Cleaning Up the World: Memories of Vermont's First Earth Day

While reporting for the Bennington Banner, I had the opportunity to cover Vermont's first Earth Day in April 1970. Locally, the environmental faithful gathered that morning in Barn 1 on the Bennington College campus to help kick off the day's events with a frank discussion on the future of the planet. 

      Three keynote speakers meant three different viewpoints. Harvey Carter, then a young Republican lawmaker from Pownal, called for community action to influence legislation and elect candidates concerned with the emerging crisis. Local business leader Joseph E. Joseph urged better education and more constructive use of technology. And conservationist John Bischof said the key was each individual's commitment to change society, "even if we have to choose voluntary poverty."

      When Bischof explained that he was an organic farmer, the response was a round of applause. "The individual can change society," he said. For me, that related to a "visual pollution" project I had covered for the newspaper. David Wasco, a student at the high school who would later become a production designer for major Hollywood films, was collecting photos for a display of Bennington's visual deficiencies, things like poorly designed buildings, bad locations, inadequate maintenance, and trash piles. It was original, individual, the kind of thing that often can make a difference.  

Bennington Stream / Greg Guma Photo

      Several Vermont communities participated in what had been billed as a national "day of concern." At Middlebury College, Governor Dean Davis, Lt. Governor Tom Hayes and Attorney General Jim Jeffords -- Republicans all -- led a discussion of environmental problems with students and teachers. In Montpelier, Vermont College hosted a two-day observance that began with a speech by the governor on "The Aspects of Pollution." The second day featured classes, films, and more speakers, culminating in a talk by Reinhold Thieme, the former Vermont Commissioner of Water Resources who recently had been appointed a deputy assistant in the Interior Department.

      Taking the lead from Green Up Day, a campaign to clear roads of litter, Vermont College students demonstrated the scale of the problem by piling all the garbage normally collected at the school in one week inside a wire mesh enclosure.

      Carter was skeptical about Green Up, claiming it had been "cooked up" by the governor's assistant Al Moulton, and even questioned the effectiveness of pending legislation. Mentioning the Pure Water Act, which gave the Water Resources Board authority to set standards, he noted that it also gave the Board the ability to set low standards and permit temporary, or even permanent, pollution of streams. "I had to have the law amended to protect water near Readsboro," he explained. 
      Vermont had recently adopted what was lauded as the most effective package of environmental controls in the country, a model for other states. It was becoming fashionable to be an "environmentalist," especially after mercury was discovered in most of Vermont's waterways. Developers were meanwhile exploiting quick money by developing leisure home tracts, while the attorney general hinted at an organized crime connection.

      Politicians, many of whom hadn't heard of ecology a year before, now lined up to pass laws that they claimed would save the state from pollution and threats to the land. The heart of the package was the creation of nine district environmental commissions that would watchdog pollution and control development. Echoing Richard Nixon, Governor Davis called it a chance to "apply our creative localism theory."  

     Some lawmakers said the new laws weren't strict enough. As David Scribner wrote at the time, "They pointed to certain loopholes, argued that they were drafted without consultation with environmental experts, did not adequately coordinate various state agencies, and particularly, that they excluded a determination of what environmental damage was incurred by government projects."

      To many people, the state land use map proposed by the governor looked more like a blueprint for development than a means to define an environmentally sound approach to growth. Beneath the veneer of environmental concern lurked attitudes and assumptions that could open the way toward an ecological crisis down the line. 

      "The thinking is that we can manage the environment, create problems, and then use technology to solve them," Carter charged. "That is sheer nuttiness."  

      The Earth Day discussion with Carter, Joseph and Bischof was followed by workshops, with both civil disagreements about whose approach was safest and practical ideas for developing a more self-sufficient community. Despite the prevailing optimism, one participant did predict, "A catastrophe is going to occur." 

      BE, a new environmental group also based in Bennington, was already working on an ecological survey, with longer-term plans to act as an information center for residents with questions and concerns. Students were meanwhile preparing a personal ecology handbook.

