Beautiful]e dark skies and ruined water, burning rivers, oil spills, spring. Eaches, silent 20 years ago, the wealthiest nation in the world that they had ever known, and people who enjoyed the level of private consumption undreamed of in the past found itself awash in environmental squalor. Comfortable, our children could not play outside because of the smog. Our clothing was clean, but our bays were choked with sewage and our lakes were slowly dying. Swept thehorror nation as we began to realize what we had done to the Natural Systems that supported all life. The environmental and was born movement was born. Governments at all levels responded with programs aimed at controlling pollution. By 1970, it had come obvious that further progress would require a Strong National effort. On december 2, 1970, president Richard Nixon consolidated 15 Environmental Programs from across the federal government to form the United StatesEnvironmental Protection agency. Inherit did the new epa responsibilities from its parent programs, but it soon had a raft of new ones. The passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970 meant that epas management had to simultaneously organize dozens of different staffs and laboratories to develop the National Air Quality standards required by the act. While at the same time, showing the American American people dog was being done to stop air pollution. The epa went to court. Factories were shut down. The message got through, pollution would never no longer be a part of business as usual in the United States. The clean water act passed in 1972 also required enormous efforts on the part of the new agency. 60 Million People were on Sewage Systems discharging 2 million tons per year of raw organic waste into surface waters. The new law mandated a system of universal Sewage Treatment and gave the epa the job of bringing it about. Ofob that meant running one the biggest public works programs in history. These huge programs were hardly underway when Congress Gave the epa new ones. And expanded Pesticide Program to examine and register new pest killers. To ensure that these chemicals do not menace human health or the survival of Natural Systems. A program to test, register and control toxic chemicals used in industry and the home. They program to set standards for the nations drinking water. A program to control the disposal of solid waste including Hazardous Waste. A program to help clean up the potential hazardous to waste dumps that are our legacy from the careless past. A program to control various sources of radioactivity. A group of other responsibilities that reflect our concern with the character of the American Land including the requirement for Environmental Impact statements, the establishment of marine sanctuaries and the protection of wetlands. Authorities,ese the epa has demonstrated over the last 15 years that the 1970 couldarth day, be forged into effective instruments of national policy. As a result, the kind of problems that led to the formation of the new agency, killing smock and burning rivers are largely under control. And 1981, although we added 30 Million People to our population and increased the reducedlmost 36 , we particulate emissions by 53 . Sulfur oxides by 21 . Carbon monoxide by 20 . Lead levels declined 64 nationally as the new into pollution devices required motorists to stop using leaded gas. We provided municipal Sewage Treatment for more than 80 million americans. Organic waste from industry has been reduced by 38 . When currently mandated controls are in place, discharges of toxic blooms will have been reduced by 96 from 1972 levels. A number of widely used chemicals with unacceptable toxicities such as ddt and pcbs have been abandoned. We have set up a regulatory system to regulate Hazardous Waste to prevent disasters like love canal or to our children. The program has located the most important abandoned waste sites and has moved to report damage to the surrounding communities. All of this has been accomplished through the skill and dedication of the people of the epa. Some 13,000 of them. They are organized into four Program Offices that administer the laws. Air and radiation, water, solid waste and emergency response, and has to decided and toxic substances. The agency as a whole is directed by an administrator assistant administrators in charge of each program office. The administrators are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. In addition, there are assistant administrators with appropriate staffs for research and development, enforcement and compliance monitoring, administration, policy planning and evaluation, and external affairs. The general counsel and an Inspector Generals Office round out the basic organization. A largely decentralized operation because Environmental Protection under our present laws requires that a major part of the job be done by the states. To workstaff has closely with state Environmental Protection organizations to get the job done. There are 10 Regional Headquarters housing staff responsible for the major regulatory programs in boston, new york city, philadelphia, dallas, kansaso, city, denver, san francisco, and seattle. Be scientific work of the epa is also decentralized and it takes place in laboratories located across the country. Takes placen work in raleighdurham, north carolina. Toxicology in cincinnati. Groundwater research in oklahoma. Pesticide biology in gulf breeze, florida. Ecosystems research in corvallis, oregon. This scientific effort is essential to meeting the environmental challenges that still lie ahead. We need to know a lot more about how toxic substances behave in the environment and what affects various exposure levels have on human health and the environment. Uss knowledge will help control the risks from the substances without sacrificing the benefits of the technologies that produce them. Onneed more information longrange transport of pollutants through the air. Acid rain is an example of this kind of transport. We also must do better at tracking the flow of pollutants through the environment. Much of our pollution control apparatus was designed with one environmental medium, air or water or land in mind. Pollutants can crossover between