• Before President Nixon created the EPA in 1970, water and air pollution weren't federally regulated.
• The Trump administration is aiming to roll back environmental regulations and lay off EPA staff.
• Recently, the Supreme Court also diminished the agency's power to enforce water quality regulations.

Don't let the soft, sepia tones fool you — the United States used to be dangerously polluted.

Before President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, the environment and its well-being was not a federal priority.

Federal actions like the 1970 Clean Air Act and the 1972 Clean Water Act helped regulate water and air pollution, changing the landscape of American cities.

Now, in an effort to reduce the agency's spending, President Donald Trump's EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, aims to roll back environmental protections that sought to tackle widespread pollution. The move, which critics say would erode environmental protection, falls in line with the administration's wider goal of promoting government efficiency across federal agencies.

As a part of the effort, Zeldin plans to eliminate the EPA's scientific research arm, the Office of Research and Development, The New York Times reported. The office employs more than a thousand scientists in areas like chemistry, biology, and toxicology.

"We are committed to enhancing our ability to deliver clean air, water and land for all Americans," a spokesperson for the EPA told the Times, adding that no decisions had been finalized yet and "we are actively listening to employees at all levels to gather ideas on how to increase efficiency and ensure the E.P.A. is as up to date and effective as ever."

In the early 1970s, the EPA launched the "The Documerica Project," which leveraged 100 freelance photographers to document what the US looked like. By 1974, they had taken 81,000 photos. The National Archives digitized nearly 16,000 and made them available online.

We've selected 36 of the photos to reflect on how cities across the US have changed in images filled with smoke, smog, acid, oil, trash, and sewage.

None of the photos we've selected are pretty, but it's worth remembering what US cities used to be like before we cared what we put into the air, soil, and water.

In the San Francisco Bay, raw sewage entered the bay in 83 places.

By the 1970s, the San Francisco Bay was badly polluted, with sewage and wastewater from industrial facilities dumping in the bay from over 83 points of entry, the San Francisco Baykeeper reported.

Pollutants in the sewage dumped in the Bay peaked in the late 1960s, according to the California State Water Resources Control Board.

In San Francisco Bay, the Leslie salt ponds gleam at sunset. The photographer behind this photo said the "water stinks."

In 2019, the EPA ruled the land, owned by Cargill Salt, was not bound by the Clean Water Act, Mercury News reported.

Today, battles remain over who can be held responsible for the water quality off the coast of San Francisco — a Supreme Court ruling this month could impact the EPA's power to enforce water quality regulations.

The court sided with the city of San Francisco in a 5-4 decision, arguing the agency didn't have the power to enforce broad regulations on the quality of a body of water. While the agency can instruct permitholders to follow certain requirements in a bid to avoid pollution, it shouldn't hold them responsible for the ultimate quality of the water, which is out of their control, the court said.

Industrial black smoke billows out of a stack in San Francisco.

During the 1970s, the biggest problem for the city was ozone pollution, which mainly comes from cars, industrial plants, power plants, and refineries.

Here is one of the factories that polluted San Francisco.

The photo was taken in 1972, according to the National Archives.

In Baltimore, trash and tires cover the shore at Middle Branch beside the harbor in 1973.

The EPA regulates waste now, and sets criteria for landfills. While the open dumping of waste is banned, it still happens.

Baltimore City did have some simple techniques to keep the harbor clean.

Here, a screen has been placed across the water to trap trash. A heavy rain could break it, but it was effective when cleaned often.

In Birmingham in 1972, a boy throws a Frisbee against hazy skies.

Truckers in the 1960s called Birmingham "smoke city," Bham Now reported.

A house in North Birmingham is barely visible in industrial smog coming from the North Birmingham Pipe Plant.

North Birmingham was the most polluted area of the city.

In Cleveland, in 1973, billowing smoke casts a gloom over the Clark Avenue bridge.

Because Cleveland was an industrial city, the pollution was severe.

Cleveland's inner city was also a dumping ground.

In this photo from 1973, an empty lot on Superior Avenue, Cleveland, was filled with trash.

In Delaware, the city incinerator billows out smoke over the river.

In 2016, a report released by New York University said 41 people living in Delaware still die because of air pollution every year, The News Journal reported.

In Denver, murky light brown sewage is discharged into the South Platte River.

The sewage came from the Metro Sewage Treatment Plant, per the EPA.

