In 1968 the Citizens' Natural Resource Association of Wisconsin and the Izaak Walton League requested the assistance of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in an attempt to stop the City of Milwaukee from spraying elm trees with the chemical pesticide DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane). Victor J. Yanneconne, legal counsel for the EDF, used a Section 227.06 of the Wisconsin statutes to gain a public hearing before the Department of Natural Resources, which was required to make a declaratory ruling on the potential health hazards of the pesticide. Yanneconne used the quasi-judicial forum much like a trial, cross-examining witnesses at length, calling “star witnesses” from both the national and international medical and scientific community, and gaining a significant amount of media exposure at the state and national level. In particular, Senator Gaylord Nelson's testimony resulted in headline news in many newspapers, including a supportive editorial in the New York Times. These public hearings prompted several other state governments to take action against the pesticide's use. Victor J. Yanneconne's success in rallying public opinion also led to a marked growth and expansion of the Environmental Defense Fund. In hindsight, many scholars consider the hearings an important episode in both environmental history and law, since before 1970 legal suits involving environmental issues were relatively rare.
Thomas R. Dunlop's, “DDT on Trial: The Wisconsin Hearing, 1968-1969,” appears in the Wisconsin Magazine of History (Vol. 62: No. 1, pp. 2-24).
