Back when environmental concerns weren't so much a part of daily living a few things were done that have been completely banned today. I clearly remember two activities that were a routine part of the operating style of the town utilities department that would raise a major alarm in our current society.
One of the rituals of summer living in rural North Carolina, at least in my home town, was the occasional assault on mosquito colonies around town. During the hot, humid days of summer town utility workers would drive into the wetlands down by the creek adjacent to my home with motorized spray units spewing clouds of white "smoke" all over the marshy area nearby. Water that was routinely backed up in the wooded area on my neighbors property provided a large perpetually wet area for mosquitoes to lay eggs in and hatch new waves of insects. In those days DDT was the insecticide of choice for most anything and it was sprayed several times each summer and fall all over town. No one knows what effect
it had on the crawfish and tadpoles growing in the creek or the birds and other animals living in the wooded area or the citizens living nearby. As you can imagine this practice has now been outlawed and there jeeps are no longer seen wandering through the woods trailing clouds of insecticide.
Another practice of those days was to scrape red dirt roads like the one adjacent to our property and spray used motor oil on the surface for dust control. The road, muddy, potholed and soft during rainy times, gradually appeared to take on the look and feel of an asphalt paved road at times until the oil soaked in and disappeared. Then the town would return with more tank truck loads of oil and soak down the surface again in a futile effort to reduce dust and try to keep the road from eroding. Although I never saw this practice in any other area it's a sure bet that this was done in many areas until environmentalists ended the practice with modern laws prohibiting oil disposal on roads and in landfills.
One of the rituals of summer living in rural North Carolina, at least in my home town, was the occasional assault on mosquito colonies around town. During the hot, humid days of summer town utility workers would drive into the wetlands down by the creek adjacent to my home with motorized spray units spewing clouds of white "smoke" all over the marshy area nearby. Water that was routinely backed up in the wooded area on my neighbors property provided a large perpetually wet area for mosquitoes to lay eggs in and hatch new waves of insects. In those days DDT was the insecticide of choice for most anything and it was sprayed several times each summer and fall all over town. No one knows what effect
it had on the crawfish and tadpoles growing in the creek or the birds and other animals living in the wooded area or the citizens living nearby. As you can imagine this practice has now been outlawed and there jeeps are no longer seen wandering through the woods trailing clouds of insecticide.
Another practice of those days was to scrape red dirt roads like the one adjacent to our property and spray used motor oil on the surface for dust control. The road, muddy, potholed and soft during rainy times, gradually appeared to take on the look and feel of an asphalt paved road at times until the oil soaked in and disappeared. Then the town would return with more tank truck loads of oil and soak down the surface again in a futile effort to reduce dust and try to keep the road from eroding. Although I never saw this practice in any other area it's a sure bet that this was done in many areas until environmentalists ended the practice with modern laws prohibiting oil disposal on roads and in landfills.
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