Hand in Glove: The Local Environmental Politics of Alliance and Military Procurement on the Lower Great Lakes, 1939-1972

• In Event: Unwarranted Influence: Canada's Military-Industrial Complex and the Environment, 1940-1980

Abstract

The political geography of the Great Lakes challenges environmental historians to think past national boundaries and explore how people have tried to manage their connected spaces despite belonging to dozens of different jurisdictions. For example, residents of the boundary watersheds shared an experience of environmental deterioration that acted as a catalyst for transnational cooperation. This paper will explore a significant but little-understood example of this phenomenon: the links between war production during the 1940s, local perceptions of environmental change, the evolution of the Canada-US relationship in the earlier Cold War, and the character of the earliest transboundary pollution control efforts along the boundary.

During the Second World War, there was an enormous increase in industrial activity in the international waters of the Detroit, St. Clair and Niagara Rivers. Local complaints about the deterioration in water quality prompted officials to begin the first consistent joint water pollution monitoring, which grew quite quickly into ongoing monitoring and abatement efforts. This paper will examine how the war effort shaped decision-making at local, state, provincial and national levels as the taste and odour problems worsened.

Over the course of the Second World War, Canadian and American military procurement and production processes became closely linked. These connections deepened over the course of the Cold War, even as the two countries began to coordinate other aspects of administration, including environmental regulation.

After 1945, many wartime industries continued to grow, as did the local pollution problems and the urgency of residents’ complaints. This paper will trace the links between these industrial firms, the military procurement processes that fed their businesses, and the growing volume and complexity of water pollution in those rivers. In particular, it will consider the role of military-industrial complex play in shaping the pace and tone of pollution investigations during the 1950s and 1960s.

Author

• Meredith Denning, University of Toronto