Dirty air and dirty water prompted North American governments to consider legislation to prevent environmental pollution in the 1950s and 1960s. It was not simply that the air and water were polluted. Rather, it was because such pollution was being ever increasingly linked to serious human health problems (Pringle, 1980, p. 33). Environmental policy, in the context of this study, concerns both health and ecological aspects. Environmental health policy concerns pollution that either directly affects the health of humans or affects human health through the effects of environmental pollution on the food chain. Environmental pollution policy affects those actions that lead or have the potential to lead to ecological degradation.
The earliest environmental protection measures implemented in the United States were, in fact, public health initiatives dealing with sewage disposal. Formal legislation at the federal level dealing with environmental protection has occurred primarily since the end of the Second World War. Chicago and Cincinnati, however, had air pollution laws in effect as early as 1881, and Ohio enacted a statewide air pollution law in 1897 (Petulla, 1987, p. 49).
Within the context of environmental law, elements of both environmental health and environmental protection are involved. An important element of environmental protection is the development and implementation of public policy to protect sensitive ecological areas. The policies in the United States designed to protect areas such as Prince William Sound in Alaska from damage by oil spills is one illustration of an attempt at environmental protection. Protection of the environment in such a context, however, does not have a direct relationship to the health of human beings (so long as petroleum contaminated sea life is not consumed). Thus, policy initiatives designed to protect the natural environment where direct relationships to human health are not st...