Bernard Bloomfield: Michigan's Air Pollution Control Pioneer

 

"It happens in Detroit where whole neighborhoods are turned into blighted, blackened shells of their former selves. It happens in Muskegon where contaminants from huge foundry cupolas pour into the darkening skies. It happens in dozens of cities throughout Michigan each day of the year, causing paint to peel off automobiles and people to wheeze for a breath of fresh air…It has many faces, but it goes by one name - air pollution."

-- Michigan's Health, Fall 1967

In the early 1960s, air pollution in Michigan was an unwelcome guest in the daily lives of millions of citizens. One air expert testified at the State Constitutional Convention's Committee on Emerging Problems, "A great many people in the Detroit area are half-sick or below par physically because of the contaminated air they breathe." Eugene Sloane added he sometimes used a gas mask on his commute to work in Detroit from suburban Birmingham.

While Michigan citizens in the downriver Detroit suburbs, Muskegon, and Grand Rapids sometimes angrily clamored for a crackdown on pollution, state officials adopted a more methodical approach. State Health Commissioner Albert E. Heustis convened a panel in 1961 to develop recommended legislation to combat air pollution. In 1963, Heustis hosted a thirteen-part radio series entitled Hold Your Breath! "to bring to the public a thorough understanding of the causes and effects of air pollution."

By 1964, the combination of the health department's persistent education efforts and an ever-higher tide of public outrage about the problem stimulated Governor George Romney to announce his support for one of the first state air pollution laws in the country. Enacted in 1965, the law quickly became a national model. Many of those involved in those early days credit Bernard D. Bloomfield, who became the first state air pollution chief, as the reason the new law worked.

Bloomfield was the "father" of the air pollution program, in the words of Del Rector, who worked in the new program and later became air pollution control chief and deputy director of the Department of Natural Resources. Bloomfield had for years been active in the field as assistant chief of occupational health. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1922, he served in the Second World War, then obtained a master's degree in industrial hygiene from Harvard and authored studies on particulate pollution. He had also helped draft the air pollution law and would serve as executive secretary to the seven-member air pollution control commission it established.

Appointed to head the state's new air pollution control program in 1965, Bloomfield had his hands full. Roughly half of Michigan's population was living in areas with pollution above what would later become the national standards for particulate matter and sulfur dioxide. Michigan was at or near the national peak in foundry and cement production and Michigan's utilities, industries and state government facilities burned about 30 million tons of coal per year with high sulfur content of three to four percent, and with minimal particulate control. Across the state, auto salvage yards regularly burned vehicles, sending clouds of choking black smoke high into the air.

Bloomfield was deeply concerned about air pollution. In 1967 he told a department publication, Michigan's Health, that Michigan's pollution not only caused diseases of the respiratory system such as emphysema and bronchitis, but also cardiovascular difficulties. It had less tangible effects, he noted.

"Air pollution erodes a community's tax base by putting layers of dust on homes and buildings. It also affects people in a less concrete fashion by creating depression and hopelessness because of the grimy pall that daily engulfs some areas," Bloomfield said.

The new state air chief "emphasized that the best way to get air pollution under control was to go where it was happening and address the problem directly," said Del Rector, who worked under Bloomfield in the early days. "We therefore spent a lot of our early efforts in the field, visiting pollution sources, making engineering evaluations of compliance and asking for control programs whenever we found non-compliance. We would always give sources time to come into compliance, but not being able to afford reasonable controls for compliance was not an acceptable answer."

In addition to Rector, Bloomfield had the support of four other professional staff members to cover the entire state. One was Lee Jager, who would later become air pollution chief himself and chair of the state air pollution commission, and served for over 30 years in the health department. The atmosphere was professional and non-confrontational - but always driven by the need to clean up pollution expeditiously and protect public health.

Bloomfield started the practice of directing his staff to do community surveys to understand how bad a situation might be. He trained his team to write staff reports and share them with the Commission, with industry and with citizens. "He believed that we would always be fairer and more effective if we laid out the situation in writing as honestly as we could. He pushed us to give speeches to citizen groups and to professional organizations. He encouraged and supported participation in professional organizations," Rector said.

He also won the respect of his staff. Calling him "brilliant," Rector said, "He loved his work and his family, and didn't talk to me about much else. He could also laugh at himself. In his effort to keep up with the burgeoning in-basket, he would pack up his briefcase until it was full. He would then use his office wastebasket to carry the additional papers home. One evening after packing up, he was distracted before he left. He left the wastebasket in the office. Of course it wasn't there the next day. He often laughed about making that mistake, and the fact that he never missed whatever was thrown away."

