The Clark Avenue Bridge was Cleveland’s longest bridge for 70 years. It rose into the orange skies above the steel mills. In July 1973 — 50 years ago — it became an illustration of air pollution in the USA. Cars and factories were killing us, the media told us. Only the federal Environmental Protection Agency could save us!
I took an internal combustion engines class in pursuit of my mech engineer degree in 1996 and cars were emitting almost zero nitrogen oxides(NOx's) back then.
Remember when Rick Perry was running for President and during one of the debates he said dumping the EPA, and others then he couldn't remember what all was on his list? The press glommed onto what he couldn't remember to make fun of him and no one paid attention to what he wanted to do..Too bad!
The difference in the rivers and streams in WV from their condition in the 70s is remarkable. Healthy trout streams dominate the higher elevations and Musky can be caught in almost every river in the middle and lower elevations. The Coal and Guyandotte Rivers went from muddy dumps to popular recreational rivers. (The biggest change came from building sewage treatment plants instead of just dumping it) We know we can protect the environment without destroying the economy, because we have done it for so long. Trying to impoverish people in the name of going after CO2 will only lead to more environmental destruction than preservation. Those windmills on the mountaintops will be looked at with scorn in 50 years.
"He wasn’t trying to save the world. He was trying to make a buck. No one really wants to save the world. Those who say they do just want to grab power."
If the global warming fanatics had any sense, they would say that their doom and gloom predictions have not come true due to improvements made due to their activism. Instead, they make new doom and gloom predictions that won’t come true. But they are big government whores like the EPA. They need the issue, not the cure.
Well, they (EPA, activists, politicians) keep moving the goal posts with stricter limits of more microscopic measurable traces of whatever is deemed "harmful," so the doom and gloom predictions go hat-in-hand with the moving targets.
Then, of course, there's the whole CO2 is a pollutant nonsense...
The entire activist agenda is to keep scaring up fear of the unknown, so that in the subsequent panic, the public concedes the question to "do something"--that worked so well during covid.
They have been predicting the world demise since the 1950s. At one point, I had a list of over 100 predictions that had not come true. I lost the link a few yrs ago. I remember the 'famine and ice age predictions of the 70s vividly.
The EPA was involved or has been involved in some of the worse 'accidents' that did more to pollute areas than anything anyone else did. They were trying to 'save' everyone from the mine pollutants and blew it up. It caused untold damage to the Colorado. So now they are like the FBI, they have to create work (crime in the FBIs case) so that they can still have a job.
Good column, Mr. Surber. Whenever I read someone recommending the termination of a government program, I am reminded of president Reagan's observation that a government program is the closest thing on earth to eternal life.
So if we accept these two realities -- that the EPA and a number of other agencies are no longer needed, and that we can't just do away with them -- we are left with the only option: move them. Can't kill the EPA? Transfer headquarters to Minot, ND. Department of Education too important to kill? Transfer headquarters to Anchorage. And so on. Oh, and impose a hiring freeze on all government agencies at the same time, so they can't replace employees who decide not to make the move.
I've always fantasized about a constitutional amendment that would bar anyone who is employed by or contracts with the federal government from voting for any federal office. And do it at the state level as well.
It almost happened under FDR, who wanted to ban all government employees from joining a union. Imagine how much different and better our country would be if they were NOT union. FDR died in office just before that law was enacted.
I thought Carter had changed 5USC118p. I was wrong. There were unions, many were not allowed to strike. I just remember what a mess the PATCO strike caused. That was 40 years ago and I was busy playing soldier at the time.
Very insightful post man from Poca! You make a very strong case for for the elimination of the EPA. Too bad the Department of Education cannot claim victories. Only evil and precipitous declines in learning and purely evil actions driving cultural rot. Nuke the DOE!
We need to nuke nearly every alphabet agency in D.C. and get back to the constitution period.You never hear the epa mention disposal of the great windmills,ev batteries or solar panels as they fail.WHY?
While we are at the nuking of agencies, can we not just move our seat of Government out of Maryland/Virginia and out into real America. There is a geographic middle of the country where the waving wheat can sure smell sweet. Let's go THERE.
