Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 292
•
Trim: 5½ x 8½
978-1-5381-3150-3 • Hardback • January 2020 • $33.00 • (£22.95)
978-1-5381-3151-0 • eBook • January 2020 • $31.00 • (£21.95)
William (Bill) M. Alley, PhD, is an internationally-recognized authority on groundwater and an environmental science writer. He was Chief, Office of Groundwater for the U.S. Geological Survey for almost two decades. Alley has interacted with the EPA in numerous ways for more than 40 years and his experiences allow for an objective, critical look at the agency.
Rosemarie Alley is a freelance writer with extensive writing and public speaking experience. Bill and Rosemarie previously collaborated on Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste (2013) and High and Dry: Meeting the Challenges of the World’s Growing Dependence on Groundwater (2017). The Alley’s divide their time between San Diego, California and Longmont, Colorado.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 EPA 101
PART I: DRINKING WATER
2 Take It from the Tap
3 Environmental Justice
PART II: WATER POLLUTION
4 A Wicked Problem
5 Inconvenient Connections
PART III: AIR POLLUTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE
6 A Never-Ending Battle
7 Costs, Benefits, and Politics
8 Climate Change
PART IV: TOXIC CHEMICALS AND HAZARDOUS WASTE
9 Toxic Chemicals
10 The Forever Chemicals
11 Superfund
12 A Success Story
13 Resurrecting the EPA
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Authors
. . . the Alleys provide another smartly written text full of fact-based fervor . . . [whipping] through events in American history that will make readers cringe with horror . . . A fully sourced, clarion call for action that many will respond to.— Booklist
The War on the EPA is a war on science, the environment, and public health -- as William and Rosemarie Alley’s engaging new book carefully documents. It’s a must-read for scientists, advocates, policymakers, and citizens committed to safeguarding the integrity of our nation’s premier environmental protection institution.— Senator Tom Udall
If you care about the health of American families and the future of your children, then read this book. It will make you stand up, shout out and take action to defend science and EPA at a time when we are losing the battle against life-threatening pollution.— Gina McCarthy, former U.S. EPA Administrator (2013-2017)
The terms the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act have become firmly entangled into the modern (post World War II) American lexicon. For some they represent government doing the right thing in the face of, very often overwhelming odds. For others they evoke feelings of the Federal government overreaching and overregulating. Nevertheless, the history of how the EPA and those two sentinel acts came into being, and how the interpretation of those acts has been influenced by one president after another is not well understood by the average American. The War on the EPA puts those histories under the microscope and into sharp focus. It is at the same time an easy read and a profound historical resource, and has earned a place on my bookshelf. Highly recommended!— Alan S. Kolok, Director, Idaho Water Resources Research Institute, Author of "Modern Poisons" (2016) and "Twist" (2019)
Accessible yet detailed, science-based yet politically-savvy, factual yet gripping, The War on the EPA assembles the government agency's history, the toxic tragedies that prompted its creation, the people who made it work, and, sadly, the people who try to undermine and dismantle this protector of our air, land, and water. It presents a vital account beneath profit and material prosperity. What use are they if our skin breaks out in rashes, our water brings cancer, and our children are born malformed with lower IQs? This book is a timely resource to remedy our situation, more valuable now than ever.
— Joshua Spodek, PhD MBA, host of the Leadership and the Environment podcast and author of "Initiative"
A well-researched chronicle of environmental and human health threats we have overcome, and face given the current administration’s simplistic environmental policy of “reverse everything the Obama EPA did.” We have only one environment. EPA as the agency created to protect and restore our environment must be driven by accurate science, not politics or corporate profits. Science matters. Truth matters. Persistence matters. This book provides the proof.
— Jon Mueller, Vice President for Litigation, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc.