This 1973 photo by Donald Emmerich shows garbage and algae choking the backwaters of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.
The National Archives recently released more than 15,000 environmental images that were part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency project from the 1970s. The project, known as “Documerica,” was an attempt to document the state of the environment during that decade.
By the time Documerica ended in 1978, freelance photographers from across the country had submitted more than 80,000 pictures. And during the coming year, the National Archives will release a portion of them in a series of traveling displays. Some of those are currently available online, and more than 500 were taken here in Minnesota.
The online gallery of photos can be searched by topic, photographer and geographic location. View these pictures on the National Archives website.
