Spring 2000
A Brief History of Time 1970 - 2000
SVTC activities in bold
1962 - Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson published
1968 - Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinated
1970 - First Earth Day
1971 - Clean Water Act passes
1973 - DDT banned in the US, but it is still exported and used overseas
1976 - Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) founded
1976 - Worker Right-to-Know (RTK) law enacted; Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) passes and creates cradle- to-grave program for generation, handling and disposal of hazardous waste
1976 - World population reaches 4 billion
1978 - Love Canal residents evacuated because of toxic danger; CFCs in spray cans banned
1979 - Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident; Safe Drinking Water Act passes
1980 - US government creates “Superfund” program
1982 - Fairchild toxic spill discovered in south San Jose; Times Beach, MO evacuated because of dioxin contaminated soil
1982 - Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition founded
1983 - Hazardous Materials Model Ordinance and local Right-to-Know ordinance enacted throughout Siliocn Valley
1984 - Leaking Underground Storage Tank bill passed in Sacramento
1984 - Bhopal accident at Union Carbide in India kills 1000’s
1985 - State publishes epidemiological study identifying and documentomg high rates of birth defects in Fairchild area
1985 - Ozone hole discovered over Antarctica
1986 - US EPA lists 29 “Superfund” sites in Silicon Valley, in response to SVTC Camapign
1986 - Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in Soviet Union
1986 - Federal RTK law (TRI) passes; the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (SARA Title III)
1987 - Montreal Protocol Treaty adopted for scheduled phase-out of ozone-depleting chemicals
1988 - SVTC publishes first RTK toxic release report in US, documenting the release of millions of pounds of toxics in Silicon Valley
1989 - Save the Ozone layer Earth Day rally at IBM in San Jose draws several thousand; Exxon Valdez oil spill
1989 - World population reaches 5 billion
1990 - Toxic Gas Model Ordinance passed throughout Silicon Valley
1990 - SVTC forms Campaign for Responsible Technology (CRT); later becomes International Campaign
1990 - The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 enacted by Congress
1991 - Environmental Justice summit meeting in Washington, D.C.
1992 - UN Earth Summit in Rio, endorsing concepts such as the Precautionary Principle
1992 - IBM and SIA publish reports documenting high rates of miscarriages in chip workers
1992 - CRT persuades Congress to earmark 10% of SEMATECH budget for environmental research; NAFTA adoped
1994 - Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice issued by President Clinton
1995 - CLEAN South Bay victory leads to establishment of Silicon Valley Pollution Prevention Center
1996 - SVTC launches its web site at www.svtc.org
1997 - Kyoto Protocol adopted which sets limits on greenhouse gases that cause global warming
1998 - United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention)
1999 - SVTC launches Clean Computer Campaign and Environmental Health and Justice Project
1999 - World population reaches 6 billion
2000 -
Sources: see also: http://www.nrdc.org/feattime/linen3.html, SVTC newsletter - Spring 1997
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