American to serve as chief administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

2009 Ocean acidification, which is directly linked to global warming and human-produced CO2 emissions, begins to seriously impair oyster larvae production in Pacific Northwest hatcheries.

2009 River populations of Asian Carp are found moving ever closer to Great Lake waters where they would pose serious damage to environmental and biological integrity. New measures to impede their passage are put into effect, and the fish become a high-profile reference for harmful invasive species.

2010 The number of coal-fired power plants in the Midwest continues to rise even as downwind East Coast states strive to attain healthier levels of air quality.

2010 A 40-mile stretch of Michigan's Kalamazoo River suffers extensive pollution when a pipeline owned and operated by the Canadian company Enbridge ruptures, releasing some one million gallons of toxic synthetic crude oil ( diluted bitumen ) into the environment. The EPA-ordered clean-up will involve 14 government agencies and cost Enbridge an estimated $809 million.

2010 President Obama relaxes restrictions on oil exploration and extraction in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and along the southern Atlantic coast of the United States. But unlike the proposal of his predecessor, George W. Bush, the western states of California, Oregon, and Washington are allowed to maintain a ban on off-shore drilling.

2010 First introduced in the 1960s, mountain top coal removal in the United States now effects a sum area the size of the state of Delaware.

2010 Seven workers die of burns when an explosion rips through the Tesoro refinery at Anacortes, Washington during restart after a maintenance operation.

2010 An explosion and fire sink the Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling platform some 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Eleven workers are killed, and a sea-floor, well-cap leak pours some 5 billion gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico over three months, causing inestimable environmental and economic damage. The event is to date the largest accidental, marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Once again, rig owner BP is criticized for misleading the government, the press and the public on the severity of the well blow-out.

2010 The Florida Everglades have been reduced by half over the last 100 years. Federal and State agencies launch an extensive joint venture to reclaim natural environment and restore water quality.

2011 Spring rains bring record floods to many parts of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. In southeast Missouri, 130,000 acres of farmland are inundated when a levee is purposefully blasted open. The event sparks new debates concerning flood-control and the need to restore riparian wetlands.

2011 Catastrophic damage at and around the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan complicates the Obama Administration's plan to end a thirty-year moratorium on the licensing of new nuclear power plants.

2011 To the disappointment of many environmentalists and liberal supporters, President Obama fails to introduce policy that is tough on fossil fuel extraction, consumption and emissions, declaring instead that the nation must continue to develop all its energy resources.

2011 Hurricane Irene inundates many parts of the Mid-Atlantic States with ocean surges, torrential rainfalls, and a long aftermath of cresting waters and flooding in many overdeveloped river basins.

2011 Unable to compete with foreign producers, Solyndra, a major American manufacturer of solar-panels, goes bankrupt in spite of a $527 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

2011 Removal of two hydroelectric dams, both built in the early 20th century, begins in Olympic National Park as part of what is proposed to be a benchmark, science-driven effort to restore the natural design and wildlife habitats of the Elwha River Valley. According to some estimates, the unobstructed spawning route could increase the river's wild salmon counts by100-fold.

2011 The National Trust for Historical Preservation includes Bear Butte on a list of eleven most endangered places. Movements to preserve American Indian sacred sites gain momentum across the continent.

2012 The tax-credit subsidy for corn ethanol production - amounting to $6 billion dollars in 2011 alone - is allowed to expire after 32 years and without a fight from farmers who claim that the subsidy is no longer needed in a now stabilized ethanol marketplace. Environmentalists however continue to question the impact of corn ethanol production on soil erosion, air quality and general food security.

2012 Under pressure from environmentalists and facing a year of reelection politics, President Obama withdraws his support - pending further environmental impact studies - for the Keystone XL Pipeline project that would transport synthetic, tar sands fossil fuel from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

2012 Coral reef decline along the Florida coast - as much as 80% over three decades, according to some estimates - continues due to over-development, pollution and ocean acidification.  .

