What America Looked Like Before the EPA: Pollution, the DOCUMERICA Photos, and the Health Gains Since

In the early 1970s, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency hired photographers to document the state of the American environment. The project, called DOCUMERICA, produced thousands of images: smokestacks pouring dark plumes over neighborhoods, rivers choked with sewage and industrial waste, junkyards spilling into wetlands, smog hiding city skylines, and children playing near refineries. Viewed today, these photographs are a striking record of how polluted parts of the United States were before modern environmental laws took effect.

The photographs also invite a question: how much has changed, and what difference has it made to health? This article looks at conditions before the EPA, the laws that followed, the measurable improvements in air and water quality, and the research linking cleaner air and lower lead exposure to longer, healthier lives, along with the challenges that remain.

What Was the DOCUMERICA Project?

Between 1971 and 1977, the EPA’s DOCUMERICA project commissioned photographers to capture environmental problems and everyday American life across the country. The collection, now preserved by the National Archives, includes more than 15,000 images, many of which are in the public domain. Photographers documented air pollution from steel mills in Pennsylvania and Ohio, refinery smoke in Texas and Louisiana, polluted beaches and harbors, abandoned cars and tires dumped in waterways, strip mining in Appalachia, and urban smog in cities such as Los Angeles and New York. They also captured community life, showing how residents lived alongside pollution. The images have become a visual baseline for measuring environmental progress.

What Was America Like Before Modern Environmental Laws?

By the late 1960s, pollution had become impossible to ignore. Thick smog blanketed many cities. Rivers such as Ohio’s Cuyahoga caught fire repeatedly because of oil and industrial debris on their surfaces, most famously in 1969. Lake Erie was widely described as dying from nutrient pollution and algae. Leaded gasoline exposed nearly everyone to lead, and pesticides such as DDT threatened birds of prey, a problem brought to public attention by Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring. Earlier disasters had shown pollution’s deadly potential: a 1948 smog in Donora, Pennsylvania, killed about 20 people and sickened thousands, and London’s 1952 smog killed thousands more.

The London disaster later became a key case for understanding air pollution’s health effects. A 2001 reassessment in Environmental Health Perspectives by Michelle Bell and Devra Davis found that mortality rates from December 1952 to February 1953 were 50 to 300 percent higher than the previous year, and rejected claims that influenza explained the continued excess deaths after the peak fog. These episodes helped build public support for regulation in the United States and Britain.

Which Laws Changed American Pollution Control?

The EPA was established in December 1970, consolidating federal environmental responsibilities. Congress passed a series of landmark laws: the Clean Air Act amendments of 1970, which set national air quality standards and limits on emissions from vehicles and industry; the Clean Water Act of 1972, which regulated discharges into waterways and funded sewage treatment plants; the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974; and laws governing pesticides, toxic substances, and hazardous waste. Leaded gasoline was phased out beginning in the 1970s and banned for on-road vehicles in 1996. Many of these laws passed with broad bipartisan support.

How Much Cleaner Is the Air?

According to EPA’s air trends data, combined emissions of the six principal air pollutants dropped 79 percent between 1970 and 2024, while the economy, population, energy use, and vehicle miles traveled all grew substantially. EPA’s report on air trends through 2023 showed that national average concentrations fell 92 percent for one-hour sulfur dioxide, 79 percent for carbon monoxide, and 62 percent for annual nitrogen dioxide since 1990, while annual fine particulate matter (PM2.5) fell 37 percent since 2000 and ozone 18 percent. The report noted that some concentrations rose after 2022 partly because of wildfire smoke, even as emissions from transportation, power plants, and industry continued to decline.

Has Cleaner Air Led to Longer Lives?

The health benefits of cleaner air are among the best documented in environmental science. The Harvard Six Cities Study, published in 1993 in the New England Journal of Medicine by Douglas Dockery, C. Arden Pope III, and colleagues, followed more than 8,000 adults in six U.S. cities and found that death rates were 26 percent higher in the most polluted city than in the least polluted, after adjusting for smoking and other factors. Mortality was most strongly associated with fine particulate pollution, and air pollution was linked to deaths from lung cancer and cardiopulmonary disease.

Follow-up research showed that reducing pollution saves lives. A 2006 extended follow-up in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine by Francine Laden and colleagues found that as fine particle levels fell in the six cities, mortality declined: each 10 microgram per cubic meter decrease in average PM2.5 between periods was associated with a 27 percent lower risk of death. A 2009 national analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine by Pope, Majid Ezzati, and Dockery examined 211 counties in 51 metropolitan areas and found that a decrease of 10 micrograms per cubic meter in fine particles was associated with an increase in life expectancy of about 0.61 years, accounting for as much as 15 percent of the overall gain in life expectancy in the study areas during the 1980s and 1990s. A 2013 follow-up in Epidemiology by Andrew Correia and colleagues covering 545 counties from 2000 to 2007 found continued life expectancy gains as fine particles declined further.

