Rachel Carson, a driving force behind the modern environmental movement, grew up in a modest homestead in Springdale Borough near the Allegheny River. For the budding marine biologist, the river's waters were an early inspiration.

Now, more than four decades after Ms. Carson's death, her presence may return to those waters.

Allegheny County Council tomorrow will consider renaming the Ninth Street Bridge in her honor. If the resolution is approved, Ms. Carson would join Roberto Clemente and Andy Warhol as namesakes for the three Downtown "Sister Bridges" that cross the Allegheny.

"This is long overdue," said Esther L. Barazzone, president of Chatham College, Ms. Carson's alma mater and home of the Rachel Carson Institute. "People realize that Rachel Carson is truly world class. We need to strengthen our connection to her."

Ms. Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," criticized the harmful effects of pesticides, sparking a prolonged battle with the chemical industry. In 1970, six years after Ms. Carson's death, the federal government founded the Environmental Protection Agency. Two years later, the government banned the use of the pesticide DDT in the United States.

"Silent Spring" also pushed many people to rethink their connection with the natural world.

"It was wonderful. It inspired me," said Ron Meyers, a former visiting assistant professor with Chatham's environmental studies program. "It showed the courage of environmentalists."

"Silent Spring'' has been translated into almost every known language, according to Fiona Fisher, interim executive director of the Rachel Carson Homestead, a national historical landmark on Marion Avenue in Springdale.

"She used science in a way that ordinary people could understand," Ms. Fisher said. "People began to question what was being done."

Ms. Carson, born in 1907, attended Chatham College when it was still the Pennsylvania College for Women. She graduated in 1929 and went on to write a series of books about nature.

Her accolades include a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a spot on Time magazine's list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, alongside Albert Einstein, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Mohandas Gandhi.

County Councilman Dave Fawcett, R- Oakmont, thinks the Pittsburgh region should embrace Ms. Carson's legacy as a way of highlighting its break with the pollution of the industrial era.

"We really need to promote Pittsburgh for what it is -- a city of green hills and beautiful rivers," said Mr. Fawcett, who first considered renaming the Ninth Street Bridge for Ms. Carson after reading a February column by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's architecture critic, Patricia Lowry, a few months after council voted to name the Seventh Street Bridge for Andy Warhol.

Many council members are supportive. Mr. Fawcett is co-sponsoring the renaming resolution with Eileen Watt, Brenda Frazier, Rich Fitzgerald, Bill Robinson, C.L. Jabbour, Vince Gastgeb and Joan Cleary.

Last week, two dozen Chatham students crowded a council committee hearing to lobby for the resolution's passage. Each council member received a copy of "Silent Spring.''

"To name a span over one of our mightiest rivers would be a fitting recognition for this daughter of the region," Dr. Barazzone told council members.

The renaming could serve as an early kick-off for the centennial of Ms. Carson's birth.

"We'll have a lot going on in 2007 to celebrate Carson's life," Ms. Fisher said. "Naming the bridge is good thing. It's going to put the spotlight on Pittsburgh."