I could send pictures of huge stacks of dead windmill blades which will NEVER degrade. The idiots seem to be in charge. Hey, let’s glue our hands to a priceless painting. Anyone wonder why they don’t glue their hands to Hunters priceless paintings?
You nailed these people and hypocrisy together perfectly.The useless blades are akin to the junk batteries,pollution from enviromental nut jobs with out a care as it long as we can harm American workers and patriots.
Nobody in government wants any problem solved ever. Solving a problem equals the loss of a cushy, little-work, high-pension, tons-of-days-off, soul-destroying job. It's true throughout government. The environment is never protected. We just change the standards from one part per quadrillion to one part per quintillion. Wars are never won. They are fought in perpetuity, whether that be WWII, Korea, the Persian Gulf, and the new and latest iteration of perpetual war, Ukraine. Medicine is not about curing anything but making you stay on a drug regimen for life. Why do so many people who think they're so smart continue to listen to these greedy, control-freak whores?
Don, a lot of what you say about USEPA is true. After fighting their over reach and sometimes stupidity for 40 years, believe me, I know.
But I respectfully disagree on some of your points. We need a national enforcement agency for air and water pollution; everybody is downwind and downstream from somebody else. And yes, Rockefeller made a by product useful and stopped just dumping it. But that is not even close to a universal possibility. I was born in 1953 in the NC mountains. Growing up our families wouldn't allow us to even swim in many of the mountain rivers. That was because towns and private residences used them to get rid of raw sewage. The Toe River which ran through the town near us ran a dirty mud color that was too thick to drink and too thin to plow due to the waste products from the many feldspar mines and processing operations. The dumped the waste from the flotation mills directly into the river. It was a slurry of hydrofluoric acid and the impurities from the crushed feldspar. The high purity silica sand which they sold to glass companies was a very small fraction of the raw feldspar, so the volume of waste was huge.
After 1974 when EPA started regulating discharges into the river the mines and plants they had to build treatment plants to separate the nasty stuff in the waste stream, dry the solids and landfill them, and remove the HF acid from the liquid and purify it for reuse. The purification process was goddam expensive, and they had to double to price of the silica sand, but because it is an essential raw material for glass and solar cells, and everybody had to abide by the regs, the buyers just had to eat the cost.
Today you can drive through downtown Spruce Pine and from the only bridge over the river for miles you can look down 70 ft to the water and see rainbow trout, brown trout, and brook trout swimming along the bottom. The water is clear as a bell, and fly fishing and whitewater rafting have become great tourist attractions.
There is no way the mines and processing plants would have cleaned up their act w/o regulation from EPA. The problem today is not the existence of the agency. The problem is it is staffed with rat bastard commie enviro-whacko activists who don't really care about the the environment, but are ANTI ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MALTHUSIANS. They see people as a blight on the planet (except for themselves) and would cheerfully execute about half of the population. That's why they are so fond of abortion and mercy killing. There is a saying in the wastewater treatment community. Cleaning up 99.9% of wastewater is easy, it's that last tenth of a percent that is ungodly expensive. The enviro-whackos always want to make us tackle that last tenth.
I’m not an engineer or economist. Just an old man of eighty years and counting. No where have I seen any one make an economic or any other case for the elimination of the internal combustion engine gasoline powered cars.
Ahem. I'll be 82 next natal day and try as I may to refrain from the word "old" I still think old is a 4-letter word. Someone wise said it isn't the years of life, its the life in the years.
I decided after my last birthday that upon reaching this milestone I would accept it as an honorific. Realizing that few in the history of the world made it this far. Years ago my first profession was nursing home administration. I am now older than most of those I cared for. I once had a veteran of the Spanish American war in my facility.
That happened to me too Joseph. When I turned 80 I realised that it is a badge of honour. I also realise that God still has work for me to do. I am an exhibiting landscape painter. We are privileged to live in such a beautiful world. Painting it is my way of saying thank you.
