This is what America looked like before the EPA cleaned it up

[Jimbo101]

Popular Science

In 1970, Republican President Richard Nixon signed an executive order creating the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It was a time when pollution made many of our nation's rivers and streams unsafe for fishing or swimming. Back then, New York City's air pollution was so thick that you often couldn't see the city's iconic bridges. Forty-seven years later, there is serious talk of dismantling the agency, or at least slashing its size by two-thirds.

From 1971 to 1977 the nascent agency, in an act of prescience, enlisted the services of freelance photographers to help us remember. These photographers captured images of America's environmental problems before we'd cleaned them up. In 2011, the US National Archives digitized more than 15,000 pictures from the series "Documerica". Here are some of the most compelling.

[yallerdawg]

1. Great photographs and reminders.

In other words, it looked like China today.

[Jimbo101]

3. Yup !

[Jamaal510]

37. I'm almost

speechless at how sad that picture is.

[ret5hd]

2. And who could forget THIS beautiful sight:

The Cuyahoga River Fire:

[SMC22307]

5. Ugh. I feel like chanting 'koyaanisqatsi' when I see that. (n/t)

[FailureToCommunicate]

12. Beat me to it. I was there for one of the times it burned.

Thanks, Republicans, for bringing back the good ol days, and making 'Merica great again.

[Warren DeMontague]

33. but they burned the river down

[Warpy]

4. What made the biggest difference was getting away from coal heating

The stuff was filthy but it burned hot so it was cheap. Every town I lived in growing up had a pinkish-gray cloud over it and the air stank of coal smoke. The reason nobody ever wore white after Labor Day was that's about when we'd start getting soot in the air that would turn anything white tattletale grey within the hour.

They're trying to gut the EPA now because the pre EPA days were when Daddy Koch made all his money and the boys don't think they're getting to be trillionaires fast enough. It costs to clean up.

I'm a little surprised they didn't include the Cuyahoga River in those pictures. It caught fire several times before the Clean Water Act (part of the EPA) was passed.



http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Cuyahoga_River_Fire

[drmeow]

29. One of the links in the story

does include this picture:

http://www.popsci.com/getting-rid-of-the-environmental-protection-agency

[calimary]

6. Before that, when I was in elementary school, we had smog alerts here in L.A.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued multiple first-stage smog alerts that ordered the sick and elderly and young kids to stay indoors. We couldn't go outside for recess.

And to drive from the Westside through the Sepulveda Pass to the San Fernando Valley? You couldn't even see the valley until you'd cleared the crest of the hill and were heading down into it! We had to have a rain storm that washed all the ick from the air for you even to see that - "hey! There actually IS a valley down there!" And forget the foothills and mountains beyond the valley on the other side. You wouldn't even know they were there! It was too smoggy even to see them, unless you drove all the way across the valley to the other side in which you were almost literally on top of them.

[mountain grammy]

7. I moved to Denver in 1984

the brown cloud was so thick on some days, it hurt to breathe. Lots of bad air and no burn days. Started testing private autos and converting coal plants to NG. Denver will still have inversion days when the cold air and pollutants are trapped at the lower level, but bad air days are gone.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

8. K&Fuckin'R

[spanone]

9. in the early sixties, we actually burned our trash....plastic & all per the city

indianapolis.....nasty smoke would hang over the neighborhood....we had a specific day we burned.

it was really disgusting.

[tblue37]

10. Yep. We actually had a backyard incinerator at home! Oh, and raked leaves got

burned, too.

[spanone]

19. what we had was like a 'basket' that held the garbage bags as they burned...

i remember the plastic dripping as it melted...

this was 1961-1964 ish.....

[elmac]

11. I remember what America looked like

and remember the push to clean up in the late 60's, early 70's. My first pollution pamphlet was about water pollution from the many streams feeding lake Michigan. The streams and lake were colored in blood red ink, made quite a statement, think it was around 1970. Many of the inland lakes were used as one big sewage tank, can remember they had to spray the lakes and several inches of green slime covered the entire surface for a few days, it was nasty.

[roamer65]

13. Yeah, I remember when the nearby river flowed the color of ink...

the paper mill was using that particular day.

I hate to say it, but our only saving grace is much of the industry from the period before the EPA is gone.

It's busy trashing China right now.

[LisaL]

14. I guess it will be soon back to that state.

[Amishman]

42. The worst part of it is the regulations that are upsetting people have minimal real impact

Most of the 'shut down the EPA' crowd are mad about rules requiring difficult to pour CARB compliant nozzles on gas cans or new style wood stoves that don't work as simply as the old ones.

People griping about the little stuff will impact the big stuff that actually makes the real difference

[left-of-center2012]

15. I remember

I grew up outside Pittsburgh.
I remember the factories belching out black smoke.

Tiny black soot particles, like grains of sand, falling out of the sky onto our window sills, cars,
and into our lungs.

[ffr]

16. Yep. Just look at any other country around the world that doesn't have enviro regulations.

It's a pit. And that's putting it nicely.

[Lilyhoney]

17. Kick

[AllaN01Bear]

18. when i was a kid living in a burb of los angles we couldnt play outside due to the smog was so ba

return to the good ole day?
so they can ruin the environment with impunity. NO .

[Laf.La.Dem.]

20. No pictures of Birmingham, Ala. - was super bad!!

Thank you Nixon (he did do ONE good thing)

[sammcgee68]

21. Cincinnati in 60's

What I remember vividly is an 8 year old boy retrieving his softball from the stinking muck of a polluted creek where we played ball. The strange thing is this was considered normal and part of everyday life. The EPA has done wonders since its inception, and to hear the new head of EPA speak at CPAC was heartbreaking to me. Do you know the coal companies now have a carte blanche to continue this devastation. The future looks bleak. Resist

[Fred Sanders]

22. Make American air and water polluted again! Sad!

[enid602]

40. cat

That cat looks like Bannon.

