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scores for. awareness of the ring, for superman and one's mother. two years. oh, boy. oh. oh. oh, my. gosh. his career is on this. oh, and groom i god. with the bureau of food for to

shun sue dark-sky eyes and ruin water burning rivers, oil spills, closed beaches, silent spring to 20 years ago. the wealthiest nation in the world had ever known a people who enjoyed a level of private consumption undreamed of in the past found itself awash in environmental squalor. our cars were comfortable, but our children couldn't play outside because of the smog. our clothes were clean, but our bays were choked with sewage and our lakes were slowly dying. a wave of horror swept the nation as we began to realize

what we had done to the natural systems that supported all life. the environmental movement was born. governments at all levels responded with programs aimed at controlling pollution. but by 1970, it had become obvious that further progress would require a strong national effort. as a result, on december 2nd, 1970, president richard nixon consolidated 15 environmental programs from across the federal government to form the united states environmental protection agency. not only did the new epa inherit 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 epa's management had to simultaneously lee 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 people that something was being done to stop air pollution. epa went to court. factories were shut down. the message got through. gross pollution would no longer be a part of business as usual in the united states. the clean water act, passed in 1972, also required enormous and unprecedented efforts on the part of the new agency. 60 million people were on sewage systems, discharging 2 million tons a year of raw organic waste into surface waters. the new law mandated a system of universal sewage treatment and gave epa the job of bringing it about a job that meant running one of the largest public works programs in the nation's history. these huge air and water protection programs were hardly underway when congress gave epa

new ones an expanded pesticide program to examine and register new agriculture or pest killers to ensure that these essential chemicals do not minuscule bone health or the survival of natural systems. a program to test, register and control the toxic chemicals used in industry and the home. a program to set standards for the nation's drinking water. a program to control the disposal of solid waste. including hazardous waste. a program to help clean up the potentially dangerous hazardous waste dumps that are our legacy from the careless past. a program to control various sources of radioactivity. and 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. armed with these authorities, epa has demonstrated over the last 15 years that the ideals of earth day 1970 could 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, smog and burning rivers are largely under control. between 1970 and 1981, although we had and 30 million people to our population and increased the gross national product by almost 36%, we reduced particulate emissions by 53%. sulfur oxides by 21%. and carbon monoxide died by 20%. lead levels. declined 64% nationally as the new anti-pollution devices required, motorists to stop using leaded gas.

we have provided municipal sewage treatment for over 80 million americans. organic waste from industry has been reduced by 38% when currently mandated controls are in place. discharges of toxic pollutants 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 successfully banned. we have set up a regulatory system to track hazardous wastes from their point of origin to their point of disposal to prevent any disasters like love canal from happening to our children. the superfund program has located the most important abandoned waste sites and has moved to prevent any public health damage to the surrounding communities. all this has been accomplished through the skill and dedication of epa's people.

some 13,000 of them. they are organized into four program offices that administer the major regulatory laws. air and radiation. water. solid waste and emergency response. and pesticides. and toxic substances. the agency as a whole is directed by an administrator with assistant administrators in charge of each program office. the administrator deputy administrator and assistant administer raters are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. in addition, there are assistant administrators with appropriate staffs for research and development in enforcement and compliance monitoring. administration. policy planning and evaluation. and external affairs. a general counsel. and an inspector general's office. round out the basic

organization. epa is a largely decentralized operation because environmental protection under our present laws requires that a major part of the job be done by the states. epa staff has to work closely with state environmental protection organizations to get the job done. there are ten regional headquarters housing staff responsible for the major regulatory programs in boston. new york city, philadelphia. atlanta. chicago. argo. dallas. kansas city. denver. san francisco. and seattle. the scientific work of epa is also decentralized and takes place in laboratories located across the country. air pollution work takes place in raleigh, durham, north carolina. toxicology and industry engineering in cincinnati.

groundwater research in ada, oklahoma. pesticide biology and gulf breeze, florida. and 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. this knowledge would help us control the risks from these substances without sacrificing the benefits of the technologies that produce them. we need more information on long range 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 hand via metal, medium air or water or land in mind. but pollutants can cross over

between media and present risks in their new state as well. we clean the water but produce millions of tons of sewage sludge a year. we 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 fluids. bed combustion that reduces the sulfur emissions from coal burning is one example. another is the blue goose, a block long mobile incinerator or a product of epa's research facility at edison, new jersey? the goose uses intense heat to eliminate much of the toxicity of hazardous waste. epa has also helped to develop new 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've improved water quality on 47,000 miles of streams since 1972. lake erie did not die. over 22,000 acres on the new jersey shore have been reopened for shellfishing. there are fish in the trinity river at 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 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 program at epa confronts a fresh 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 attention to inhalable particulates, the tinier fragments that apparently cause the most significant health effects, and to dealing with changing energy sources such as wood burning furnaces. the control of 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 major industrial sources what concentration of polluting substances they can allow to flow into surface waters.

the construction grants program continues, but plans are being made to turn this responsibility over to the states. emphasis at epa has turned to ensuring that the plants are run properly. new emphasis is also being placed on protection of the nation's groundwater resources and on ensuring that all americans will be able to drink pure water into the indefinite future. finally, 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 farms and cities. this non-point source pollution is responsible for half the water quality problem in some areas. the water office is working with landowners and other government agencies to handle this problem. epa's solid waste program forms are relatively new. the problems are old and will

take a long time to solve. 6 billion tons of solid and hazardous waste are produced in the united states each year and deciding what to do with this mess 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 problems arising from inactive sites under our superfund authority. epa and the states have almost completed the inventory of potentially hazardous sites. the complex process of determining what to do at particular sites and who should do it is underway at many of them. the effort to control the harmful effects of the toxic chemicals used by our technological society is one of the most difficult and complex

tasks ever devised. there are over 60,000 chemicals in commerce. between three and four pounds billion of pesticides are used each year. it is the job of the office of pesticide needs and toxic substances to determine which chemical uses are unexcelled doubly risky and to control them. its mission is the stuff of headlines when the names of obscure or everyday chemicals identified as risks burst into the public consciousness. dioxin. asbestos. pcbs as ethylene dai bromide. the office now concentrates on speeding the registration of pesticides and stopping their misuse. checking for toxicity. the thousands of new chemicals that are developed each year and continuing the control of certain widely used chemicals that may cause serious disease. asbestos and pcbs are the most familiar of these.

all these efforts are connected. the environmental protection agency was born out of the idea that nature is a seamless web of life. a poet, once said, thou cants not touch a flower without the troubling of a star. so we have to protect the whole environment. we are not in business to move pollution around from one place to another. we have to realize that pollution control itself generates some risk and that the art is in deciding as free and response. simple people what risks we are willing to live with and what 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 in the natural world with their continuing support. we in the environmental protection agency can move on to

fulfill our mission in its deepest sense, which is to shape the nation and the planet. we intend to leave to our children. it's my pleasure to introduce jonathan to you all. he is your first speaker, and i'm delighted to be to to enjoy yet another presentation from him. jonathan nogales, director of university's mccormick civil war institute and, a professor in our history department. '