media and present risks in their new state as well. Produce the water but millions of tons of sewage sludge per year. Could incinerate the sludge but at what cost to the purity of the air . New and creative technologies are needed and epa has been a pioneer in developing these. Fluidized bed combustion that reduces the sulfur emissions from coal burning is one example. Another is the blue goose. A mobile incinerator. A product of the epa Research Facility in edison, new jersey. Touses intense heat eliminate much of the toxicity of Hazardous Waste. Develophas helped Sewage Treatment technology and new ways of preventing the contamination of groundwater by leaking Hazardous Waste dumps. The work of the people of epa and their thousands of colleagues in Environmental Protection has been rewarded by the market response of the natural environment. There is fishing and water recreation again on many major rivers and bays in places that many people thought were dead forever. We have improved Water Quality on 47,000 miles of streams since 1972. Lake erie did not die. Acres on the new jersey shore have been reopened for shell fishing. There are fish in the Trinity River in dallas. A stretch once written off as a permanent sewer. The most symbolic achievement of all has been the return of the bald eagle. Endangered populations of our National Bird have come back more popular quickly than expected. Scientific evidence shows that the eagles are flying again largely because of the ban on ddt. New problems have taken the place of the old ones, however, and each problem at the epa confronts a new set of tasks. The air program is developing a strategy to deal with noncompliance with the ozone health standard, a problem in several major urban areas. It is also shifting its intention to inhalable particulate. At the tiny fragments that cause the most Significant Health effects. And to dealing with changing Energy Sources such as woodburning furnaces. The control of toss toxic substances in the air remains a problem as does developing a workable solution to the damage done by acid rain. The Water Program has completed its Monumental Task of issuing effluent guidelines. Rules that tell industrial sources what concentrations of polluting substances they can allow to flow into surface waters. The Construction Grants Program continues. Made to turnng this responsibility over to the states. Emphasis has turned to ensuring that the plants run properly. It new emphasis is being placed on protection of the nations Groundwater Resources and on insuring that all americans will be able to drink pure water into the indefinite future. We are starting to realize that the goals of the clean water act will not be fully met unless we deal with polluting draining from our forms and cities. This pollution is responsible for half the Water Quality program problem in some areas. Withater office is working land owners and other Government Agencies to handle this problem. Epa solid waste programs are relatively new. The problems are old. They will take a long time to solve. 6 billion tons of solid and Hazardous Waste are produced in the United States each year. Deciding what to do with this mass or better yet, how to reduce it, will not be easy. We have made a good start. Regulations governing the treatment, storage and disposal of Hazardous Waste are now in place. We have also moved forward against the problem is an exercise under our superfund authority. Have almoststates completed the inventory of potentially hazardous sites. A complex process of determining what to do at particular sites and who should do it is underway at many of them. Theeffort to control harmful effects of toxic chemicals used by our Technological Society is one of the most difficult and complex tasks ever devised. There are over 60,000 chemicals. Between 3 billion pounds and 4 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year. It is the job of the office of pesticides and toxic substances to determine which chemical uses are unacceptably risky and to control them. Its mission is the stuff of headlines when chemicals identified as risks burst into the public consciousness. Pcbs, asbestos, ethylene. Bromide. Concentrates on speeding the registration of pesticides and stopping their misuse. Toxicity, the thousands of new chemicals developed each year and continuing the control of certain widely used chemicals that may cause serious disease. Ecb are the most familiar of these. All of these efforts are connected. The epa was born out of the idea that nature is a seamless web of life. Not touch aid flower without the troubling of a star. We have to protect the whole environment. We are not in business to move pollution around from one place to another. Thatve to realize pollution control itself generates some risk. The art is in deciding as free and responsible people what risks we are willing to live with it we are willing to spend to reduce them. We have come a long way in just 15 years. The American People have risen to the challenge of living more gently. ,ith their continuing support we in the epa can move on to fulfill our mission and its deepest sense. Which is to shape the nation and the planet we intend to leave to our children. Tvs weekend American History will mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire. To create the clean water act. On sunday at 9 00 a. M. Eastern, a historian and author joins us live from along the river in cleveland to take your calls and talk about the fire the myths associated with it and the campaign to find solutions. Watch our program on the 50th anniversary of the cuyahoga on American History tv on cspan3. 6 was the 75th anniversary of the allied today invasion of not the occupied france. A world war ii veteran was with the 82nd airborne divisions 505th regiment on dday when he parachuted into normandy after his plane was hit by enemy fire. He describes his regiments to hold the bridge. The National WorldWar Ii Museum in new orleans recorded the interview. Start with giving me your name and ranking, your company and regimen. My name is elmo bell. Im retired from the army. [indiscernible] and the Mississippi National guard. I was full colonel of six. Mark retired grade is brigadier general