We all know someone who is trying to protect the environment.
Someone is making sure our forests are beautiful enough to allow us to go on morning hikes and the skies are clear enough for stargazing. What we don’t know is who is responsible every day for our safety, health, and well-being. The Environmental Protection Agency is who I’d like to introduce to you.
What is the EPA? The Environmental Protection Agency, a federal agency, works to protect the environment by enforcing national standards in accordance with environmental laws. It consults states, tribes, and local governments. The agency oversees everything, from water treatment, pesticide, chemical regulation, indoor quality, outdoor recreation, international agreements, and partnerships. The EPA should be considered if you drink water, eat food, or live in a home.
Like many federal agencies, the EPA is at risk of losing federal budget funds. The EPA has a small budget and relies on the money available to fund its essential programs and workers. Any budget cuts would be like taking food from a starving agency.
The environment presents many risks that can cause harm to our health. Living near a Superfund site can lead to exposure to toxic chemicals. Radon poisoning is more common in certain areas of the country. Every day, the water we drink must be tested and treated to prevent contamination. Pesticides and other chemicals are tested on the food we eat. The EPA’s funding is essential to ensure that the conditions in which we live are safe and healthy for our health.
Cleaning Superfund sites across the country is a slow and tedious process that takes on average 10 years. This will only increase the risk of groundwater contamination.
New Mexico only has 19 Superfund sites. Four of these sites were deleted, and 11 are still under construction. Other states are not so lucky: New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York each have over 100 Superfund sites and only 20 to 25 percent have completed the cleaning process.
According to National Geographic95 Superfund sites in the country expose people to dangerous levels toxic chemicals. These sites, which have been listed for decades because of funding cuts, continue to pose a threat to people.
Living in Zone 6 or New Mexico, as the EPA refers to it, increases your risk of being exposed to toxic levels. Exposure to radon at toxic levels can cause lung cancer. The EPA provides affordable radon testing for every household.
The EPA provides assistance to the New Mexico Environment Department with the development of infrastructure for water treatment across the state. To ensure New Mexico residents have safe, healthy water, the environment department works closely with local governments and citizen groups as well as federal agencies.
The EPA not just monitors our health, but also assists tribes across the country in developing and maintaining their own environmentally safe practices. Congress passed the Indian Environmental General Assistant Program Act in 1992. This Act provides grants to tribes for the development of environmental protection programs and hazardous waste management programmes on tribal lands.
The EPA regulates many aspects of our daily life that reduces its funding. This makes it more difficult to distinguish between life and death. How could we survive if we didn’t have constant control over what we eat and how we breathe? The first step in saving your own life is to save the EPA.
Miriam Bechtel writes about it from
Santa Fe.