Here's a billboard against Denver's smoky skies in the 1970s. The city was known for having a brown cloud of pollution.

In the late 1980s, the air pollution got so bad, the city developed a visibility standard — it asked whether downtown workers could see mountains that were only 35 miles away, The New York Times reported.

In Kansas City's harbor, on the Missouri River, a local EPA worker points out a dying fish.

While the river has been much cleaner since the Clean Water Act was passed, trash and industrial contaminants still end up in it, The Kansas City Star reported. In 2023, NPR reported that volunteers with Missouri River Relief have picked up more than 2 million pounds of trash from the river since the organization began in 2001.

In Los Angeles, the outline of the sun can be clearly seen because air pollution creates a buffer.

In 1943, 30 years before this photo was taken, the smog was so bad, the city's residents thought there was a gas attack, according to the California Sun.

Los Angeles county monitored pollution on the roads, at least.

In this photo from 1972, the air-pollution control department checks for violators.

In New Orleans, fumes spread over the streets.

Fumes billow from Kaiser Aluminum Plant's smoke stack in 1973.

In an illegal dump in New Orleans, garbage turned to sludge when a lake overflowed into it.

In the 1970s, the EPA found 66 pollutants in the city's drinking water. And the city's water is known for its oily taste, per The Washington Post.

In New Jersey, a photo shows raw and partially digested sewage.

The sewage was photographed darkening the water in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1974.

New York is one of the most photographed cities for "The Documerica Project."

Here, a pile of illegally dumped trash ruins the view of Manhattan and the Twin Towers in 1973.

A photographer snapped this image of an abandoned, waterlogged car in Jamaica Bay, New York.

The abandoned Beetle was photographed in 1973.

Another car has sunk halfway into the beach at Breezy Point, south of Jamaica Bay.

The EPA now helps regulate how the city disposes of trash to prevent dumping in the Atlantic.

Though it might not be clear, this is the George Washington Bridge going over the Hudson River, covered in thick smog.

In 1965, a study by New York City Council found breathing New York's air had the same effect as smoking two packets of cigarettes a day, The New York Times reported.

Seen here is the Statue of Liberty surrounded by oil. It was the result of one of 300 oil spills in the first six months of 1973.

Between April and June of that year, 487,000 gallons of oil were dispersed in the New York Harbor and its tributaries, The New York Times reported.

The EPA estimated about 6 million gallons of coal were dumped into the New York Bight by the Edison Power Plant in Manhattan in the early 1970s.

The New York Bight is a triangular area that reaches from Cape May in New Jersey to the eastern tip of Long Island. The city allowed a ConEd plant to burn coal in the 1970s amid a fuel shortage, The New York Times reported. But coal has caused air and water pollution and destroyed wetlands, according to the National Archives.

Barges, filled with New York's waste, are pulled down the East River to a Staten Island landfill.

In the 1970s, New York produced 26,000 tons of solid waste every day, according to the National Archives.

Rubble is loaded into barges before being dumped offshore, on a debris dump site, in the New York Bight.

There were different distances for dumping different substances.

This is one of four New York City-owned vessels on its way to dump sludge 12 miles into the bight. In 1973, 5.8 million cubic yards of sludge was dumped, according to the National Archives.

The sludge would settle on the bottom of the ocean, "like mud, killing plant life and creating what has been described as a "'dead sea,'" The New York Times reported.

Acid waste lightens the water here. It was also dumped in the New York Bight, 15 miles offshore, and made up 90% of industrial waste dumped in the area.

In 1974, more than 3 million tons were dumped in the bight, according to the National Archives.

Some roads in Manhattan, like 108th Street and Lexington Avenue, were covered with piles of trash.

A photo shows trash strewn across New York City streets in 1973.

But it was worse in the Bronx. Here, the Bronx's Co-Op City housing development is beside a landfill that was still being used, even though it had exceeded its dumping capacity.

If you look closely you can see scavenger birds flying over the trash.

In Philadelphia, the sun is setting, but because of the smog it's hard to tell.

In 2018, a study found the city was becoming more polluted between 2014 and 2016, after several years of decreasing pollution, Philadelphia magazine reported.

In Pittsburgh, thick smoke creates a haze over the city.

The city was once dubbed "Hell with the lid off," per The Allegheny Front.

A junkyard looms in front of the Monongahela River, which runs through Pittsburgh.

