The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had been doing its best to protect America's environment. A collection of photos was revealed as proof.
It was in 1970 when the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA was created in the United States under Republican President Richard Nixon. According to Popular Science, during that decade was the worst scenario in America wherein rivers and streams are unsafe for swimming.
Smithsonian reported that after a year EPA was established as an agency, 70 photographers were hired to document American landscape on just 40 rolls of film each. Landscapes, coal mines, landfills, farms among others were taken shots which resulted in a total of 15,000 shots.
The shots were collected and filed in a private document of EPA featuring America's environmental problems on all types of pollutions and environmental hazards. After two years, 2,000 photos were again collected and added to the EPA collection.
For this year's Earth Day, EPA along with the State of Environment Photography Project hired photographers to match scenes from Documerica and show before and after photos. Before the EPA, photos were shown like smogs hangs over Louisville and how the Atlas Chemical Company belches smoke over a pasture land were leading.
On the other hand, photos like cleaning drift from the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers in 1973 were featured in the "after." Meanwhile, the photographers of Documerica were also able to document people affected by noise pollution as addition to the collection.
Over the years, EPA had limited the use of three pollutants, unburnt hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. Also, air pollution was reduced due to regulations on emissions and fuel economy since 2012.
Additionally, EPA has recently released new rules that would prohibit the emission of carbon dioxide for vehicle models for the year 2022 up to 2025. Unfortunately, this becomes an unsettled issue until today for automakers hinders the proposal. Hopefully, the U.S. government can see how EPA has contributed a lot in maintaining a clean future for America with the Documerica photos.