      Dartmouth College took the opportunity that day to announce a new Environmental Studies Program that would bring students "to grips with the problems of controlling and reversing the damaging encroachments of modern man and technology upon the Earth's ecology." To be co-directed by geology professor Charles Drake and public affairs professor Frank Smallwood, the program was expected to involve significant research and interdisciplinary undergraduate courses as a supplement in traditional major fields.

      During his talk, Carter called Earth Day "a safety value," and hoped to see more "in terms of political action," specifically support for candidates "concerned with the environment." Joseph, president of the Bennington Brush Co, was more skeptical, calling Earth Day "an intellectual approach to the problem. While the community may know what it means, that's as far as it goes."

      A campaign to "clean up the world" requires consistent leadership, the businessman argued. "Children in school must be taught not to pollute. All you have to do is drive around the community to see how people live and will continue to live, unless a catastrophe occurs." It was a surprisingly grim outlook.
      About a month after covering Earth Day, I left the Banner and went to work for Bennington College as Publications Director. It was the end of a semester marked by environmental engagement and escalating political action. You couldn't visit the school without hearing phrases like resist the draft, zero population growth, and "man is an endangered species." Best of all, I arrived in time to meet Kurt Vonnegut -- and hear him issue this sharp, funny observation in his commencement address: 
     "The majority of people who rule us, who have our money and power, are lawyers and military men. The lawyers want to talk our problems out of existence. The military men want us to find the bad guys and put bullets through their brains. These are not always the best solutions -- particularly in the fields of sewage disposal and birth control."
       It does capture the mood. But so does another slogan seen around campus that year. 

       "The rich and powerful are killing all the butterflies.
       "If your children are to see butterflies you must be a revolutionary and yourself take control of your life and its surroundings." 
        Forty-seven years later, both outlooks still sound relevant. And Earth Day is still being celebrated. 

Here's the original Bennington Banner story... 

The Trouble with Sprawl

In 1969, Vermont took a vanguard role in the emerging environmental movement. The law known as Act 250 was a landmark attempt to preserve the state’s most valuable asset – its extraordinary physical environment – while also promoting “orderly growth and development.” But its limitations were obvious within a decade, when a plan surfaced to build a large shopping mall in then-rural Williston.

Plan BTV: The new waterfront vision

Bustling South Burlington, which had led the suburban wave, as well as tranquil Richmond, which remained a pastoral oasis at that point, anticipated major traffic problems. Winooski was worried about the potential impacts on water quality, transportation, and its own urban renewal dreams.

Despite plans for a downtown marketplace district, Burlington warned that the project could “devastate” its business sector and other big plans for "redevelopment." And a grassroots coalition called Citizens for Responsible Growth argued that the project – then known as Pyramid Mall – would not just affect soil, air, and water quality, but would also be energy inefficient and aesthetically unpalatable.

Threatening such a wide range of potential impacts, the mall plan helped crystallize debate over large-scale development, and whether the region’s fragile rural character could be preserved in the long run.

The problem was identified in a 1968 report by the Vermont Planning Council, chaired by Governor Phil Hoff. “The traditional rural scene in Vermont, characterized by concentrated settlement in villages and open countryside dotted with farms, is disappearing,” concluded Vision and Choice: Vermont’s Future. “The sharp distinction between village and countryside is blurring throughout the state. Highways between towns are becoming ribbons of residential and commercial development. Where strip development has become intense, particularly on the outskirts of the larger towns and in the most popular ski and recreation areas, the effects have been highly detrimental.”

Thirty years later, the land-use permit for a 550,000-square-foot shopping center near Taft Corners in Williston was approved. Combined with WalMart, Home Depot, Circuit City, PetSmart, Toys R Us, and a Hannaford Superstore already there, the proposal for Maple Tree Place sealed Chittenden County’s suburban fate. It had been a cumulative phenomenon, beginning at the edge of traditional centers, then moving out into previous rural areas.

Sprawl was land-consuming, auto dependent, and energy and resource intensive.

