EPA versus Environmentalists.
Ceaseless Silent Spring
by Evaggelos Vallianatos Ph.D., author of five books, including This Land is Their Land: How Corporate Farms Threaten the World.
I worked for the US Environmental Protection Agency as an analyst from 1979 to 2004.
In 1972, EPA banned DDT, the farmers' golden insect spray. The industry then declared war against EPA, its White House and Congressional allies institutionalized its profits into the fabric of EPA.
Industry corrupts EPA with the law, money and political power. Regulations allow the industry to test its own products. It funds thousands of trips by EPA employees. Its representatives meet with EPA staff daily. I used to urge EPA managers to invite environmentalists to those meetings but they ignored me.
In this new EPA, public health is merely a slogan. Pesticides alone hurt people and kill nature every spray season. Billions of pounds of pesticides sprayed all over the country for several decades create insect infestations, make fertile land into desert, pollute rivers and lakes, devastate honeybees, kill millions of birds, and, in general, cripple fish and wildlife. These toxic chemicals also poison our food, triggering disease and death.
EPA will work for us only when we elect people in office who understand that environmental protection is not a luxury but a matter of life and death. |