2012 Dusty grazing land, dried river beds and record wild fires prevail as the worst drought in six decades grips most of the US heartland and impacts some 80% of the nation's agricultural production. Ruined crops and high-cost livestock feed drive up food prices significantly with even higher prices predicted for the coming year.

2012 The first salmon in one-hundred years return to Lake Aldwell, the former reservoir of the now dismantled Elwha Dam in Washington State.

2012 Domestic fossil fuel extraction continues nationwide at a feverish pace. Analysts project that the US will regain the title of world's leading producer of crude petroleum by the year 2020.

2012 One year after Hurricane Irene inundated many parts of the Mid-Atlantic States, Hurricane Sandy batters the northeast coast of the US, causing historic flooding, wind damage and shoreline erosion in New York City and the surrounding Tri-State Area. Major transportation services are knocked out of service; hundreds of thousands of households are left without heat and electricity; some forty-thousand people are rendered homeless as coastal communities suffer massive destruction to buildings and infrastructure. The estimated cost of recovery is $100 billion.

2012 Climatologists warn that green-house gas emissions are producing global-warming trends more troubling than previously predicted. At the UN conference in Doha, Qatar, the United States joins those nations who defer from supporting a pledge of financial investment that proponents say is needed to reverse an ever more critical situation and its many looming repercussions.

2012 Diluted bitumen residue continues to plague the Kalamazoo River in Michigan over 2 years after a pipeline rupture. The EPA orders Enbridge to increase its clean-up domain from 25 acres to 100 acres.

2012 A report by the Cohen Commission in British Columbia weighs in heavily against the Pacific Coast salmon farm industry on a number of concerns regarding environmental health, food safety, and governmental regulatory policy. Its recommendations are seen as a victory for wild salmon advocates both in Canada and the United States.

2012 Some five-hundred workers continue the environmental clean-up at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, four years after the nation's worst coal ash slurry spill. Cost estimates of the clean-up range as high as $1.2 billion.

2012 BP agrees to a $7.8 billion settlement paid to individuals and businesses for property damage, economic loss and health claims resulting from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. This sum is in addition to monies spent by the corporation on environmental remediation, tourism enhancement, and grants offered to specific associations in the affected Gulf of Mexico region.

2012 San Francisco voters consider a proposal that would drain and restore the Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park to its natural state. The referendum is defeated by a 3-1 margin.

2012 Lower levels of annual rainfall and the increased "need" of water in the fast-developing American Southwest raise new challenges and conflicts for the Colorado River Compact, not least of all those arising from international water agreements between the United States and Mexico.

2013 Illegal GMO "weeds" are discovered and reported by an export wheat farmer in Eastern Oregon raising concerns about international trade and prompting an investigation by federal authorities.

2013 The Keystone XL and other pipeline transport systems become flash points for citizen groups, activists, and American Indian communities opposing the nation's dependency on fossil fuels.

2013 A field of debris the size of Texas from the Fukushima tsunami of 2011 nears the coast of North America and will continue to wash ashore on coastal fronts for years to come.

2013 The federal government confirms new standards for Upper Klamath Lake tributaries, citing that the water rights of Klamath tribes date back to "time immemorial". The policy will likely cut off irrigation to area farmers and ranchers during this time of severe drought.

2014 Some 30,000 residents in nine counties around Charleston, West Virginia lose access to potable water after a coal-cleansing chemical is leaked into the Elk River by Freedom Industries. A not-safe-to-use warning stays in effect for five days, but citizen concern about drinking water quality will persist a full year after the incident. It is the third chemical leak in five years to impact the region's water supply.

2014 Vermont becomes the first state to require immediate, unconditional GMO labeling on food products. The Grocery Manufacturers of America, whose industry members have spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat such  measures in other states, files suit to challenge the law.

2014 After three decades of warming temperatures and historic glacial melts, 14,410 foot Mount Rainier in Washington State continues to undergo an unprecedented environmental transformation. Access to the National Park is often impeded by atypical flooding while scientists fear irreversible changes to the area's natural environment and the species who called it home.

