The EPA stands for the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA came into being in December of 1970 by Nixon’s executive order (it didn’t have to go through congress to pass). The EPA was charged with overseeing enforcement of federal environmental policies. Though Nixon established the EPA he slashed its budget before resigning. Later, under Reagan, Ann Gorsuch became head of the EPA. The EPA faced a steady assault under Reagan’s administration mostly at the hands of Gorsuch. In 1981, the EPA had a 1.35 billion dollar budget but by 1992, this had been slashed to 515 million dollars. In addition to this, EPA personnel were cut by 22% and there was a 40% turnover rate of staff. The Superfund (which is a 1980 fund administered by the EPA and puts aside money to clean up toxic waste sites) was only used for 3 cases in 2 years even though 18,000 sites needed Superfund clean up. The effectiveness of the EPA, due to all the above factors, steadily declined. Three years into the Reagan presidency, about 20 senior EPA officials were removed from office after being investigated for conflicts of interest. Even Ann Gorsuch herself was found to be in contempt of congress for holding back documents and eventually resigned over the controversy.

            The EPA is an example of Nixon ‘riding the wave of environmentalism’. However, the EPA’s effectiveness was severely compromised by the many limitations placed on it by Reagan. It is widely known that at the end of the Reagan administration, the EPA was in a complete shambles from lack of funding. The EPA didn’t really interfere with corporations and the environment, as it should have. The EPA demonstrates that environmental policies and laws are only as good as the people who enforce them. 

J.I. Rodale

            Rodale wrote Pay Dirt: Farming and Gardening with Composts in 1945. Afterwards he started a journal called Organic Gardening and Farming. Pay Dirt sold over 50 million copies and Organic Gardening & Farming had many thousands of members. Rodale contested that next to the atomic bomb, nothing is more serious than the treatment of land by man. This kind of thinking came at the right time, as many people were seriously concerned about the state of the planet due to the atomic bomb threat. Rodale was not a scientist but he started a farm and was a bit of a romantic and a pastoralist. He was not interested in synthetic chemicals. He contended that, “[Organics] has been a long-established practice - much more firmly grounded than the current chemical flair. Present agricultural practices are leading us downhill." Rodale popularized the ideas of Englishman and soil scientist Sir Albert Howard who tried to find better farming methods to keep people in India from starving. Rodale questioned large-scale farms and fertilization with NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium). He argued that it was impossible to get natural food if you constantly added chemicals. Rodale also voiced early warnings about DDT and alerted people that it had been found to kill animals. He also criticized chickens being placed in battery farms to produce eggs. Rodale really foresaw the organic movement and was aware that people would be willing to pay more for food if it was grown without chemicals and industrial agriculture. He kind of kickstarted the organic movement. 

            The Ogallala aquifer nourishes 11 million acres of agriculture in the Great Plains from underground. It is one of the world’s largest aquifers. It is a groundwater storage reservoir and though it is a renewable source, it refills extremely slowly. Throughout the 1960’s, thousands of farmers petitioned for irrigation permits. Because farmers were allowed to tap into the aquifer, dry wheat farming was replaced by irrigated sorghum used for cattle feed. Approximately 600 million gallons of water are used every year to raise and slaughter cattle (this includes irrigating the grain, watering the stock and processing the cattle). All of this water must come from Ogallala aquifer. Half of groundwater is gone and if current consumption trends persist, then the Ogallala will be empty in as little as a few decades. Poppers suggest that Ogallala aquifer can be saved if farmers are encouraged/subsidized to plant native grasses and then paid to leave to let the Great Plains be. 

            The Colorado River is located in the Southwestern United States. The Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon. By 1964, 19 major dams were put up along the Colorado and today no actual water reaches the Gulf of California (the Hoover dam is one of these dams). The water is increasingly saline due to evaporation (and now it is near unusable when it is near the end of its course). There is a very large desalination plant that makes any water that flows in to Mexico usable. In 1922, states along the Colorado signed the Colorado River pact. Each state got a share of the Colorado River water. However, the agreement was signed at a time when the flow of river was at high levels, which has since turned in to a big problem considering that there is very little water in the Colorado now. From 1920s to the 1940s, Arizona had large disputes with other Colorado River Pact states trying to get more water as they are utterly dependent on it. The use of the water flowing from the Colorado has also contributed to urban/rural tensions because 82% of Colorado water goes to agriculture. This tension has only risen considering the expansion of the sub belt post WWII (in Las Vegas, Phoenix etc.). The Glen Canyon dam is the largest dam on the Colorado and creates Lake Powell. In 2007, the National Research Council revealed that the Colorado River basin is 20% lower than was previously thought and that global warming will accelerate this problem. 

            Glen Canyon is the largest dam on the Colorado River. It creates Lake Powell. The Sierra Club and many other environmental organizations were opposed to the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. Many environmentalists, including Brower who was the head of the Sierra Club, opposed the construction of a dam at Dinosaur National Monument, which is located on the Colorado river. In order to save Dinosaur, the conservationists agreed that Glen Canyon could be dammed instead. Later, Brower considered Glen Canyon dam to be the biggest mistake of his life. Later, when the Bureau of Reclamation proposed to build two new dams and flood the Grand Canyon, the Sierra Club was firmer in its stance and prevented these dams from being placed on the Colorado. Edward Abbey, author of the ‘Monkey Wrench Gang’ has his protagonist view the dam as an eyesore. Abbey himself though of Glen Canyon as the “heart” of the Colorado River and was appalled at the construction of the dam. Earth First activists protested the dam in 1981 by unfurling a large piece of black plastic that made it seem as though the concrete of the dam had cracked. Glen Canyon has had a profound effect on the Colorado river as now there are no more annual floods and there have been temperature changes.