[world wide wally]

23. And you KNOW we're going back there under The Toxin Kid

[Crash2Parties]

24. The EPA also regulated nuclear emmissions, as well as things like lead (Pb).

Details like,

"The Act directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to license DOE to operate a repository only if it meets EPA's standards and all other relevant requirements."

And, remember when lead was allowed in everything from paint to children's toys to gasoline?

"Lead poisoning can lead to a variety of health problems in kids, including: decreased bone and muscle growth. poor muscle coordination. ... seizures and unconsciousness (in cases of extremely high lead levels)"

And,

"The National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWR) are legally enforceable primary standards and treatment techniques that apply to public water systems. Primary standards and treatment techniques protect public health by limiting the levels of contaminants in drinking water."

[Marthe48]

25. A long way to go

Toledo,OH, 8/14, toxic algae in Lake Erie affects drinking water for hundreds of thousands

Charleston, WV, 1/14 chemical spill from Freedom Industries, affects drinking water for up to 300,000 people

Numerous train wrecks involving spills of shale oil, toxic chemicals, causing evacuation, polluting water, land and air

EPA has helped so much, but polluters got to pollute.

I've come to believe that most of the people in the world mess it up and the rest try to clean it up.

I did a civics project my senior year that I tied to the first Earth Day. 1970.

[Nevernose]

26. No one thinks it's perfect

But Pruitt and his corporate allies want to eliminate the EPA, and most people under 40 or 50 have ZERO understanding of how bad many/most places in America could be, environmentally speaking.

[Marthe48]

41. I was lamenting

if we lose EPA, corporations across the production spectrum will pollute and leave their mess. Because people are slobs, EPA could exist forever, and be lucky to stay ahead. But EPA has raised our consciousness about protecting the planet. Individuals, especially the younger generations, include recycling as a usual habit in their lives. And do other helpful things as well.

I almost think that pollution in a broad sense is innate behaviour in humans.
Early mankind ruined their local environment and when it got too nasty, moved. Or moved back and forth between seasonal camps, giving their garbage a chance to rot away. I don't have an example relating age-old actions to modern people dumping their ashtrays and fast food litter on the road or parking lot rather than using a waste can.

If you look at other primates, and watch them peel fruit, they drop the peels as they work. Now, imagine a human taking a wrapper off a candy bar. Usually same actions--peel and drop. It'd make an effective anti-littering message. Except the creationists would get mad at the comparison.

[RKP5637]

27. Where I grew up they used to empty raw sewage into the river for a town of 10,000!

All home sewage used to just empty into the storm drainage system and on into the river. Ugh!!!!!

[struggle4progress]

28. 1969 Cuyahoga River fire

[NCjack]

30. USEPA: we salute you!

[KT2000]

31. human health

is what these regulations are all about. Conservatives love to say that the people living at that time did not suffer, which is a lie. But what has been learned is that subsequent generations suffer the worse health problems.

There are no laws that limit exposures for individual humans (except in the workplace), we only have the laws that limit emissions and those are few as it is.

[brewens]

32. Right at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers in Idaho was a cesspool in the early 70's

That is in Lewiston Idaho where I live. You wouldn't want your kids down there fishing or playing or anything these days if it was till like that. Rusting junk, old tires, weird looking yellow foam. Someone from a real industrial areas back east would have thought you were crazy telling them that about rivers in Idaho! But it was just a couple miles downstream from a paper mill.

We now have a pretty good salmon and steelhead fishery in that area, smallmouthed bass too if you know what you're doing. Had things kept going like they were when I was a kid, you probably wouldn't even bother owning a fishing pole these days. You sure as shit would be taking your life in your hands eating any fish you managed to catch!

It's amazing down there now. Geese, ducks, herons, osprey, upstream away from town a ways it's not unusual to see otters, beavers or whatever. The wildlife and geese poop is almost a nuisance. Out of the valley, the birds of prey are thick! You can't get any distance without seeing a big red tailed hawk or other bird hunting. Good luck driving and even ever being out of the sight of something like that! You were lucky to spot one when I was a kid. They had them beat down so bad with all the pesticides. Even out here in Idaho it was real bad in 1970.

[Stinky The Clown]

34. How soon until such images are banned by Pres Bannon & the new American Overlords?

[AgadorSparticus]

35. I remember a time when LA would have smog alerts because it was so bad.

[bhikkhu]

36. I remember the air pollution mostly

I visited Ohio in 76. Coming from the San joaquin valley I was used to seeing the brown cloud that floated over the valley most all summer, but Ohio was so much worse - I remember around noon being able to look right at the sun, a red ball in the smokey sky.

I used to bicycle a lot when I was a kid, and the first thing was to get out of the city, because the exhaust fumes was from cars were horrible. A few times I rode through downtown, and made it home physically sick from breathing the exhaust fumes. Its so much different now, younger people have no idea, and it was government regulations that did it.

[SunSeeker]

38. I remember the smog in downtown L.A. in the early 70s making my eyes sting.

And I would get physically ill, feeling like I needed to throw up. I was just a kid and it scared the hell out me. I don’t get that way now, and haven't for decades. Although the air is not as clean as it could be, it is a huge improvement. Night and day really. Thank you EPA, thank you South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), thank California Air Resources Board!

[Historic NY]

39. I remember the smog alerts the Nat. Weather would put out....

also riding down the Palisades Parkway along the Hudson and not being able to see NY City on the other side..

A common site was to see raw sewerage (turds) floating along the river banks from untreated city sewers. The big joke around was you could tell what the paper mills and cloth mills were making by the color of the streams.

Ah yes the good old days.