According to Mayor Tom Murphy in 2001, the biggest complaint he heard about the city was that it was too dirty, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Near Pittsburgh, oil-coated trees on the shore of the Ohio River show the damage done by spills and industry.

NPR reported that the river is much cleaner today, 50 years since the Clean Water Act.

In Washington DC, raw sewage flows out into the Potomac river. In 1970, a hot summer resulted in a "stomach-turning" smell coming from the Potomac, due to the mixing of sewage and algae.

The pollution was blamed on a "hundred years of under-estimates, bad decisions, and outright mistakes," a director of the Federal Water Quality Administration told The New York Times.

His description can be applied to a lot of the US before the EPA.

This story was originally published in August 2019 and was most recently updated in March 2025.

Gadani is the world's third biggest shipbreaking hub. But many ships come there illegally from Europe. We went to Pakistan to figure out why international laws are being ignored.

• Wildfires are burning across Los Angeles, coating the county in smoke.
• Health agencies issued warnings and schools closed as air quality reached unsafe levels.
• Experts break down why the fine-particle pollution can cause serious, long-term damage.

Wildfires erupted across Los Angeles, coating the county in smoke, haze, and an acrid smell.

The LA Public Health department issued an air quality alert, and many schools closed due to dangerous air quality. 

The mist that hovers over wildfire sites is a collection of fine-particle pollution (PM 2.5), Dr. David Hill, a pulmonologist with the American Lung Association, told the AP. 

"We have defenses in our upper airway to trap larger particles and prevent them from getting down into the lungs. These are sort of the right size to get past those defenses," Hill said. "When those particles get down into the respiratory space, they cause the body to have an inflammatory reaction to them."

What is the risk of wildfire smoke?

Fine-particle air pollution can cause inflammation in the lungs and reduce heart function — lasting effects similar to smoking cigarettes or exposure to diesel exhaust, the New York Times reported. 

Dr. Kari Nadeau, a physician and scientist at Stanford University, told the Times she believes the risk to our health is higher than that of smoking cigarettes. "Cigarettes at least have filters," Nadeau said.

This kind of air pollution is particularly risky for children, whose lungs are still developing. 

"They breathe in more air per unit of body weight," Laura Kate Bender, the lung association's National Assistant Vice President of healthy air, told the AP.

The risk of lung and heart irritation is also higher for older adults and people with lung or cardiovascular conditions, including asthma.

6 ways to stay safe when it's smoky outside

• Keep an eye on the air quality in your area to determine how long you should exercise caution. Until the risk passes, there are easy things you can do to protect yourself from experiencing long-term lung inflammation.
• If possible, stay inside and close your windows, Hill said. (You can put your zip code into AirNow.gov to find out the air quality in your area.)
• Do not burn candles, light a fire, or smoke indoors. That increases indoor pollution, according to a blog post from epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, of the University of Texas Health Science Center.
• Do not vacuum. That also affects your indoor air by kicking up any fine particles that may have come in through your window or door, Jetelina said.
• If you do go outside, wear an N95 mask, which — if fitted correctly — blocks out 95% of particles larger than 0.3 microns. As such, they effectively keep out 2.5-micron particles, which we're seeing from the wildfire smoke. "N95 masks are the type of face covering protection that I would recommend for somebody who is outside during the air pollution caused by wildfires," Marina Vance, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told Healthline.
• While inside, you can run your air-conditioning unit if it has a good HVAC filter, and an air purifier can help too, the American Lung Association recommends.

• Researchers find AI-related emissions will soon rival that of all the cars in California.
• AI electricity consumption could cause asthma deaths to spike by more than a third in the next six years.
• In Virginia alone, AI's backup diesel generators could lead to 190 air-pollution-related deaths.

Researchers have found that the training of one large AI language model — like Meta's Llama 3.1 — would generate as much air pollution as a car driving round-trip from New York to Los Angeles 10,000 times. The total cost of AI's health impacts, they found, could reach $20 billion within six years.

The team of researchers from the University of California at Riverside and the California Institute of Technology conducted what they say may be the first study of its kind assessing AI's impacts on air pollution. The paper, "The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health impact of AI," which will be released later today, finds that the generation of electricity for data centers hosting artificial intelligence applications could pollute the air so much that by 2030 an additional 1,300 people may die prematurely each year as a result.

That would be a 36% increase over the current annual asthma-related deaths in the country.

