What Cities Looked Like Before the EPA

[phands]

Inspired by Rousseau's excellent, if dismaying thread in Misc Discussions, and not wanting to derail it, I dug this up....

The Environmental Protection Agency has a murky future in the Trump administration. Hours before the President promised in his address to Congress “to promote clean air and clear water,” he signed an executive order to roll back an Obama-era EPA clean water rule.

Then there are the reports from Politico and The Washington Post that say the White House sent a proposal to the EPA on Monday that would slash the agency’s budget by about a quarter and eliminate a fifth of the agency’s workers. Large cuts to state grant programs even have Congressional Republicans worried and as former Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt settles in to lead an agency he had often fought in court, he’s promised to continue with its basic mission (while stripping climate change from its vocabulary).


Whatever happens to the EPA, this might be a good time to reflect on its legacy, especially in urban spaces. Though environmentalism conjures “America the Beautiful” images of purple mountains and unspoiled wilderness, much of the EPA’s heaviest lifting in rescuing this nation from its own filth happened in cities.

Rivers caught fire!!! Those pictures are from times in living memory, and this is what the orange shitgibbon's destruction of the EPA will re-enable. Add to that the destruction of healthcare for all except the rich, and this future looks bleak.

 

[scombrid]

I'm genX so the 1980s are my earlier memories. Clean Air Act was still in "phase in". Going I distinctly remember the smog in the I-81 corridor in the great valley of Virginia. SW flow would bring Tennessee valley industrial pollution up and it would sit in the valley. The big rigs on I-81 belched a lot of black smoke pulling the grades. I worked as a biotech in Shenandoah National Park in the 1990s. Air quality was getting better. You could still sit up on Hawksbill and look to the southern sky and see the smog rolling in from the south when high pressure would shift east and set up the southwest flow. Air quality hit a major milestone there last year for least acid (wet and dry dep) and least ozone alert days in a very long time.

Regarding the "Waters of the United States" rule. Pruitt and company keep saying that they just want rules that use "best available science".


Article in science mag says:

Representing more than 200,000 members total, the Society of Wetland Scientists, Ecological Society of America, American Institute of Biological Scientists, American Fisheries Society, Society for Ecological Restoration, Society for Freshwater Science and Phycological Society of America wrote a letter to Trump arguing in favor of the regulation.

http://www.esa.org/esa/wp-content/u...ortWOTUSAmiciCuriaeBrief_ToPresidentTrump.pdf

That's a lot of scientists that EPA is ignoring.

More recently the EPA decided that rather than just delay implementation they were going to fully repeal the rule with only a very short comment period:

American Fisheries Society responded:

https://fisheries.org/wp-content/up...ns-Comment-Period-Extension-Request-FINAL.pdf

Here are the groups that signed with AFS in opposition to EPA:

Respectfully submitted,
American Fisheries Society
American Fly Fishing Trade Association
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers
Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.)
Fly Fishers International
Izaak Walton League of America
National Wildlife Federation
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
Trout Unlimited

That isn't exactly a liberal bunch signing on with the American Fisheries Society.

[

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Inspired by Rousseau's excellent, if dismaying thread in Misc Discussions, and not wanting to derail it, I dug this up....

The Environmental Protection Agency has a murky future in the Trump administration. Hours before the President promised in his address to Congress “to promote clean air and clear water,” he signed an executive order to roll back an Obama-era EPA clean water rule.

Then there are the reports from Politico and The Washington Post that say the White House sent a proposal to the EPA on Monday that would slash the agency’s budget by about a quarter and eliminate a fifth of the agency’s workers. Large cuts to state grant programs even have Congressional Republicans worried and as former Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt settles in to lead an agency he had often fought in court, he’s promised to continue with its basic mission (while stripping climate change from its vocabulary).


Whatever happens to the EPA, this might be a good time to reflect on its legacy, especially in urban spaces. Though environmentalism conjures “America the Beautiful” images of purple mountains and unspoiled wilderness, much of the EPA’s heaviest lifting in rescuing this nation from its own filth happened in cities.

Rivers caught fire!!! Those pictures are from times in living memory, and this is what the orange shitgibbon's destruction of the EPA will re-enable. Add to that the destruction of healthcare for all except the rich, and this future looks bleak.

That was the Cuyahoga river that caught fire. Randy Newman write a song about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtW8RkI3-c4

I suggest this song as the new theme for the Trum EPA.

"Burn on Big River buen on. Burn on Big River burn on".

 

[phands]

And now the orange bastard is trying to undo car fuel efficiency rules.....