Environmentalist Lowell L. Klessig was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1945. He earned a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1967 and then pursued graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, receiving an M.A.T. in Molecular Biology in 1968. In 1969 he returned to the University of Wisconsin where he enrolled in the Rural Sociology Department.
As a graduate student, Klessig was one of a number of environmentalists concerned by the U.S. Navy's plans to develop Project Sanguine, an Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) submarine communication system, in northern Wisconsin. In September 1969 Klessig and several dozen environmentalists met in Stevens Point to organize the State Committee to Stop Sanguine (SCSS). Alarmed by what they perceived to be the inadequacies of the research on the environmental effects of Project Sanguine, which was to be performed by Hazelton Laboratories, and the conflict of interest in Hazelton's contract (Hazelton Laboratories was a subsidiary of TRW, a major military contractor), the organizers of SCSS undertook an intense lobbying and educational effort to stop the project.
In late 1969 Governor Warren Knowles created an Ad Hoc Committee on Sanguine, whose Environmental Standards Subcommittee, composed of natural and social scientists and engineers from the Department of Natural Resources and the University of Wisconsin, analyzed the Hazelton studies and in 1972 issued a report critical of their findings.
In January 1970 SCSS filed suit against Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and RCA, prime contractor for Sanguine, to enjoin testing and construction of the project in Wisconsin. The suit was dismissed in October 1970 for lack of jurisdiction and a motion to reconsider was rejected the following March. However, by mid-1970 SCSS membership numbered 2500 individuals and organizations and in the November election Sanguine was an important issue. Representative Alvin O'Konski, an early supporter of Sanguine in whose district the project was to be sited, qualified his support only days before the election and narrowly defeated his challenger, SCSS board member Walter Thoresen. By the end of 1970 no elected official in Wisconsin publicly supported Sanguine.
Between 1969 and 1973, when Klessig received his Ph.D. in environmental management and resource planning and the Defense Department announced that Sanguine would be built in Texas, Klessig was immersed in the controversy, collecting and disseminating information, generating publicity, corresponding with related groups, and testifying against Sanguine. In addition to acting as secretary, chief liaison, and (for a brief period in 1970) president of SCSS, Klessig also chaired the Sanguine Review Committee of the Wisconsin Resource Conservation Council (WRCC) and served on the Sanguine Policy Analysis Committee of the Northern Environmental Council (NOREC).
In 1973 Klessig became assistant professor of environmental studies and deputy director of the Sigurd Olson Institute of Environmental Studies at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. While on the faculty there, he revised some earlier writings about SCSS and prepared a manual, Environmentalism in the Public Arena, in order to help his students understand the nature of environmental groups and campaigns.
After 1972, with the Navy searching for a suitable location for Sanguine (renamed Seafarer, then ELF) first in Texas and then in Upper Michigan, SCSS's activities abated, but increasingly sophisticated opponents of the project sought out Klessig for organizing information and inspiration. One of them, Victor Strite, professor of English at Baylor University, suggested joint publication of a book on the subject. This collaboration resulted in publication of The ELF Odyssey: National Security Versus Environmental Protection in 1980.
In 1974 Klessig returned to Madison as assistant professor of environmental studies. Three years later he was named associate professor and chair of the Environmental Resources Unit, and in 1980 he joined the Environmental Resources Unit at the UW Extension at UW-Stevens Point. In the late 1970's the Navy again turned its sights to Wisconsin as the site for a scaled down version of Sanguine, and in 1978 the Wisconsin Coalition against ELF-Sanguine was formed. While continuing to collect information on ELF and to support its activities, Klessig declined to play a leading role in the organization.
