Environmental legacy: the impact of the manufactured gas industry in the United States

Levels of concern over the air and water impacts of U.S. industrial wastes have existed for over a century. A focus on land contamination is a more recent development but also has earlier antecedents. Air, water, and land pollution were a matter of societal concern, even though they were not necessarily identified as “environmental” effects, and information about them can be found in a variety of reports and court cases. This paper will examine the pollution effects of the manufactured gas industry—an industry that was widely distributed in cities and towns throughout the nation in the period from approximately 1825–1950.