I work from home as an online notary. I sit at my computer a few hours most days and notarize documents for people from all over the world. A career I discovered a couple of years ago when I retired and moved to Florida. Last years I discovered paint by numbers which is fun and relaxing and the closest I can come to actually creating anything artistic.
I like the way you think, said Sam Kinnison. I too was born in Cleveland, yet raised in the outkirts of the "burgh". I too have seen the pollution up close and personal. Not real sure where you gained all of your percentages for the various pollutants from, either the EPA or pulled them out of your ass? Whatever one is just as accurate as the other or perhaps that where the EPA gets there numbers. I would bet that whatever pollutants have been saved from the planet in all these years were re released on the small town in East Palestine, Ohio. flowing over to West By God Virginia, and the land of taxes western Pennsylvania! No one seems to give a damn about that, now do they. The Democrats always seem to have some scheme to fix the very problems that they've created, see how that shit works. Now it's all fine and dandy to start with the EPA but It's just my opinion, you know what they say about opinions, they are just like assholes everybody has one, but those with a colostomy have two, the rest of DC needs to be burned down, kinda like the Cuyahoga River, don't forget everyone leave a big ass carbon footprint, the trees need it!
Time to make the rounds. My beautiful Queen Mary, whom I married at 62 in 2010 has advanced Alzheimer's, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Type 2 diabetes, needs constant care. Stay tuned. #maddogandqueenmary find me.
One of the many reasons I earned the nickname Mad Dog was my continuous training to be fearless by my parents, grandparents, and God?? We were too poor to afford nanies, daycare, children pre school, (invented by the much richer German nation, Germany. Are ve not the super race? Ya, ve are the super race.)
Instead the Americans invented cowboys, and free range animals AND..... wait for it....
Children. Ta da.
Deeply embedded in our divine loathing of bullies. Hence Wars. And war heroes. Jesus Christ. Commoners against Royalty. Gospel preachers. Uncles, cousins, siblings, ancestors, in laws were epicly heroic. A story comes with each. Tune in later for the continuing storrrry of PIGS! IN!! SPACE!!!
Great commentary! Don we’re close to the same age so I’ve lived through similar events although from a NYC point of view. I grew up on Long Island NY. During the ‘60s every summer news day featured stories of SMOG! When I got my first drivers license almost every trip west toward NYC provided a clear view of the yellow smog hanging over Manhattan. On a windy day I’d get a rare view of the beautiful Manhattan skyline. Because of the EPA, most of the smog had been noticiably reduced by ‘74 when I finally escaped NY. The same was said to be true of L.A. smog. I can’t recall the last time I saw a “news” report featuring SMOG!
So, for the last half century it’s seemed the EPA regs and cost mandates have been a very expensive ado about nothing. Now they want to take away our gas stoves, and hot water heaters and make most home other appliances conveniences for only the wealthy and elite. I’d bet if every EPA regulation enacted since 1975 were repealed, no one would notice!
I took an internal combustion engines class in pursuit of my mech engineer degree in 1996 and cars were emitting almost zero nitrogen oxides(NOx's) back then.
Dump the EPA, Dept of Ed, et al.
I'm willing to let Dept of Ed die when Jimma Cahtah dies, and stuff it in his coffin with him.
Great comment, I agree!
Remember when Rick Perry was running for President and during one of the debates he said dumping the EPA, and others then he couldn't remember what all was on his list? The press glommed onto what he couldn't remember to make fun of him and no one paid attention to what he wanted to do..Too bad!
Yep, the 'Press' is the Praetorian guard for Democrats and the D.C. bureaucracy.
I'm with you on this 100%.
I was a teenager in the suburbs of Cleveland at the time.
Lake Erie was a dead sea with turds floating in it.
It's been restored.
The EPA keeps looking for ways to raise the bar so they can all stay employed.
The lake is beautiful, but I waited about 10 years after the clean up before I would eat the walleye. Lots of chemicals in the sediment.