Bloomfield enjoyed sailing, and along with his wife Betty, was a member of a Lake Lansing sailing club. He also enjoyed downhill skiing and was actively involved in his children's school and extracurricular activities.

Bloomfield patiently worked with citizens and industry representatives to fashion the state's first binding air quality rules, which took effect in 1967. It wasn't an easy task. Calling the rules "superstrict," Frank Cooper of the Michigan Manufacturers Association said the rules were designed to solve problems faced in smoggy California, not Michigan. At a hearing in the State Capitol, a witness for the American Foundrymen's Society said the proposals would harm his industry, and Saul Bach, president of the Auto Wreckers Association, called for more study before controls on the burning of junk cars took effect. But the public insisted on cleanup. "Some industries are too lazy to put their mind to this," charged Mrs. Richard Gresla, joined by 15 other members of the Citizens for Clean Air of Muskegon County. Added Mrs. Shirley Baker, also of Muskegon, "My rights are being constantly violated by my neighbor - a paper mill."

The final version of the rules prohibited the burning of scrap cars in the open and cracked down on particulate emissions from foundries. The rules also addressed emissions from coal-burning power plants, incinerators, steel manufacturing facilities, cement plants and asphalt plants, and the "opacity," or density, of smokestack emissions.

Two months later, Bloomfield told the Lansing State Journal, "Industry has indicated a grasp of the problem and a willingness to do something about it." But, he added, "a gentle nudge" was sometimes needed.

In fact, Michigan was soon making great strides in reducing air pollution. Many foundries chose to shut down rather than reduce emissions to comply with the rules; most were marginal and unable to internalize the cost of their pollution. Other industries, while groaning about the cleanup costs, installed required air pollution equipment, the burden eased by new state tax incentives. By the time Congress passed a strong Clean Air Act in 1970, Michigan had in place a program strong enough to quickly comply with federal requirements.

By then, Bloomfield was already suffering the effects of lung disease that would tragically shorten his life. When he passed away at the age of 49 in June 1971, the Lansing newspaper eulogized Bloomfield this way:

"Bloomfield was fighting the battle for a cleaner environment long before it became the fashionable case it is today. He was not the dramatic, headline-grabbing, Nader-type crusader who captured the imagination of the public. [He was] soft-spoken, but firm and fearless. His 'weapons' in the quest for clean air were careful, reasoned analysis, a great depth of knowledge and dedication to duty."

The work he set in motion paid dividends long after his passing. In 1970, nearly half of Michigan's population lived in areas where sulfur dioxide pollution exceeded health standards. By the end of the decade, thanks to a limitation on the content of sulfur coal imposed by the air pollution control commission, the entire state breathed air that complied with the standard. Reductions in regulated pollution at individual facilities were striking. The Fisher Body plant in Lansing emitted 10,000 tons per year of toluene, xylene and other volatile organic chemicals from approximately 100 stacks when Rector tested them in the late 1960s. By the late 1990s emissions of the same chemicals were less than 2000 tons.

Another part of his legacy, although less noticeable, was the competence and professionalism of the air quality program, which persisted after it was transferred to the Department of Natural Resources in the early 1970s by Governor William Milliken. Now housed in the DEQ, the program has recently created an award to recognize outstanding work in air pollution control, bearing the names of Bloomfield and Jager.

Sidebar

Looking Ahead to the Year 2000

In a 1967 edition of Michigan's Health, air pollution chief Bernard Bloomfield was asked to forecast the air quality conditions 33 years in the future.

"The automobile of the future may be driven by electric power or even an improved internal combustion engine, but it will be different from today's power plants."

"Leaf and outdoor trash burning may be eliminated because people will consider both activities to be a sign of poor manners. In addition, domestic incinerators will gradually disappear until they are made much more effective."

"A power generation facility scheduled for completion in 1972 in Monroe will probably be the last coal burning facility installed by a utility in Michigan. After that date it is likely that only private industry will add to the coal burning problem."

"In all probability an increase in the use of electrical power will make it an important source of home heating. Oil and coal, on the other hand, will probably be greatly reduced as a source of domestic heating fuel. The use of gas, however, is likely to increase - one reason being that it doesn't present a pollution problem."