2014 Over a half-million residents of Toledo, Ohio find their Lake Erie tap water rendered unsafe to drink by a harmful green algal bloom and its associated toxins. Increasing concerns about water supply quality continue to undermine consumer confidence in communities nationwide.

2014 California voters approve a referendum to divert water from the Sacramento River to the Central Valley for use by industry. The water "tunnel" is opposed by many environmentally-minded citizen groups and Native American activists.

2014 New York becomes the first US state rich in shale oil reserves to ban fracking.

2014 A series of railroad accidents hardens community opposition to the rail transport of coal and Bakken oil in western states as well as to the building of new coal depots in Pacific Northwest ports.

2014 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that fallout radiation from the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear power plant catastrophe in 2011 has reached ocean waters off the West Coast of North America, but that the amount of radiation remains well below levels that pose any danger. The Canadian government and the 5 Gyres Institute assert the same general conclusion.

2014 California endures a third year of historic drought with no lifting of water use restrictions in sight.

2015 The State of Texas outlaws the regulation or outright banning of fossil-fuel fracking by local communities.

2015 Historically low mountain snow pack in the Pacific Northwest forces cities and states to rethink their year-round water use and conservation policies.

2015 The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns an exemption to the Roadless Rule with regard to the nation's largest national forest - Tongass, in Alaska - thus protecting its enduring wild domains from timber sales and road construction.

2015 The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals cites EPA approval of sulfoxalor as illegal until the agency can provide sufficient evidence that the pesticide is not harmful to honey bee colonies.

2015 The Environmental Protection Agency updates the 1995 Worker Protection Standard to better protect farmers and agricultural workers from harmful or poisonous pesticides and herbicides.

2015 A historic red tide outbreak up and down the Pacific Coast seriously impacts shellfish harvests.

2015 A US District Court rules that further monetary settlement suits can no longer be brought against Exxon for damages caused by the 1989 Valdez oil spill on Prince William Sound, citing state and federal claims that restoration of wildlife habitat has been adequately attained. Many environmental activists and Alaskan residents are disappointed by the decision.

2015 After years of growing public resistance to off-shore drilling, Dutch Royal Shell suspends its oil-exploration operations in Alaskan Arctic waters. Weeks later, the Obama administration cancels further sale of off-shore Arctic drilling leases.

2015 President Obama vetoes approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and the US Senate fails to override. Canada and the tar sands industry consider alternative routes - through British Columbia or the Arctic - for exporting what critics call "dirty oil".

2015 While yearly oil consumption in the US is comparable to that of 1997, the US remains the world's foremost oil-consumer nation, nearly doubling oil consumption by China. Meanwhile, US domestic crude oil production has risen 90% since 2008. US net import of petroleum is at its lowest in 20 years.

2015 The Food & Drug Administration approves the first GMO animal - an Atlantic salmon - for consumption. Some three dozen other GMO fish types are awaiting approval.

2015 Some 18 months after the city of Flint, Michigan began sourcing inadequately treated drinking water from the Flint River as part of a new cost-saving policy, authorities confirm that the public water supply has since been contaminated with dangerous levels of iron and lead.

2015 Rising sea levels due to global warming threaten Eastern seaboard communities with unprecedented high-tides and storm surges. Long-term projections of current trends cite a catastrophic coastal impact from southern Florida to New England.

2016 Led by the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, American Indian activists and their supporters establish an ongoing encampment of Sacred Water Protectors in an effort to resist the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Missouri River in North Dakota and thus ensure the environmental good health of the watershed. Enduring a long succession of court decisions and violent confrontations with local law enforcement and private security agents, the demonstrators hold their ground though 9 months and into the new year, inspiring like resistance at fossil fuel pipelines across the continent.

