This item contains the first mention of EQ's existence in The Campus. The short piece tucked into page 7 of the newspaper describes the founding of a group within the Middlebury Mountain Club, under the working title of the "Environmental Quality Group." EQ's first order of business was to protest the opening of Adirondack wilderness to snowmobilers, hence the title, but the article also includes their plans for fight against pollution and sewage dumping in Otter Creek.
Earth Day 1970
The major public project of EQ in its first months was preparing for Earth Day and the Vermont Green-Up. This is the topic of the second article on the organization, and forms the more outward facing component of the group in its beginning. The articles below discuss these plans for Earth Day, which included a clean up drive, discussions on the dangers of phosphate based detergents and pollution of local waterways, academic talks on local nature, and a blackout in protest of a power plant.
Student reaction to Middlebury's first Earth Day was broadly positive, but their were setbacks. EQ's trash drive attracted "only" 130 students, which a club member blamed on "typical student apathy." A student editorial following Earth Day, which can be read below, criticized the campus blackout as hypocritical because of its "partylike atmosphere" during an allegedly serious event. Ultimately though, the negative voices were drowned out by the positive, and EQ continued with its endeavors.
Year One: Further Activism
This pair of articles from May of 1970 further detail both the preparations for Earth Day and EQ's work to get harmful detergents off of campus.
This article from April of 1970 discusses EQ's protests of the Vermont Yankee Power Plant, part of a largely and long-lived movement that was ultimately successful in decommissioning the plant.
This article details EQ's efforts to help provide birth control and abortion access to the Middlebury and Burlington areas. It seems to have been their first and only engagement with reproductive health work.
This short blurb discusses EQ's work to survey pollution levels in Otter Creek and make the state government aware of its findings.
Environmental Quality set up an expansive agenda in its first year. It brought Earth Day to Middlebury, organized litter clean up, surveyed pollution, and supported reproductive health. Though it may have started as a group of Mountain Club members, it quickly grew into an independent organization engaged with the local and statewide community. This first year set the stage for the group to become the college's most prominent group focused on environmental issues, which it would remain for several decades.
