In 1948, a thick fog descended upon the small town of Donora, Pa., reducing visibility to about 20 feet and driving hundreds of residents complaining of headaches, abdominal pains, and burning eyes and throat to the local hospital.

When the fog lifted, 20 were dead and about 7,000 residents were treated for serious health problems.

Now almost 50 years later in a role-playing case-study of the Donora air pollution incident, former Sen. Paul Simon, who was playing the role of the town mayor, had to decide whether to shut down the steel mill, which, in part, caused the incident and also employs much of the town.

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The Donora incident was one of four case-studies conducted at the first annual Bertram W. Carnow Memorial Symposia. About 16 experts environmental researches, professors, medical doctors, and environmental agency officials examined two historical incidents involving air pollution and two hypothetical ones.

Do you potentially let more people die, or do you shut down the steel plant which employs much of the town and is the their livelihood? Bill Kurtis, a professional television journalist and the moderator for the symposia, asked.

Well I don’t want the town to whither on the vine and blow away, so I guess I’m in a real bind, Simon responded.

After consultation with the expert panel, Simon decided that the best solution would be to close the plant.

I would have to close the plant temporarily, Simon said. Even though it will put a lot of people out of work, I don’t see any other option.

Simon said the ultimate goal of the symposia was to change public policy.

I hope to see practical solutions that we can use and make recommendations to both state and national legislators, Simon said.

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Simon said the role-playing demonstrated that realistic solutions could be found to real problems.

Each individual person can play a real role not an imaginary one in improving the environment and public health, he said.

The all day event began at 8:45 a.m. and concluded nearly eight hours later. An audience of about 30 faculty, staff and other interested people attended the symposium through various parts of the day.

The symposium also was taped and will be available in the SIUC library and to interested high schools.

Simon said a questionnaire will be sent to all participants to get their input about the symposia, and a decision will be made about what to do with the information.

I think it has been a great thing, and I am very grateful to everyone for being here, he said.

Kurtis said he was impressed with the results of the symposia.

Rarely do we get the opportunity to consider one topic for more than 3 minutes on our nightly broadcasts, Kurtis, a former news anchorman, said. Here we get to see it from all sides.

Kurtis said the results will benefit everyone in the future.

For me, I’ll now be better able to cover environmental issues that come up, he said. The immediate benefit will be to high school students who will be able to use this as a debate topic.

The long-term benefit is for the panelists, just in pushing our thinking to new limits.