Environmental Memoir: EPA is essential

In a case of horrific local and state government negligence, the decision to shift the primary source of drinking water in Flint, Mich., from the Detroit water supply to the highly acidic Flint River is spotlighting a nationwide water-infrastructure nightmare. /Image via www.dogonews.com

Environmental damage destroys life.

When I was a boy, every street and roadside in America was lined with garbage. The wild turkey, Revolutionary-era icon Ben Franklin's candidate for national bird, was nearly extinct in my home state and across the rest of New England.

Now, it is rare to see motorists toss bags of fast-food waste out their windows, and I see flocks of wild turkeys along the roadsides and highways of New Hampshire on nearly a daily basis.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the nation's top nature watchdog that was created nearly a half century ago with the support of a Republican president, and key safeguard laws such as the Clean Water Act are largely responsible for turning the tide in an epic American struggle that continues to this day.

The environmental-damage memoir that I will be writing and sharing in stages over the final handful of days leading to the 2016 N.H. Presidential Primary is inspired by the Republican candidates' misguided and self-serving attacks on essential protections that stand between The People and poisons.

In June 1952, toxic chemicals including oil burn in the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland. The river caught fire several times, including a blaze in 1969 that stoked cries for environmental protection such as the founding of the U.S. Environmental Agency in 1970. /Image via perviouspro.net

Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump have all blasted the EPA. These turkeys would turn back the clock to the bad old days of deadly environmental damage in the 20th century.

Among the top contenders heading into Tuesday's first-in-the-nation primary, John Kasich is the closest candidate the Republican Party has to an environmentalist. The Ohio governor acknowledges the moral obligation to preserve the environment for future generations and accepts the existence of global warming. But he opposes the Obama administration's plan to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, which would include limiting Ohio's noxious coal-fired electricity generation.

Even with the EPA, Clean Water Act and other environmental protections, atrocities against nature remain a daily occurrence in America.

From the lead-tainted water disaster in poverty stricken Flint, Mich., to the historic natural gas leak in the affluent Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles, no American is safe from the unfettered devils of environmental damage.

I have seen the damage done.

Infrared imagery shows a natural gas leak at Southern California Gas Company's runaway well in the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles. The natural gas leak, which has been compared in intensity to a volcanic eruption, began in October 2015 and continued spewing toxic chemicals into February 2016. /Image via losangeles.cbslocal.com