2016 As part of a larger effort to clean up industrial pollution on tribal lands, the Mohawk Nation succeeds in its campaign to remove a federally decommissioned dam on the St. Regis River in New York State, freeing migratory fish and eel runs. It is one of some 250 dams removed from American rivers since 2012.

2016 Before leaving office, President Obama invokes a 1953 law and bans new oil and natural gas drilling on federally-held lands in two Arctic seas and on the continental shelf of the Atlantic Ocean.

2017 Newly-elected US President Donald Trump approves resuming construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline toward the goal of completing the controversial XL Keystone pipeline. Sacred Water Protectors are forced to abandon their campsite at Standing Rock amid numerous accounts of police brutality and the flagrant abuse of civil rights by law enforcement and private security personnel.

2017 EPA Enforcement lags under the Trump Administration as the agency suffers steep funding cuts. Policies that support clean energy, wildlife protection, pesticide safety, and scientific review are rolled-back or even eliminated. The federal government also announces the largest-ever auction of public-land leases to oil and gas extraction industries.

2017 Scientists march on Washington DC to denounce the removal of "science" from the mission statement of the Environmental Protection Agency. The replacement phrase calls for "economically and technologically achievable performance standards."

2017 The Trump Administration withdraws from the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement. Many US states and cities break rank with the federal government when the Administration attends the COP23 meeting in Bonn, Germany touting a pro-coal policy agenda.

2017 The Atlantic Ocean hurricane season causes an estimated record $202.6 billion in damages across the United States. Seventeen tropical storms visit the region, 10 of them hurricanes, 6 of those Category 3 or stronger. Hurricane Harvey dumps a record 60 inches of rain; Maria alone kills over 1000 people in Puerto Rico and knocks out power on 90% of the island.

2017 Historic fires sweep through western forest and shrub lands from British Columbia to Southern California, filling the skies with health-hazardous levels of soot and ash for weeks at a time. Across California, the wildfire season continues through December, displacing hundreds of thousands of people while destroying or damaging more than fifteen thousand homes and structures. The US Forest Service allocates seven times more money to fighting fires than it does to the application of low-intensity management burns, with the latter funds often siphoned off by the former whenever needed

2018 The Atlantic coast suffers its third consecutive above-average hurricane season. Among the 15 named storms, two Category 4 hurricanes, Florence and Michael, cause $50 billion in damage.

2018 The town of Paradise burns to the ground as the worst and deadliest wildfires in California history consume 1.8 million acres of the Golden State. Another 1 million acres are ravaged by wild fires in  neighboring Nevada.

2018 Species decline and extinction across North America, first and foremost among birds, insects, and reptiles, continue to accelerate at a catastrophic rate.

2018 Environmental regulation rollbacks by the Trump Administration usher in an unprecedented era of courtroom challenges by state governments and advocacy groups regarding wildlife protection, water quality, air pollution, natural resource extraction, coal transport, and fossil fuel pipelines.

2018 The Oregon Global Warming Commission concludes that the commercial timber industry is the foremost contributor of greenhouse gases in the state.

2018 China announces that it will no longer accept recycled plastic from the United States. The United States had been exporting 70% of its plastic recyclables to China.

2018 Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State proposes a $1.1 billion recovery program for the troubled salmon and Orca whale populations of Puget Sound.

2018 The Tennessee Valley Authority operates 29 hydroelectric projects that provide 10% of electrical demand in its service region. The authority's nuclear projects provide 40% of demand, coal projects 25%, and gas projects 20%.

2019 A record-breaking number of citizens register opposition to the Trump Administration's plan to end protection of gray wolves under the Endangered Species Act.

2019 Multiple infrastructure failures leave members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs without potable water and working toilet facilities. Inaction by the Trump Administration leads to months of hardship and years of being forced to live without an operating water system that is compliant with EPA standards.

2019 Record spring rains and severe weather events swell rivers to record-high levels in the Midwest and parts of the South. One million acres of farmland are inundated. Some 14 million people are affected in cities, towns, and rural areas. Flooding persists 7 months and more in the Missouri River watershed.

