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Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins , Green For All - Forty years ago today, the Environmental Protection Agency was created. It’s fitting that the anniversary falls just one week after Thanksgiving, because every American from every state should be grateful for the Agency’s work.
Consider that by 1990, the EPA’s actions had prevented 205,000 premature American deaths, 189,000 cardiovascular hospitalizations and 18 million child respiratory illnesses. The EPA has reduced 60% of dangerous air pollutants in the air we breathe. They have transformed 67% of contaminated Superfund Brownfield sites nationwide into livable neighborhoods and active business centers. In the four decades of its existence, millions of lives have been impacted by the EPA.
Including my own. As I relayed in my introductory post here, I grew up in a community where “affordability” was a code word for low income and high pollution. The industries responsible for earning the region the dubious distinction as the worst place to live in the Bay area weren’t likely to prioritize public health – nor was a local government desperate to keep any and all employers. That’s where the EPA comes in