The difference in the rivers and streams in WV from their condition in the 70s is remarkable. Healthy trout streams dominate the higher elevations and Musky can be caught in almost every river in the middle and lower elevations. The Coal and Guyandotte Rivers went from muddy dumps to popular recreational rivers. (The biggest change came from building sewage treatment plants instead of just dumping it) We know we can protect the environment without destroying the economy, because we have done it for so long. Trying to impoverish people in the name of going after CO2 will only lead to more environmental destruction than preservation. Those windmills on the mountaintops will be looked at with scorn in 50 years.
Amen, Mister Bolen
Oh you optimist you!
You think we'll we ALLOWED TO LOOK OUT of our prison cells 50 (or even 10!) years from now!?
You will live work and die in a 15 min circle, and like it, damn it! /s
ha. Yep, that's what they say. 🤨
Have you read Ayn Rand's book "Anthem"?
https://aynrand.org/novels/anthem/#otab-2
"He wasn’t trying to save the world. He was trying to make a buck. No one really wants to save the world. Those who say they do just want to grab power."
Very well put, Don Surber!
Amen and Amen!
If the global warming fanatics had any sense, they would say that their doom and gloom predictions have not come true due to improvements made due to their activism. Instead, they make new doom and gloom predictions that won’t come true. But they are big government whores like the EPA. They need the issue, not the cure.
Well, they (EPA, activists, politicians) keep moving the goal posts with stricter limits of more microscopic measurable traces of whatever is deemed "harmful," so the doom and gloom predictions go hat-in-hand with the moving targets.
Then, of course, there's the whole CO2 is a pollutant nonsense...
The entire activist agenda is to keep scaring up fear of the unknown, so that in the subsequent panic, the public concedes the question to "do something"--that worked so well during covid.
How very true!!
They have been predicting the world demise since the 1950s. At one point, I had a list of over 100 predictions that had not come true. I lost the link a few yrs ago. I remember the 'famine and ice age predictions of the 70s vividly.
The EPA was involved or has been involved in some of the worse 'accidents' that did more to pollute areas than anything anyone else did. They were trying to 'save' everyone from the mine pollutants and blew it up. It caused untold damage to the Colorado. So now they are like the FBI, they have to create work (crime in the FBIs case) so that they can still have a job.
Oh and no lost their job or got fired. AND the EPA didnt pay for it. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gold-king-mine-spill-colorado-rivers-epa-claims/
Good column, Mr. Surber. Whenever I read someone recommending the termination of a government program, I am reminded of president Reagan's observation that a government program is the closest thing on earth to eternal life.
So if we accept these two realities -- that the EPA and a number of other agencies are no longer needed, and that we can't just do away with them -- we are left with the only option: move them. Can't kill the EPA? Transfer headquarters to Minot, ND. Department of Education too important to kill? Transfer headquarters to Anchorage. And so on. Oh, and impose a hiring freeze on all government agencies at the same time, so they can't replace employees who decide not to make the move.
Pure genius!
All any bureaucracy is, is a voting machine for people who would otherwise be unemployed.
I've always fantasized about a constitutional amendment that would bar anyone who is employed by or contracts with the federal government from voting for any federal office. And do it at the state level as well.
It almost happened under FDR, who wanted to ban all government employees from joining a union. Imagine how much different and better our country would be if they were NOT union. FDR died in office just before that law was enacted.
Carter gave feral employees and other grifters, I mean government employees the right to unionize.
Reagan had a mess from that one.
Are you telling me that the only federal employees unionized up to that point were just the postal unions?
I thought Carter had changed 5USC118p. I was wrong. There were unions, many were not allowed to strike. I just remember what a mess the PATCO strike caused. That was 40 years ago and I was busy playing soldier at the time.
I had forgotten about the air traffic controller's strike. I also forgot that the unions couldn't strike either
Age does that to people. Thank you, Jeremy.
Strategically the battle has been lost. There are more Parasites than warm blood in the Host.
Well, when the blood is all drawn up, there'll be no more blood for the parasites - just sayin'...
Your point being.....?
Very insightful post man from Poca! You make a very strong case for for the elimination of the EPA. Too bad the Department of Education cannot claim victories. Only evil and precipitous declines in learning and purely evil actions driving cultural rot. Nuke the DOE!