How Did the U.S. Get the Lead Out?

Removing lead from gasoline may be one of the most important public health achievements of the environmental era. In the 1970s, research increasingly showed that low levels of lead harmed children. A landmark 1979 study in the New England Journal of Medicine by Herbert Needleman and colleagues found that children with higher lead levels in their baby teeth, even without symptoms of poisoning, performed worse on tests of intelligence, attention, and language and had more classroom behavior problems. As lead was phased out of gasoline and solder in food cans, exposure fell dramatically. A 1994 analysis in JAMA by James Pirkle and colleagues at the CDC found that the mean blood lead level of Americans aged 1 to 74 dropped 78 percent, from 12.8 to 2.8 micrograms per deciliter, between 1976–1980 and 1988–1991, with a similar 77 percent decline in young children. The authors attributed the decline mainly to removing lead from gasoline and soldered cans.

How Have Rivers and Lakes Recovered?

Water quality improved as well, though more unevenly. The Clean Water Act funded thousands of municipal sewage treatment plants and required permits for industrial discharges. The Cuyahoga River, once infamous for catching fire, now supports fish populations and recreation, and Ohio announced in recent years that fish from much of the river were safe to eat in moderation. Lake Erie recovered substantially from its condition in the 1960s after phosphorus controls, though harmful algal blooms driven largely by agricultural runoff have returned in recent decades, prompting drinking water warnings in cities such as Toledo in 2014. Many waterways still fail to meet water quality standards, often because of nonpoint pollution from farms and urban runoff that the Clean Water Act regulates less directly than factory pipes.

Issue	Before the 1970s	Today
Urban air	Frequent heavy smog and soot	Large declines in key pollutants; wildfire smoke a growing problem
Lead exposure	Leaded gasoline and paint widespread	Blood lead levels far lower; old pipes and paint remain risks
Rivers	Raw sewage and industrial waste common	Many rivers recovered; runoff pollution persists
Pesticides	DDT widely used	DDT banned in 1972; new pesticide debates continue
Emerging chemicals	Largely unrecognized	PFAS and microplastics are major concerns

What Challenges Remain?

Progress has not been uniform. Low-income communities and communities of color often live closer to highways, refineries, and industrial facilities and experience higher pollution levels, a pattern documented by many studies of environmental justice. Lead in old water pipes, as the Flint, Michigan, crisis of 2014 showed, and in older housing with lead paint continues to harm children. Ozone remains above standards in some regions, and climate change is increasing wildfire smoke and heat, which worsen air quality. Newer contaminants such as PFAS, discussed in our article on PFAS in sewage sludge on farms, present challenges that the original environmental laws did not anticipate.

Costs, Benefits, and Debate

Environmental regulations impose costs on industries and consumers, and debates over their scope are ongoing. EPA’s own analyses of the Clean Air Act have estimated that its health and environmental benefits, mainly from avoided premature deaths and illnesses, far exceed compliance costs. Critics argue that some regulations are overly burdensome or that benefit estimates are uncertain, and policy priorities shift with administrations. Supporters point to the dramatic declines in pollution and gains in life expectancy as evidence that strong standards have paid off. Pollution was already declining in some cities before federal laws, thanks to local action, but national standards extended protections across the country. Newer debates over deliberately altering the atmosphere, such as solar geoengineering, raise environmental questions the early laws never anticipated.

Children’s Lungs Benefit Too

Cleaner air has measurable effects on children’s development. A 2015 study in the New England Journal of Medicine by W. James Gauderman and colleagues in the Southern California Children’s Health Study measured lung function in 2,120 children from three cohorts between 1994 and 2011, a period when air quality controls steadily reduced pollution in the Los Angeles region. As levels of nitrogen dioxide and fine and coarse particles declined, children’s lung growth between ages 11 and 15 improved significantly, in both boys and girls and in children with and without asthma. Fewer children had clinically low lung function by age 15 in later cohorts. Because lung function in early adulthood influences lifelong respiratory health, these improvements may carry benefits for decades.

Los Angeles: From Smog Capital to Partial Success

Los Angeles, whose smog was famous by the 1940s, illustrates both progress and remaining challenges. California pioneered vehicle emission standards, catalytic converters, and cleaner fuels, and the state’s air regulators set some of the strictest rules in the world. The number of days with unhealthy smog fell dramatically from the 1970s onward, even as the region’s population and vehicle use grew. Yet Southern California still has among the highest ozone levels in the nation, driven by its geography, sunshine, traffic, and ports, and wildfire smoke has added new pollution burdens. The region’s experience shows that strong policies can produce large gains while also demonstrating how difficult it is to reach clean air goals in some places.