The researchers — led by Shaolei Ren of UC Riverside and CalTech's Adam Wierman — examined the release of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, which can penetrate deep into the lungs, by power plants and diesel generators associated with AI facilities.

The boom in artificial intelligence has resulted in a spike in electricity demand. McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, projects that data centers will use 11 to 12% of the total electricity consumed in the United States in 2030, up from 3 to 4% last year. While the carbon emissions and water usage implications of that growth have started to draw scrutiny, the direct health impacts of the air pollution these facilities generate have been mostly ignored.

"There is something like this, air pollution, which is affecting people right now," Ren said in an interview. "We aren't paying attention to it at all."

The researchers estimate that the generation of electricity for AI data centers could trigger roughly 600,000 asthma symptom cases a year by 2030.

Last year, the researchers estimate, the generative AI boom led to a public health burden of $5.6 billion. By 2030, they calculated, AI's electricity-related public health costs will top $20 billion. That's more than double the public-health costs of coal-based US steelmaking, they write, and will rival the emissions produced by California's 35 million cars.

The cost estimates are based on a risk assessment tool developed by the Environmental Protection Agency that assigns a dollar figure to what it would take to avoid negative health outcomes, such as premature deaths, asthma symptoms, heart attacks, and missed days of school or work.

For Ren, whose field of study is responsible artificial intelligence, his interest in air quality dates back to his childhood. He lived in a small mining town in China until the age of six, where he saw a correlation between poor air quality and adverse health outcomes in his community, including lung cancer.

The paper is what's called a preprint, a standard practice in computer science research in which researchers make a paper public before submitting it for peer review.

Diesel generators appear deadly in Virginia

The researchers also examined air pollution driven by emissions from diesel generators used by data centers for backup power and by the manufacturing of the silicone chips used in artificial intelligence.

To examine the impact of diesel-generators, the researchers looked at those permitted in Virginia, home to one of the densest collections of data centers in the world. Generators, according to the paper, produce 200 to 600 times the nitrogen dioxide per unit of power produced than a natural gas power plant.

"Diesel generators represent a major source of on-site air pollutants for data centers and pose a significant health risk to the public," the researchers wrote.

Even assuming that emissions by Virginia-permitted generators were just 10% of what the commonwealth's regulations allow, they would cause an additional 13 to 19 deaths each year. If the diesel generators emitted 100% of what is allowed, they would lead to 130 to 190 additional deaths, the researchers found.

The public health burden of Virginia's data center generators amounts to $220 million to $300 million a year under the 10% assumption and as much as $3 billion a year under the 100% assumption, according to the study.

The researchers found those health effects are not contained to the state, as air pollution travels. They found it's actually a county in Maryland — Montgomery County — that is most affected by Virginia's AI generators.

The effects, according to the EPA tool, would also be felt in West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,Washington D.C., and as far away as Florida.

"We thought the air pollution was limited to a small area," Ren said. "That's not true. There is actually cross-state air pollution." He and the other researchers found that the harmful effects are felt disproportionately by "economically-disadvantaged communities."

Ren said that understanding the broad dispersion of negative health outcomes could encourage AI companies to alter their site locations or AI training schedules. Health impacts are higher during the day, he said, and some locations have higher or lower health effects.

The researchers also call for greater transparency from the big tech companies that lead large language model training.

Those companies, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta don't currently detail the air pollution impacts of their AI operations in their annual sustainability reports, the researchers wrote.

"If you look at the sustainability reports from these companies, they mention carbon and water, but they don't mention anything about air pollution," Ren said. "They should start reporting this in the same way."

Oil wells from the Dutch colonial era lie scattered across Indonesia, polluting the earth and destroying locals' chances at making a living off anything but oil. We visited the workers who risk their lives daily to survive off the little oil that's left.

• Varun Badhwar lives in Delhi where toxic smog hit severe levels this week.
• Badhwar has lived in Delhi for 40 years and, despite pollution concerns, has not moved out.
• He told BI he values the melting pot community and family he has in the city.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Varun Badhwar, director for growth and monetization at Condé Nast India. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I've lived in Delhi my entire life — for four decades now — and I've seen it grow over the years into the melting pot that it is today.

Everyone is talking about the pollution in the city this week, but I've experienced it since I was a child.

I remember back in school we used to take these government buses with diesel engines. They would emit such huge clouds of black smoke that we would feel suffocated.

