Midwestern states like Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri are home to many coal-fired plants.
A growing number of these plants are shutting down, partly due to the declining costs of renewables. According to one recent Moody’s Analytics report, the price of wind power has fallen so rapidly that it could soon replace coal-fired plants in the Midwest.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has confirmed plans to eliminate the Clean Power Plan, the Obama-era program aimed at helping the United States meet its Paris climate agreement goals by curbing carbon emissions from power plants.
The announcement follows a series of other rollbacks from the Environmental Protection Agency, which is now without an administrator since Scott Pruitt resigned in June. Under Pruitt, the EPA has reversed a ban on a pesticide that can harm children’s brains. It has also moved to delay the Clean Water Rule, which clarified the Clean Water Act to prohibit industries from dumping pollutants into streams and wetlands.
If the Trump administration continues these types of measures, the US could return to some of the same conditions as we had before air and water quality were regulated.
Soon after the EPA's founding in 1970, the agency dispatched 100 photographers to capture America's environmental problems in a photo project called Documerica. Of the 81,000 images they took, over 20,000 photos were archived, and at least 15,000 have been digitized by the National Archives.
Check out a selection of Documerica photos of Midwestern cities that were taken in the early 1970s.
Many Documerica photos show scenes of general life in US in the 1970s, but several also document environmental issues.
Over 133.9 million Americans live in counties with unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to the American Lung Association's 2018 "State of the Air" report. Looking at recent air quality data, the ALA points to several cities in the Midwest as the most polluted. (Cities in California overwhelmingly top the list, however.)
Coal-mining companies were big polluters in the Midwest in the 1970s.
Source: Scientific American
President Trump has promised to bring back the industry, and nominated a coal lobbyist as the second-in-command at the EPA.
Near Cadiz, Ohio, a coal company stripped mined the land surrounding this abandoned house in this 1974 photo.
Pollution in industrial cities like Cleveland, Ohio, and Chicago, Illinois, was particularly bad in the '70s.
Smog hangs over Louisville, Ohio in this 1972 photo.
In 2010, the EPA estimated that the Clean Air Act prevented over 160,000 early deaths, 130,000 heart attacks, and millions of cases of respiratory illness.
Before the EPA, there was little regulation on companies that dumped pollutants into rivers, lakes, and oceans.
This 1972 photo shows a burning barge on the Ohio River.
A fire on Northeast Ohio's Cuyahoga River in 1969 (the 13th time it had caught fire) helped inspire the creation of the EPA. The river's discolored water in this 1973 photo is sewage.
Near Cleveland, residents placed old cars along the Cuyahoga River's bank to prevent erosion, as seen in this 1975 photo.
This 1973 photo shows the severely deformed spine of a Jordanella fish, due to methyl mercury present in the water in Duluth, Minnesota.
The EPA now uses the Clean Water Act to prohibit companies from contaminating water.
In 1973, Mary Workman of Steubenville, Ohio filed a lawsuit against a coal company, accusing it of polluting her water. She holds a jar of undrinkable water from her well in this photo.
Over the years, the EPA has spearheaded mass trash removals that focus on toxic chemicals in landfills and stormwater systems nationwide.
In 1973, the EPA held an exhibit of low-pollution vehicles in Ann Arbor, Michigan, largely due to concerns about emissions from gas and diesel vehicles. The men pictured below are checking out a "Sundancer," an experimental electric car.
Without EPA regulation, the past could become the future.