By the 1960s, Burlington was so concerned about fringe commercial development that it decided to “revitalize its city center” by clearing 27 acres of land at the heart of the city. An ethnic neighborhood with more than 100 buildings, once home base for progressive Democratic Mayor James Burke, was torn down to make way for urban renewal. 

Commercial development meanwhile continued to spread along Routes 2 and 7; residential development filled in nearby, along with strip commercial centers, auto dealers, discount stores and banks. From there growth spread to Williston, Jericho, Shelburne and Milton. Industrial parks also made their appearance.

But peripheral development began to threaten Burlington’s position as the region’s commercial center. In response, more than $96 million in public funds was spent between 1972 and 1982 to develop the Church Street Marketplace, renovate historic buildings and rehabilitate others, continue urban renewal and improve the transit system. But sprawl also expanded through large lot residential subdivisions, “big box” retail stores, and office parks. Land use controls failed to redirect the pattern of development.

By 1997 there were three major retail centers in Chittenden County, plus significant smaller ones. But Burlington lost over 237,000 square feet of department store space, as employment in general merchandising dropped steeply. It had happened despite the investment of almost $100 million more in public and private investment.

The region was no longer primarily agricultural. By 1992 Chittenden County had lost 70 percent of its farms, much of its prime farm land, and related wetlands. The trends were positive news for national retailers, property owners who planned to sell, lenders who financed development, communities that saw property tax revenues, and families who wanted a home in the new suburbs. But owners of retail businesses in older shopping centers lost sales, some towns lost part of their tax base, water quality dropped due to runoff, air pollution increased from auto use, and traffic congestion intensified for almost everyone.

As sprawl critic James Howard Kunstler explained, having failed to acknowledge the difference between city and country, nature and culture, scenery and civic life, Chittenden County seemed almost resigned to a “cartoon” future in which it looked a lot like Los Angeles. “Sometimes I think that the mentality in Vermont is that a good traditional Vermont town is a strip mall with a candle shop in it,” he joked.

It was harsh, yet the thrust of development did suggest a lack of vision, as well as a flaw in the plan to avoid becoming Anywhere, U.S.A. 

In truth, Williston was slated for suburbanization long before a major mall appeared on the horizon. In the same year that Act 250 became law, a report on public investment designated Taft Corners as a prime commercial site due to interstate highway access. The only thing lacking, said the experts, was adequate sewage, a problem that could be solved by public funding. The only surprise was that it took so long.

Throughout the struggle, Act 250 was a cumbersome and expensive tool. Lacking a consensus, the environmental review process merely delayed the outcome until the opposition ran out of steam.

The effects of Williston’s commercial expansion spun out for miles beyond the town lines. While no one community felt the entire brunt, many were impacted. Trying to use the state’s land-use law as a regulatory mechanism proved to be inadequate, especially since crucial public investments had promoted precisely such an outcome. In short, Act 250 just wasn’t designed to deal with the problems that Williston’s commercial expansion posed.

Conflicting interests and the unclear authority lines that characterized what passed for regional planning made the problems worse. Communities were suspicious of each other’s special agendas, and Regional Planning Commissions at best played a mediating role. Over time some of their functions were shifted to a more state-dependent Metropolitan Planning Organization, which focused narrowly on transportation. But even with more clout and a broader mission, regional planning had a key weakness – lack of public accountability. 

A report commissioned by Burlington while Progressive Peter Clavelle was mayor, Creating a Sustainable City, made a case against suburbanization. Beyond environmental impacts, it argued, places like Taft Corners tended to “homogenize the market experience, erasing local customs, traditions, and products.”

And yet, even in Burlington, sprawl continued to be defined primarily as a threat to downtown retail sales, and prompted increased pressure to "keep up." Thus, the response to Maple Tree Place and big box stores was to “save” downtown by adding more parking, chain stores and public attractions of its own.

Discount shops, hardware stores, and supermarkets were not part of the equation.

This is an excerpt from Green Mountain Politics: Restless Spirits, Popular Movements