I bought my first air purifier in 2016, when people started talking more and more about the Air Quality Index (AQI). This week, when the AQI hit 1,500, I bought my third one.

At least three or four people in my circle have moved out of Delhi due to the pollution. The smog means people who develop breathing issues are advised not to stay here anymore.

I have considered leaving Delhi many times, but I still haven't.

Why Delhi's pollution problem is so bad

Our population in Delhi has skyrocketed in the last couple of decades with an influx of people coming in for jobs.

Our infrastructure didn't grow at the same pace, and maybe our government didn't anticipate it.

From a geolocation point of view, Delhi is also at a disadvantage because of the surrounding mountains. It's harder for the winds to sweep away the clouds of emissions, so they linger.

Our state is also close to agriculture-heavy states like Punjab and Haryana, where burning of crop residue is common and adds to the situation.

It's especially worse in the winters every year; there was a picture recently of a woman standing in front of the Taj Mahal and you can't even see it properly.

I do my part to stay safe. I try to stay indoors, keep physical activity to a bare minimum during the winter, and work out extra during the summer months until about August.

I drink a lot of hot water and ginger tea, stock up on air purifiers, and do my breathing exercises.

I usually escape to the hills, but it's no longer as sustainable

The situation has become so common that people who can afford to move out of the city to less polluted places during the winter. I tend to go to the hills every time the pollution spikes in Delhi, and usually, it gets better in a few days.

This time, it was more concerning. I went to the Kanatal hill station for three nights, and when I came back, my air purifier said the AQI was still 900.

But I don't want to leave Delhi. I was born and raised here, my extended family is here. About five years ago, I thought of moving to Canada, but I didn't pursue it because the opportunities were better for me here.

I think I'm better off in Delhi than somewhere I'd have to start all over again. It's hard to find a community like this outside.

Apart from the pollution problem, Delhi has a lot of positives. It's a melting pot, and especially after the tech boom in Gurugram, people come from all over the world.

The malls have the biggest brands in luxury and high fashion, the heritage and history are incredible, and the job opportunities are great. It's a great place to be.

• New Delhi reported severe levels of air pollution this week.
• Smog has led to school closures, a ban on construction, and flight disruptions.
• Titus Koshy, CEO of United Consultancy Services Group, told BI his employees struggle to commute.

Air pollution in India's capital, New Delhi, has become so severe that some people are struggling to commute to work.

Titus Koshy, CEO of United Consultancy Services Group which has more than 150 employees, told Business Insider that the toxic smog engulfing the city had made it difficult for his staff to come into the office.

"There's so much confusion. People can't reach the office, public transport is not accessible, it's very disruptive and we've had to work from home," he said.

Koshy added that some of his employees had complained about sore throats and viral infections over the past few weeks.

On Monday, the Air Quality Index in New Delhi was over 1,500, the BBC said, or 15 times the level the World Health Organization (WHO) deems satisfactory for breathing.

According to IQ Air, it improved to 186 on Thursday, a level still classed as "unhealthy." The United States Environmental Protection Agency considers anything over 300 as "hazardous" to health.

On Tuesday, Delhi's Chief Minister announced on X that schools would be shut and classes would be shifting online. Construction has also been banned in the city and some flights have been disrupted.

"These construction laborers are not going to be paid by anybody," said Koshy. "They didn't even let someone come in and install a geyser in my house. These workers will be impacted more than anyone else, what do they do?"

Delhi and the surrounding areas are home to offices of several multinational companies, including JP Morgan, KPMG, Cisco, and Mondelēz International.

Shubham Gupta, a consultant at KPMG, told BI that he tries to work from home as much as possible, but his company mandates in-office work at least two to three days a week. He wears an N-95 mask on those days, and relies on the office air purifier.

"Sometimes it hits my mind that I should leave Delhi, but after all, our livelihood is there, so how can we leave?" he said.

KPMG India said its teams can exercise the flexibility for remote working in consultation with their managers and based on their client commitments.

"All have been advised to travel to/from NCR/Delhi only if it's business critical," a spokesperson said in a statement. "Employee well-being continues to be our topmost priority and we will adapt ourselves as the situation evolves."

Smog in the city is worse during the post-monsoon winter months, especially when it is combined with the annual Diwali festival, dust storms, and mass burning of crop residue from neighboring states.

A 2019 study by the World Bank estimated the global cost of health damages associated with exposure to air pollution to be $8.1 trillion.