132 dam was left malfunctioning, the flow from the Fox River could also harm people who live nearby, water contamination caused by dams can also directly impact residents of Illinois.20 However, building more dams and fortifying their existence only worsened the negative impacts on the Fox River, continuing to destroy and unnaturally divide natural habitats in the water, among many other negative effects. Harmful bills continued to be proposed, though not all were passed. For instance, in the 77th General Assembly in 1972, Senate Bill 4293 was proposed, which would allocate twenty million dollars to the state government to purchase lands around the Fox River and develop it to increase its value. A supporter of this bill claimed that “phosphates in detergents are not causing all of that algae growth…this is a hoax by those ecology nuts.”21 Ultimately, this bill did not pass, saving the Fox River from becoming overdeveloped and used for its natural resources. However, this bill shows that some politicians in the Illinois General Assembly were more concerned for land value and development, not for preserving and protecting the environment. Environmental protections are always controversial. Though many different bills were proposed in Illinois and the United States throughout the nineteenth to twentieth centuries to build dams or develop the land surrounding the Fox River, most efforts have been intended to preserve the Fox River and put it before human or corporation development. Many bills were passed to improve river quality and be considerate of the environmental impacts dams were making. Of course, though no political efforts are perfect, the overall intentions of the bills regarding the Fox River were intended to keep it as untouched by humanity as possible and minimize the effects of 20 “How Dams Damage Rivers,” American Rivers (American Rivers, July 26, 2018), https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/restoring-damaged-rivers/how-dams-damage. 21 John Linebaugh Knuppel, “Illinois General Assembly,” Illinois General Assembly § (1972), https://www.ilga.gov/Senate/transcripts/Strans77/ST060272.pdf.
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