The Acid Rain Success Story

In the 1970s and 1980s, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants caused acid rain that damaged lakes, forests, and buildings in the northeastern United States and Canada. The 1990 Clean Air Act amendments created a cap-and-trade program that set a declining limit on sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants and allowed companies to trade allowances. Emissions fell faster and at lower cost than predicted, and many lakes and streams have begun to recover. The program became a model for market-based environmental policy, while also reducing fine particle pollution that harms human health.

How Photographs Shape Policy

Images have long influenced environmental awareness. Photographs of the burning Cuyahoga River, oil-covered beaches after the 1969 Santa Barbara spill, and smog-filled skylines helped galvanize public support for the first Earth Day in 1970 and the laws that followed. The DOCUMERICA photographs continue to be used in classrooms, exhibitions, and news stories to show what was at stake. Today, satellite images of pollution, smoke plumes, and algal blooms play a similar role, making invisible or distant problems visible to the public.

What You Can Do Today

Check daily air quality forecasts and limit strenuous outdoor activity on high-pollution or smoky days, especially for children, older adults, and people with heart or lung conditions. Use a portable air cleaner with a HEPA filter during wildfire smoke events. Test older homes for lead paint hazards and find out whether your water service line contains lead. Reduce personal emissions where practical by driving less, maintaining vehicles, and avoiding burning yard waste. Stay informed and participate in public comment periods on environmental rules that affect your community.

A Balanced View

The contrast between DOCUMERICA’s images and today’s cleaner air and water reflects one of the great public health achievements of the past half century. Research links reductions in air pollution and lead exposure to longer lives and healthier children. At the same time, progress has been uneven, new challenges have emerged, and debates over the costs and scope of regulation continue. Understanding what changed, and why, helps inform decisions about protecting health in the future.

Toxic Waste and Superfund

The 1970s also revealed the dangers of buried chemical waste. At Love Canal, a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, built on a former chemical dump, residents discovered chemicals seeping into basements and yards, and in 1978 the state declared a health emergency and relocated families. The episode led Congress to pass the Superfund law in 1980, which created a program to clean up the nation’s most contaminated sites and made polluters responsible for cleanup costs. Hundreds of sites have since been cleaned up, though many remain on the National Priorities List, and communities near them continue to push for faster action.

Wildlife Comebacks

Environmental laws also helped wildlife recover. The pesticide DDT, which thinned eggshells and caused population crashes among bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and brown pelicans, was banned for most uses in the United States in 1972. Combined with protections under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the ban allowed these birds to recover. The bald eagle, once reduced to a few hundred nesting pairs in the lower 48 states, was removed from the endangered species list in 2007 and now numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Fish have returned to many rivers that were once nearly lifeless.

Drinking Water Protections

The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 established federal standards for public water systems, and later amendments strengthened protections. Lead in drinking water remains a concern because millions of older homes are served by lead pipes. After the Flint crisis, federal rules were strengthened, including a 2024 rule requiring most water systems to replace lead service lines over roughly a decade, though implementation timelines and requirements have faced legal and political challenges. New standards for PFAS in drinking water, adopted in 2024, address contaminants that were unknown when the original law was written.

Looking Ahead

The next chapter of environmental protection will be shaped by climate change, which increases heat, wildfire smoke, and extreme weather; by emerging contaminants such as PFAS and microplastics; and by continuing efforts to reduce pollution in the most affected communities. Policy approaches continue to evolve with changes in administrations, court decisions, and scientific understanding. The DOCUMERICA photographs serve as a reminder of where the country started and of how much public health can improve when pollution is reduced. Keeping those gains, and extending them to the communities and pollutants that have been left behind, will depend on continued research, monitoring, and public engagement.

Pollution and Environmental Justice

DOCUMERICA photographers often captured how pollution burdened working-class neighborhoods located beside factories, refineries, and highways. Decades later, research continues to find that these patterns persist. Communities near industrial facilities, ports, and major roads often experience higher levels of fine particles, nitrogen dioxide, and air toxics, along with higher rates of asthma and other health problems. Efforts to address these disparities include targeted monitoring, stricter local permitting, and investments in cleaner transportation and industry in overburdened areas. Measuring progress for these communities, not only national averages, is essential to understanding whether environmental protections reach everyone.

Indoor Air and Personal Exposure

While outdoor air has improved, people spend most of their time indoors, where pollutants from cooking, heating, cleaning products, tobacco smoke, mold, and radon can affect health. Gas stoves, for example, release nitrogen dioxide that can exceed outdoor levels in poorly ventilated kitchens. Using range hoods vented outdoors, maintaining heating systems, testing for radon, avoiding smoking indoors, and using air cleaners when needed can reduce indoor exposure. These personal steps complement the public policies that have cleaned outdoor air.