2019 Swedish school-strike activist Greta Thunberg, by calling attention to climate emergency and the need for immediate action by governments and international organizations, inspires student demonstrations across the United States and around the world.

2020 President Donald Trump withdraws the United States from the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement. The Trump Administration continues an unprecedented rollback of environmental regulations and protection of public lands.

2020 The ongoing COVID-19 viral pandemic infects some 22.5 million Americans throughout the year. Some 380,000 persons succumb to the disease during that period.

2020 Natural disasters enhanced by climate change wreak record-braking damages across the United States at a combined cost of $95 billion dollars and the loss of 262 lives. Hurricanes and wildfires dominate the list of qualifying $1 billion catastrophes.

2021 Deb Haaland becomes the first Native American to serve as Secretary of Interior. Among many other policy initiatives, Haaland proposes to prioritize major criminal justice reform with regard to unresolved acts of violence as historically suffered by Native American women. 

2021 Americans register as never before strong concern about climate change and the nation's continued dependency on fossil-fuels. Public opinion polls also indicate little concern about large-scale species extinction or degraded biodiversity.

2021 Secretary Haaland appoints Chuck Sam III Director of the National Park Service. Sam becomes the first Native American to head the federal agency.

2021 President Biden's pared-down Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is enacted by Congress with a strong emphasis on upgrades in public transportation, road and highway maintenance, power grids, and environmental remediation projects. Meanwhile, passage of a major clean energy initiative is continually stalled in the deeply-divided national legislature.

2021 Severe drought and extended wildfire seasons continue to plague California and the nation's other western states. Potentially catastrophic conditions gain official notice as a "new normal".

2021 Torrential rainfall - an atmospheric river - brings historic flooding to northern Washington State and south-western British Columbia. Cities like Bellingham and Abbotsford, along with interior rural regions, are inundated for many days as are major highway and rail routes. Clean-up efforts continue over weeks; long-term reconstruction lasts months.

2021 Diverse stakeholders establish a plan to retain public ownership of Oregon's Elliott State Forest. The proposed sale of the forest to private interests had for years been a flashpoint that mobilized opposition by citizen groups at the local and national level, among them: environmentalists, birds, hikers, hunters, and sport fishers.

2021 Sales of plug-in electric cars triple worldwide over a two-year period. Sales in the United States - 2349 PEVs in 2021 - remains modest when compared with 7861 PEV sales in China and 5647 PEV sales in Europe. American numbers are stronger regarding PEV ownership, with 5.4 owners per 1000 people in 2021, compared with 6.1 in Europe and 3.3 in China. 

2022 The lingering COVID-19 pandemic continues to raise daunting concerns about the effectiveness of the American healthcare system, not least of all as regards its ability to meet the demands of globally transmitted diseases. The renewed emphasis on government-sanctioned vaccination programs fuels criticism from alternative healers, libertarians, and conspiracy theorists alike.

2022 Communities across Alabama and Mississippi suffer potable water shortages, pollution from toxic wastewater leaks, and the decay of aging public water systems.

2022 On one day in April, renewable energy provides 100% of California's statewide electricity needs. Only weeks later, a rare spring heat wave will overwhelm the system with unprecedented demand and subsequent shortages. Analysts remind that natural gas still provides some 40% of the state's total energy needs, and that petroleum-fueled transportation conveyances – cars, trucks, buses, airplanes - remain the foremost contributors of the state's greenhouse emissions. 

2022 Drought in southern Oregon and northern California ravages local farm production and causes a major salmon die-off on the Klamath River. Lower Klamath Lake and Tule Lake, perennial water habitat venues for migratory birds, are rendered dry.

2022 National and international studies suggest an increase in mental disorders caused by the many stresses – real and psychological - of climate disruption. The trends as cited are most alarming among children and young people. Other clinical studies suggest increased neurological disorders among humans exposed to micro-toxins present in the environment.