We need to nuke nearly every alphabet agency in D.C. and get back to the constitution period.You never hear the epa mention disposal of the great windmills,ev batteries or solar panels as they fail.WHY?
While we are at the nuking of agencies, can we not just move our seat of Government out of Maryland/Virginia and out into real America. There is a geographic middle of the country where the waving wheat can sure smell sweet. Let's go THERE.
I could send pictures of huge stacks of dead windmill blades which will NEVER degrade. The idiots seem to be in charge. Hey, let’s glue our hands to a priceless painting. Anyone wonder why they don’t glue their hands to Hunters priceless paintings?
You nailed these people and hypocrisy together perfectly.The useless blades are akin to the junk batteries,pollution from enviromental nut jobs with out a care as it long as we can harm American workers and patriots.
The dept of ED won't claim victory until everyone can read at a third grade level and accepts that history is whatever CNN says it is.
Nobody in government wants any problem solved ever. Solving a problem equals the loss of a cushy, little-work, high-pension, tons-of-days-off, soul-destroying job. It's true throughout government. The environment is never protected. We just change the standards from one part per quadrillion to one part per quintillion. Wars are never won. They are fought in perpetuity, whether that be WWII, Korea, the Persian Gulf, and the new and latest iteration of perpetual war, Ukraine. Medicine is not about curing anything but making you stay on a drug regimen for life. Why do so many people who think they're so smart continue to listen to these greedy, control-freak whores?
Don, a lot of what you say about USEPA is true. After fighting their over reach and sometimes stupidity for 40 years, believe me, I know.
But I respectfully disagree on some of your points. We need a national enforcement agency for air and water pollution; everybody is downwind and downstream from somebody else. And yes, Rockefeller made a by product useful and stopped just dumping it. But that is not even close to a universal possibility. I was born in 1953 in the NC mountains. Growing up our families wouldn't allow us to even swim in many of the mountain rivers. That was because towns and private residences used them to get rid of raw sewage. The Toe River which ran through the town near us ran a dirty mud color that was too thick to drink and too thin to plow due to the waste products from the many feldspar mines and processing operations. The dumped the waste from the flotation mills directly into the river. It was a slurry of hydrofluoric acid and the impurities from the crushed feldspar. The high purity silica sand which they sold to glass companies was a very small fraction of the raw feldspar, so the volume of waste was huge.
After 1974 when EPA started regulating discharges into the river the mines and plants they had to build treatment plants to separate the nasty stuff in the waste stream, dry the solids and landfill them, and remove the HF acid from the liquid and purify it for reuse. The purification process was goddam expensive, and they had to double to price of the silica sand, but because it is an essential raw material for glass and solar cells, and everybody had to abide by the regs, the buyers just had to eat the cost.
Today you can drive through downtown Spruce Pine and from the only bridge over the river for miles you can look down 70 ft to the water and see rainbow trout, brown trout, and brook trout swimming along the bottom. The water is clear as a bell, and fly fishing and whitewater rafting have become great tourist attractions.
There is no way the mines and processing plants would have cleaned up their act w/o regulation from EPA. The problem today is not the existence of the agency. The problem is it is staffed with rat bastard commie enviro-whacko activists who don't really care about the the environment, but are ANTI ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MALTHUSIANS. They see people as a blight on the planet (except for themselves) and would cheerfully execute about half of the population. That's why they are so fond of abortion and mercy killing. There is a saying in the wastewater treatment community. Cleaning up 99.9% of wastewater is easy, it's that last tenth of a percent that is ungodly expensive. The enviro-whackos always want to make us tackle that last tenth.
Preach!
Loved the French Broad in Buncombe County, growing up. Born in '56.
Six folks in a Corvair? Impressive! LOL
Well two were babies. And I was 11. No car seats.
And at least Don LIVED to tell about it!! 🤣
I’m not an engineer or economist. Just an old man of eighty years and counting. No where have I seen any one make an economic or any other case for the elimination of the internal combustion engine gasoline powered cars.