The First Earth Day and Public Pressure

On April 22, 1970, an estimated 20 million Americans took part in the first Earth Day, with rallies, teach-ins, and cleanups across the country. The event reflected broad public concern about pollution that crossed political lines and helped create momentum for the EPA and the environmental laws of the 1970s. Public pressure remains a driving force in environmental policy, from community groups fighting local pollution sources to national campaigns on climate and chemicals. The DOCUMERICA images capture the conditions that motivated that first wave of activism.

Common Myths

“Pollution was never really that bad.” Historical photographs, smog disasters, and health data show severe pollution in many areas.

“Cleaner air came at the expense of economic growth.” Emissions fell about 79 percent while the economy grew several-fold.

“Air pollution is solved.” Ozone, wildfire smoke, and local pollution hot spots remain serious problems.

“Lead is no longer a concern.” Old pipes, paint, and soil still expose many children.

“Environmental laws only benefit wildlife.” The largest measured benefits are improvements in human health and life expectancy.

Key Terms

DOCUMERICA: An EPA photography project from 1971 to 1977 documenting environmental conditions.

PM2.5: Fine particulate matter small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream.

Criteria pollutants: Six common air pollutants regulated by national air quality standards.

Cap-and-trade: A system setting an emissions limit and allowing trading of emission allowances.

Blood lead level: A measure of lead exposure, reported in micrograms per deciliter.

The Bottom Line

The DOCUMERICA photographs show an America with smoke-filled skies, polluted rivers, and widespread exposure to lead. Since the EPA was created in 1970, combined emissions of six key air pollutants have fallen about 79 percent while the economy grew, and average blood lead levels fell 78 percent within two decades of removing lead from gasoline. Research links these changes to fewer deaths, longer life expectancy, and healthier lung development in children. Challenges remain, including wildfire smoke, ozone, lead in old pipes, emerging chemicals like PFAS, and pollution concentrated in some communities. The record shows that policies to reduce pollution have delivered substantial and measurable health benefits.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did America look like before the EPA?

Many cities had heavy smog, rivers carried sewage and industrial waste, and lead exposure was widespread, as documented in EPA’s DOCUMERICA photographs.

How much has air pollution declined?

Combined emissions of six key pollutants fell about 79 percent from 1970 to 2024, according to EPA.

Did cleaner air improve health?

Yes. Studies link lower fine particle pollution to reduced mortality and longer life expectancy.

Why was removing lead from gasoline important?

Lead harms children’s brain development; blood lead levels dropped 78 percent after lead was phased out of gasoline and cans.

Where can I see the DOCUMERICA photos?

The National Archives holds the collection, and many images are available online.

References

1. Dockery DW, Pope CA 3rd, Xu X, et al. An association between air pollution and mortality in six U.S. cities. New England Journal of Medicine. 1993;329(24):1753–1759. PMID 8179653
2. Laden F, Schwartz J, Speizer FE, Dockery DW. Reduction in fine particulate air pollution and mortality: Extended follow-up of the Harvard Six Cities study. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 2006;173(6):667–672. PMID 16424447
3. Pope CA 3rd, Ezzati M, Dockery DW. Fine-particulate air pollution and life expectancy in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine. 2009;360(4):376–386. PMID 19164188
4. Correia AW, Pope CA 3rd, Dockery DW, et al. Effect of air pollution control on life expectancy in the United States: an analysis of 545 U.S. counties for the period from 2000 to 2007. Epidemiology. 2013;24(1):23–31. PMID 23211349
5. Gauderman WJ, Urman R, Avol E, et al. Association of improved air quality with lung development in children. New England Journal of Medicine. 2015;372(10):905–913. PMID 25738666
6. Needleman HL, Gunnoe C, Leviton A, et al. Deficits in psychologic and classroom performance of children with elevated dentine lead levels. New England Journal of Medicine. 1979;300(13):689–695. PMID 763299
7. Pirkle JL, Brody DJ, Gunter EW, et al. The decline in blood lead levels in the United States. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES). JAMA. 1994;272(4):284–291. PMID 8028141
8. Bell ML, Davis DL. Reassessment of the lethal London fog of 1952: novel indicators of acute and chronic consequences of acute exposure to air pollution. Environmental Health Perspectives. 2001;109(Suppl 3):389–394. PMID 11427388
9. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Air Quality – National Summary. epa.gov
10. National Archives. DOCUMERICA photography collection. catalog.archives.gov

Last updated: October 6, 2026