2022  The Biden Administration passes the Inflation Reduction Act. The bill includes historic investments in renewable energy and electric cars as part of an ambitious plan to reduce by half the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade.

2022 The federal government approves a long-envisioned plan to remove four lower Klamath River dams as part of a river restoration project. Hydroelectric production by the dams is judged as negligible, its termination inconsequential. Despite the dam removal, regulated water allocation will remain a contentious procedure as farmers, ranchers, wildlife advocates, and the region's indigenous peoples all compete for the precious resource in a time of incalculable climate changes.

2022 A study by Greenpeace reports that of the 51 million tons of plastics used by Americans yearly, 95% ends up in oceans, landfills and incinerators.

2022 The United Nations COP27 conference, rife with urgency, convenes in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Many grassroots and indigenous activists are kept from joining negotiations. Initiatives for addressing climate change as outlined by the United States are met with disappointment among participating attendees from poorer, less developed nations.

2023 The US Government agrees to fund renewable energy projects on lands of four First Nations tribes in Oregon and Washington states. An energy production trade-off will enable the breaching of four hydroelectric dams on the lower Snake River with the goal of enhancing local salmon runs.

2023 An overheated wheel bearing causes the derailment of dozens of Southern Norfolk freight train cars and a subsequent pile-up fire in East Palestine, Ohio. Eleven of the derailed cars dump some 100,000 gallons of hazardous material onto the soil and into a local creek. President Joe Biden declares the event an "act of greed". Concerns about the impact on public health and criticism of the official response fester and divide the community politically.

2023 Diverse groups protest the building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, also known as Cop City, on the traditional forest homeland of the Muskogee people. Violent clashes between police and demonstrators lead to the death of one activist. Scores of others are arrested and charged with "domestic terrorism" or "racketeering". A petition calling for a public referendum and signed by 116,000 opponents of the project is deflected by the Atlanta City Council.

2023 Forest fires burn a record-setting 45.7 million acres across Canada, surpassing the previous high of 17.5 acres in 1995. Smoke and hazardous carbon emissions blanket the American Northeast and Midwest for days on end and intermittently over the summer.

2023 California makes significant gains toward realizing its ambitious zero-emission goal by 2050. Electricity production by solar, wind, and hydro sources increases annually along with battery storage capacity. Yet natural gas and nuclear power continue to provide 47% of the electricity consumed in the state. One in five new cars sold are electric vehicles, but only 7% of automobiles on California roads are EV.

2023 American southwest and south central states are gripped by a record-setting summer heat wave. Over the course of the season, the Phoenix metropolitan area will endure 54 days of temperatures reaching 110 degrees F. or greater, with some 645 deaths deemed heat-related. San Antonio will endure 78 days of temperatures reaching 100 degrees F. or more. 

2023 Native American protesters and environmental activists continue their efforts to stop a lithium mining company from desecrating Peehee Mu'huh, also known as Thacker Pass, site of an 1865 Indian massacre and subsequent Native American burial ground. The growing demand for lithium by the electric vehicle battery industry stokes controversy and conflict worldwide, not least of all on the homelands of indigenous peoples.

2023 The US Forest Service begins to reform its forest management policies to better address the challenges of climate change. The plan proposes new commitments to wildfire resilience, reforestation efforts, the conservation of old growth ecosystems, and enhancing partnerships with local Native American communities. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration continues to promote increases in fossil-fuel extraction and production, both off-shore and on federal lands.

2024 Hurricane Helene makes landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. The slow-moving storm brings catastrophic rains and flooding to six states, killing 228 persons, leaving 1 million homes without power, and tens of thousands without running water. It is the most powerful inland-course hurricane on record since Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

2024 The US Forest Service loses nearly half of its permanent firefighting personnel over a 3-year period. Firefighters cite poor working conditions, labor disputes, and exhaustive tours of duty as reasons for resigning. Meanwhile, acreage lost to wildfire in 2024 is some 25% above the 10-year average.  

The timeline is still ticking.