Ahem. I'll be 82 next natal day and try as I may to refrain from the word "old" I still think old is a 4-letter word. Someone wise said it isn't the years of life, its the life in the years.
I decided after my last birthday that upon reaching this milestone I would accept it as an honorific. Realizing that few in the history of the world made it this far. Years ago my first profession was nursing home administration. I am now older than most of those I cared for. I once had a veteran of the Spanish American war in my facility.
That happened to me too Joseph. When I turned 80 I realised that it is a badge of honour. I also realise that God still has work for me to do. I am an exhibiting landscape painter. We are privileged to live in such a beautiful world. Painting it is my way of saying thank you.
I work from home as an online notary. I sit at my computer a few hours most days and notarize documents for people from all over the world. A career I discovered a couple of years ago when I retired and moved to Florida. Last years I discovered paint by numbers which is fun and relaxing and the closest I can come to actually creating anything artistic.
Being retired is fun, and hard work at times. Since I retired from teaching I have renovated an old house, built a studio, built a couple of boats.
I used to look out of the window of my classroom and watch the groundsman at work.
It sometimes seemed as if he was the happiest man at school!
I have still managed to have at least two or three exhibitions a year.
A busy man making stuff is doing God’s work.
I like the way you think, said Sam Kinnison. I too was born in Cleveland, yet raised in the outkirts of the "burgh". I too have seen the pollution up close and personal. Not real sure where you gained all of your percentages for the various pollutants from, either the EPA or pulled them out of your ass? Whatever one is just as accurate as the other or perhaps that where the EPA gets there numbers. I would bet that whatever pollutants have been saved from the planet in all these years were re released on the small town in East Palestine, Ohio. flowing over to West By God Virginia, and the land of taxes western Pennsylvania! No one seems to give a damn about that, now do they. The Democrats always seem to have some scheme to fix the very problems that they've created, see how that shit works. Now it's all fine and dandy to start with the EPA but It's just my opinion, you know what they say about opinions, they are just like assholes everybody has one, but those with a colostomy have two, the rest of DC needs to be burned down, kinda like the Cuyahoga River, don't forget everyone leave a big ass carbon footprint, the trees need it!
Sam Kinison was a national treasure!
Time to make the rounds. My beautiful Queen Mary, whom I married at 62 in 2010 has advanced Alzheimer's, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Type 2 diabetes, needs constant care. Stay tuned. #maddogandqueenmary find me.
God bless you.
So sorry rev. May God bless you both.
Prayers for your wife, Mary and you.
Her creator sees and knows. I join this prayer circle.
One of the many reasons I earned the nickname Mad Dog was my continuous training to be fearless by my parents, grandparents, and God?? We were too poor to afford nanies, daycare, children pre school, (invented by the much richer German nation, Germany. Are ve not the super race? Ya, ve are the super race.)
Instead the Americans invented cowboys, and free range animals AND..... wait for it....
Children. Ta da.
Deeply embedded in our divine loathing of bullies. Hence Wars. And war heroes. Jesus Christ. Commoners against Royalty. Gospel preachers. Uncles, cousins, siblings, ancestors, in laws were epicly heroic. A story comes with each. Tune in later for the continuing storrrry of PIGS! IN!! SPACE!!!
Great commentary! Don we’re close to the same age so I’ve lived through similar events although from a NYC point of view. I grew up on Long Island NY. During the ‘60s every summer news day featured stories of SMOG! When I got my first drivers license almost every trip west toward NYC provided a clear view of the yellow smog hanging over Manhattan. On a windy day I’d get a rare view of the beautiful Manhattan skyline. Because of the EPA, most of the smog had been noticiably reduced by ‘74 when I finally escaped NY. The same was said to be true of L.A. smog. I can’t recall the last time I saw a “news” report featuring SMOG!
So, for the last half century it’s seemed the EPA regs and cost mandates have been a very expensive ado about nothing. Now they want to take away our gas stoves, and hot water heaters and make most home other appliances conveniences for only the wealthy and elite. I’d bet if every EPA regulation enacted since 1975 were repealed, no one would notice!