What the Voters Want

Last week's off-year election proved once again that the quality of the U.S. environment is becoming an increasingly important concern of the nation's electorate. Wherever the environment issue cropped up, the result was the same. Voters within the Mojave Water District of California's San Bernardino County refused a proposed coal-burning power plant despite the increased taxes it would have contributed to the district. Reason: the plant might pollute the clear desert air. At Mercer Island in Lake Washington, a suburb of Seattle, residents faced another difficult choice. Did they want to preserve a wooded park? Or did they want to bulldoze the tall conifers to make way for a nine-hole community golf course? The voters of the community decided by a decisive 2-to-1 margin that conservation was more important than recreation.

The environment issue was not as easily identified in some elections. Just how much Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes' vigorous program to curb water pollution helped him win reelection, for example, is conjectural--though it surely did help. In Aspen, Colo., on the other hand, Mayoral Candidate Eve Homeyer beat her two male opponents by promising to save "the quality of life" in the pleasant, fast-growing mountain resort.

Many planners had questioned whether voters would actually pay to protect their environment. The answer now seems to be yes--at least if water pollution is involved. Maine's tightfisted voters, for instance, approved a $50 million bond issue to build better municipal sewage-treatment plants, but turned down a $21.5 million issue to build more highways. In New Jersey, a $271 million bond issue to launch a massive clean-water program passed easily.

Bill of Rights. Potentially the most important election result was passage of an amendment to New York State's constitution. Called the "conservation bill of rights," it makes preservation of natural resources and scenic beauty a state policy. It also directs the state legislature to write laws that will reduce air, water and noise pollution, thus providing legal grounds for conservation battles in court. Says Attorney Irving Like, one of the framers of the amendment: "It is primarily a new source of common law and legislation."

Other states, including California and Virginia, are designing their own conservation bills of rights to go before the voters next year, and New York Representative Richard Ottinger has introduced in Congress a similar amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Thus it now seems clear that after years of dangerous procrastination, the U.S. is casting its vote for a clean environment.

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