Get ready America, the Scott Pruitt, Bad Touch Donnie, Snitch McConnell, Lyin’ Ryan and their GOP buddies are taking you back to the good old days …
This is what America looked like before the EPA cleaned it up
It wasn’t pretty …
By Kendra Pierre-Louis February 24, 2017
from 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.
But what does America look like without the EPA?
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.
If you like these images, please read our series on the EPA past and present. It begins here.
Marc St Gil / EPA
The Atlas Chemical Company Belches Smoke across Pasture Land in Foreground. 06/1972
William Strode / EPA
Smog Hangs Over Louisville And Ohio River, September 1972
William Strode / EPA
Burning Barge On The Ohio River, May 1972
David Falconer / EPA
Detroit Lake the Dam 09/1973
Willaim Strode / EPA
Paddlewheel Steamboats Seen From Banks Of Ohio River, May 1972
William Strode /EPA
Smog Lingers Over Louisville Skyline, September 1972
William Strode / EPA
Litter Left In The Ohio River, June 1972
David Falconer / EPA
Broken Glass From “No-Deposit, Non-Returnable” Bottles Along the Washington Shore of the Columbia River in a Public Picnic Area. Such Bottles Are Illegal Across the River in the State of Oregon 04/1973
John Neubauer / EPA
The Job Of Clearing Drift From The Potomac And Anacostia Rivers Is Done By The Army Corps Of Engineers, April 1973
Arthur Tress / EPA
Warning of Polluted Water at Staten Island Beach Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in Background 06/1973
Arthur Tress / EPA
Abandoned Car in Jamaica Bay 06/1973
Arthur Tress / EPA
Sand Covers Abandoned Car on Beach at Breezy Point South of Jamaica Bay 05/1973
John Neubauer / EPA
The Job Of Clearing Drift From The Potomac And Anacostia Rivers Is Done By The Army Corps Of Engineers, April 1973
Charles Steinhacker / EPA
Outflow Pipe 6 of the Oxford Paper Company Will at Rumford on the Androscoggin River 06/1973
Erik Calonius / EPA
Mary Workman Holds A Jar of Undrinkable Water That Comes from Her Well, and Has Filed A Damage Suit Against the Hanna Coal Company … 10/1973
Charles Steinhacker / EPA
International Paper Company Mill at Jay on the Androscoggin River 06/1973
Charles Steinhacker / EPA
Mills of the Brown Paper Company in Berlin, on the Androscoggin River 06/1973
Charles Steinhacker / EPA
Oxford Paper Company 06/1973
Chester Higgins / EPA
The George Washington Bridge in Heavy Smog. View toward the New Jersey Side of the Hudson River1973
Dick Swanson / EPA
The Pepco (Potomac Electric Power Company) Power Plant At The Anacostia River, April 1973
David Falconer / EPA
Gas Shortage 06/1973.jpg
David Falconer / EPA
“Out of Gas” Signs Have Cropped Up All over the Portland Area Since the Start of the Fuel Shortage 06/1973
David Falconer / EPA
Posted Highway Sign Along Interstate #5 Explains Lack of Highway Lighting Is Due to Energy Conservation 11/1973
David Falconer / EPA
Sign Posted in a Doorway Entrance to a Restaurant Explaining Shorter Hours Due to the Fall of 1973 Energy Crisis in Oregon. The Business Was Located Along Interstate #5 10/1973
David Falconer / EPA
Billboard Advising Passing Motorists of the Seriousness of the Energy Shortage in Oregon During the Fall of 1973. Taken on Interstate #5 09/1973
Lyntha Scott Eiler / EPA
Closeup of a Sign at One of Several Service Stations That Advertise Tuneups to Pass Emission and Safety Tests…08/1975
Lyntha Scott Eller / EPA
Happy Young Woman with a Bumper Sticker Which Reports She Had Successfully Passed Testing at an Auto Emission Inspection Station in Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio…09/1975
Ernst Halberstadt / EPA
Cleaning Up the Roadside in Onset 05/1973
WTFville Chronicle 