EPA Crowdsources Massive Photo Project

coondoggie writes "Challenges from U.S. government agencies are all the rage these days and the Environmental Protection Agency today became the latest group to issue one: Take cool pictures of your surrounding environment to become part of historical record. The EPA's Locations Challenge looks to update a 40-year old agency project known as 'Documerica' which included more than 15,000 photographs of images of American environmental problems and everyday life. In the 1970s the EPA hired freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems for the project."

Comments

Great! Let's take pictures of

[Anonymous Coward]

all the chemical plants and nuclear facilities, and behind government buildings where they leave the garbage. Then there's airports and other public places, they can be environmental hazards too. It could get cold being outdoors so much so I'll grow a beard. And while I'm down town maybe I'll pick up some fertiliser for my garden, or take my copy of the Quran back to the library. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Great! Let's take pictures of

[benjamindees]

From what it sounds like, you could become a hipster.

Re:Great! Let's take pictures of

[jensend]

*shudder*

While he did ask what could go wrong I imagine he was talking about minor things like security trouble and arrests, not major catastrophes like that.

Re:Great! Let's take pictures of

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the nuclear facilities will be the cleanest out of your list.

AKA "Help the EPA justify its existance"

[WoodstockJeff]

The worse the pictures, the better. EPA wants reasons to increase its funding and enforcement efforts, but no excess budget to hire people to do it for them.

Re:AKA "Help the EPA justify its existance"

[kvvbassboy]

Which is fine, isn't it? Pardon me for sounding like redneck American (I am not even American), but considering that trillions of dollars have been spent on destruction, it would be could if some of that funding could be diverted to useful like monitoring and preventing environmental abuse.

You call it "American environmental problem" . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . I call it my "front yard" . . .

Re:How much will they pay me?

[alphatel]

How much money do I get for each pic I send them? Oh right, it's supposed to be on a volunteering basis, which is a euphemism for "amateurs only".

Don't be fooled into thinking the lack of money will be the big problem. Helping the government find you by submitting images of your natural habitat will only increase the likelihood of being identified.

Lesson 2 in How Not to be Seen is not to choose obvious cover. In Lesson 3, their neighbors ratted them out. Sending them photos of your beloved lands, well that's the equivalent of standing up.

San Joaquin Valley

[Curunir_wolf]

How about I take pictures of the once-fertile farmland that the EPA turned into a desolated desert and drove 70,000 people out of work and out of the area? Think they would highlight that one?

Re:San Joaquin Valley

[JoeMerchant]

How about I take pictures of the once-fertile farmland that the EPA turned into a desolated desert and drove 70,000 people out of work and out of the area? Think they would highlight that one?

Um.... I'm no expert, but what did that farmland look like before humans irrigated it? And, what were the environmental costs associated with the irrigation project?

Re:San Joaquin Valley

[Curunir_wolf]

Um.... I'm no expert, but what did that farmland look like before humans irrigated it? And, what were the environmental costs associated with the irrigation project?

Well it's been irrigated since the beginning of the 20th century, with most of the infrastructure in place since the 1920's. So I assume any pictures of the area beforehand are rare or non-existent. The only negative environmental cost was in the early 1980's when attempts to deal with the raised water table by subsurface drains resulted in increased selenium levels which was too high to be tolerated by migratory bird populations. That issue was quickly dealt with and is no longer an issue.

The EPA's concern was decreased populations of Delta Smelts in the San Joaquin river, which they attributed to the pumps. This connection was never satisfactorily made, but they made the decision to cut off the pumps anyway. There was no study into the impact of the Delta Smelt population, thorough investigation of the reasons for it, any effects that the reduction of Delta Smelts would have, or what the trade-offs were.

The real issue is that when the alarm was raised to "do something" about the Delta Smelt, the usual suspects (Monsanto and DuPont) made sure that it was not their products, used extensively throughout the watershed areas for the San Francisco bay, and so another scapegoat was found. So their shills in the Federal bureaucracy made sure that the finger was pointed to the irrigation pumps instead. They irrigate land mostly used for orchards, where it's mostly small farmers that us a lot of migratory labor and significantly less Monsanto and DuPont products than the farmers in the bay watershed area that till, RoundUp, plant seed, RoundUp, spray pesticide, and clear-cut harvest every year.

Re:San Joaquin Valley

[JoeMerchant]

Sorry, I don't live on the other side of the planet, I live on the other side of the country. I am very aware of environmental issues, in my backyard and many beyond. I don't pretend to know everything about everything.

It's nice that we built a paradise in the desert, but can't that water be put to better use somewhere that will use it more... efficiently? I mean, we can build cities on the ocean if we want to, too, but what's the point? Sorry about your community that was living in an artificial paradise being wiped out and all, and I'm sure there's some nefarious politico-corporate stuff going on behind the scenes of anything that involves that many people and that much money, but, forget about the 90 years of rich history that was built up there and ask yourself: was it really a good idea in the first place?

I've got the same question about the current population and water usage in Florida... when we've got saltwater intrusion miles inland from the wells sucking so hard on the groundwater (something that was just a vague potential problem when I was in school in the 1970s, it's reality in spades today), isn't it time to question whether or not we should continue to monkey with the natural systems, or learn to adapt to things closer to their natural state? Most major engineering projects in Florida (and, I'm mostly thinking of the Everglades and major dredging projects) have turned into big environmental screw-ups that take decades to settle down to something resembling their natural state, most of coastal Florida's environment is still is a horrible state compared to 100 years ago. But, hey, we've got lots of places to play in our motor-yachts, and the property values are up up up up up, that's progress, right?

   

Re:How much will they pay me?

[PopeRatzo]

Don't be an asshole.

RTFA

[Phaedrus420]

Submission fails to note that they want pictures of the same locations as the original project. That does take a lot of fun out of the comments already posted, though, so, please, carry on.

Re:RTFA

[_xeno_]

Submission fails to note that they want pictures of the same locations as the original project.

Plus, if you follow through to the collection of original photos you're supposed to recreate you'll discover that they've helpfully sorted them by photographer, and not, say, location.

Because who wouldn't want to sift through 15,000 photos organized by photographer to see if they can find one near them that they can recreate?

Re:RTFA

[Stickybombs]

On the left side of the page in your link, there is another link to where they are sorted by location.

It works like this:

[sidthegeek]

You take the photos of environmental hazards and tell them where they are. Then they'll bring huge glass domes to contain those environmental problems.

Re:Self propagation

[Microlith]

the EPA is the greatest threat to our economy in our lifetime

I know, if we don't let Job Creators and their Corporations pollute like they did in the prior two centuries, well we're just fucked.

The EPA has dictated that they can only have 2 of their 5 stacks operational at any time.

Can you cite anything related to this, or is this just a dubious anecdote? That said, it is near Los Angeles which has nasty smog problems as it is.

There are at least two other examples in my life of the EPA causing massive problems while not even solving the problem they "discovered" in the first place, so imagine how many other people have evidence of the EPA running amok, causing great harm and no good.

Please? Can you name them?

Man, I'd love to see how quickly we'd end up with even more superfund sites. Well, none actually as no one would be around to declare them, but I'm sure there would be plenty of industries ready and willing to dump untreated toxic waste right into the ground given the chance. That's how costs are kept down!