This day in history: A prominent business lost millions in revenue from strict environmental regulations – in Idaho

From 1976: The Bunker Hill Co. said Idaho’s sulfur dioxide regulations cost the company $3.5 million in reduced sales and that many employees suffered lost wages.

The state regulations caused the Kellogg smelter to curtail its operations for the equivalent of 24 days of production over the past two months.

“Smelter operation personnel furloughed during recent shutdowns have lost a total of 2,000 man shifts of work,” the company president said. “This relates directly to loss of spendable income, reduced taxes and increased unemployment.”

Sulfur dioxide levels at the smelters run higher during severe winter weather, which is why the plants had to shut down several times in December and January.

From 1926: Spokane’s federal court Judge J. Stanley Webster rescinded the citizenship papers of James Rowan, the former Spokane secretary of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies).

The government charged that Rowan obtained his citizenship papers fraudulently in 1907, because he “had a mental reservation when he answered questions as to his loyalty” to the U.S.

Rowan was ordered to deliver his citizenship papers to the court, but he testified that he lost them while “serving a term in Leavenworth prison during the war for violation of the espionage act.”

Rowan was a native of Ireland and “the son of a prominent physician there.” It was unclear whether the government planned to launch deportation proceedings.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1859: Oregon admitted as 33rd state of the union.