Facility Focus: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

In early 1970, as a result of heightened public concerns about deteriorating city air, natural areas littered with debris, and urban water supplies contaminated with dangerous impurities, President Richard Nixon created a council to consider how to organize federal government programs designed to reduce pollution. The President sent to Congress a plan to consolidate many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Headquartered in Washington, DC, the EPA this year marks 50 years of preparing for, responding to, preventing, and mitigating natural and manmade disasters.