Tags: Government Agency.
The Oregon State Sanitary Authority (OSSA) was the first agency in the U.S. state of Oregon that was charged with protecting the environment. In 1938 Oregon voters by a three-to-one margin approved an initiative to regulate water pollution and to create an enforcement agency under the jurisdiction of the Oregon State Board of Health. Political pressure that led to the initiative had begun as early as the 1920s when the Board of Health the U.S.