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Nevada has received nearly $83 million in EPA grants in the last five years to protect our environment and economy. Regional projects have received millions more.
The proposed cuts in the EPA’s budget would reduce decades of progress and cut not only high-paying, science-focused jobs, but funds for enforcement, research and education, and toxic chemical cleanups. It also reduces flexibility to respond to new issues.
Programs dealing with environmental justice (primarily affecting minorities), radon in homes and schools, leaking storage tanks and runoff pollution would go away. The cuts include:
• 30 percent to water pollution control programs — lead, arsenic, pesticides, other pollutants
• 30 percent to air pollution control programs. (Note that most Nevadans live in areas that regularly fail air-quality tests.)
• 30 percent to clean up and redevelop Superfund and brownfield cleanup sites
• 37 percent to enforcement, meaning polluters won’t be held accountable.
All affect family and community economies, and mean more stress on our health care system. Property values and ecotourism will decline.
I could go on. We all know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
This decision would affect us for decades, even generations to come.
Tell our elected officials this is not the future we want.