OPINION: Thank the EPA for efforts to protect health, environment

Back-to-back letters to the editor attacking the Environmental Protection Agency as one of the main causes of all the country’s problems leave me little choice but to respond.  

We should be grateful for all the agency efforts to protect human health and the environment. I’m old enough to remember conditions before the EPA existed.

So if you like breathing clean fresh air without it burning your lungs, thank the EPA. If you appreciate seeing the mountains from your home in the valley or plains, thank the EPA. If you like drinking clean fresh water without worrying about disease-causing microorganisms, thank the EPA. If you like fishing and swimming in lakes and rivers without them catching fire, thank the EPA. If you enjoy eating safe food without excessive pesticide residues, hearing the birds sing in the spring, or watching a bald eagle soar in the sky, thank the EPA. If you enjoy not having cancer from living near a toxic waste dump, thank the EPA.  And if you appreciate spending the afternoon outside without the air burning your eyes or the sun burning your skin, thank the EPA.  

We need to appreciate that the agency has improved the quality of our lives by developing sound, science-based regulations under various environmental laws and assuring compliance using education, incentives and enforcement.

These laws include the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, all wisely passed by our duly elected Congress, back when they could actually accomplish something. —John Larson, Kalispell