The Atlas Chemical Company Belches Smoke across Pasture Land in Foreground. 06/1972 Marc St Gil / EPA
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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.
If you like these images, please read our series on the EPA past and present. It begins here.
Smog Hangs Over Louisville And Ohio River, September 1972 William Strode / EPABurning Barge On The Ohio River, May 1972 William Strode / EPADetroit Lake the Dam 09/1973 David Falconer / EPAPaddlewheel Steamboats Seen From Banks Of Ohio River, May 1972 Willaim Strode / EPASmog Lingers Over Louisville Skyline, September 1972 William Strode /EPALitter Left In The Ohio River, June 1972 William Strode / EPABroken 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 David Falconer / EPAThe Job Of Clearing Drift From The Potomac And Anacostia Rivers Is Done By The Army Corps Of Engineers, April 1973 John Neubauer / EPAWarning of Polluted Water at Staten Island Beach Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in Background 06/1973 Arthur Tress / EPAAbandoned Car in Jamaica Bay 06/1973 Arthur Tress / EPASand Covers Abandoned Car on Beach at Breezy Point South of Jamaica Bay 05/1973 Arthur Tress / EPAThe Job Of Clearing Drift From The Potomac And Anacostia Rivers Is Done By The Army Corps Of Engineers, April 1973 John Neubauer / EPAOutflow Pipe 6 of the Oxford Paper Company Will at Rumford on the Androscoggin River 06/1973 Charles Steinhacker / EPAMary 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 Erik Calonius / EPAInternational Paper Company Mill at Jay on the Androscoggin River 06/1973 Charles Steinhacker / EPAMills of the Brown Paper Company in Berlin, on the Androscoggin River 06/1973 Charles Steinhacker / EPAOxford Paper Company 06/1973 Charles Steinhacker / EPAThe George Washington Bridge in Heavy Smog. View toward the New Jersey Side of the Hudson River1973 Chester Higgins / EPAThe Pepco (Potomac Electric Power Company) Power Plant At The Anacostia River, April 1973 Dick Swanson / EPAGas 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 / EPAPosted Highway Sign Along Interstate #5 Explains Lack of Highway Lighting Is Due to Energy Conservation 11/1973 David Falconer / EPASign 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 / EPABillboard Advising Passing Motorists of the Seriousness of the Energy Shortage in Oregon During the Fall of 1973. Taken on Interstate #5 09/1973 David Falconer / EPACloseup of a Sign at One of Several Service Stations That Advertise Tuneups to Pass Emission and Safety Tests…08/1975 Lyntha Scott Eiler / EPAHappy 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 Lyntha Scott Eller / EPACleaning Up the Roadside in Onset 05/1973 Ernst Halberstadt / EPA
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