The New Authority
The previous installment of this series brought the story of the Cleveland Division of Air Quality from its very beginnings in the early 1900’s. In 1947, the newly formed Division of Air Pollution Control was given additional authority for air pollution regulation with more ordinance amendments, including: permits to erect, construct, alter or install any combustion device; inspection provisions for right of entry; prohibition of open fires (in demolition of structures); the formation of an advisory board representing area industry and city officials; and the categorization of specific air polluting sources, such a oil-burning appliances, flues, incinerators, boilers, and exhaust, blower and ventilating systems.
Many significant changes in living styles occurred after the Second World War that was to have profound effects on the economy and environment. Furnaces in private residences were almost totally converted from coal use to fuel oil or natural gas. The soot and haze that was normally emitted from residential chimneys decreased. Other sources, small shops, factories, schools, steamships, harbor tugs, and locomotives, also switched to cleaner fuels such as gas, oil, or diesel.
However, large sources continued to burn coal. A gradual changeover to natural gas occurred in Cleveland schools so that eventually during this timeframe, only 39 of 184 local schools still burned coal. In essence, the widespread conversion from coal use to fuel oil and natural gas virtually eliminated chronic dense smoke problems in Cleveland.
Air pollution control work was becoming geared to a more definitive approach. Pollutants that in many cases are invisible were considered to be toxic substances and worthy of serious investigation, as the soot-fall and aerial dirt particles had been before the use of cleaner fuels. The focus of air pollution control was now on processes, or manufacturing industries, rather than solely on space-heating facilities.
Annual inspections of combustion devices, which began in 1949, stressed the importance of safety and efficiency within industrial operations. Existing defects in operations could be corrected and contaminants escaping into the atmosphere could be minimized by methodically checking on the condition of equipment and type of fuel used. Indoor pollution problems were also investigated. Division personnel attempted to reduce the incidence of occupational diseases caused by exposure to toxic substances during the course of the worker’s employment.
The 1958 Annual Report for the Division of Air Pollution Control stated: “The total of the smokeless exhausts of 1958 plus our industrial complex creates a pollution problem that dwarfs the black smoke problems of earlier times, although effluents may not be as readily visible.”
Next: The role of the Division of Air Pollution Control heightens with increases awareness to air pollution issues.
Contributed by David Hearne and Andrew Shroads