The EPA Is Quietly Killing Its Web Archive

(motherjones.com)

188 points | by robtherobber 3 hours ago

13 comments

  • mike_bob 2 hours ago
    Take note Republicans (which I'm doubting many even care anymore), your party thinks short term profits for a few are more important than science and the environment for all.
    • brightball 1 hour ago
      EPA planned to do the same thing in 2022...

      https://web.archive.org/web/20220124192618/https://archive.e...

      • nomel 1 hour ago
        Relevant text from TFA:

        > This isn’t the first time the environmental agency has tried to shutter the online web archive. In late January 2022, the Biden administration EPA announced plans to discontinue the online repository, citing burdensome financial upkeep; through a Freedom of Information Act request, Gehrke was able to determine that the agency spent roughly $2 million a year to maintain it. A coalition of environmentalists, historians, and librarians swiftly condemned the decision, with groups like the EDGI and American Society for Environmental History calling the announcement “alarming” and cause for a “tremendous gap” in the historical record.

        > After five months of public backlash, the EPA acquiesced, in part by announcing it would delay the web archive’s retirement by one year to July 2023.

        • Grombobulous 28 minutes ago
          $2 million a year is wildly insignificant for the federal government.

          Less than one cent per year per person in federal taxes.

          • pfisch 22 minutes ago
            Ok, but I could replicate this process and archive for under $20,000k per year(probably way under) and set it up in less than 1 day with claude...
            • fooqux 2 minutes ago
              You've obviously never worked in government before. The technology is likely not the issue; the bureaucracy is.
          • parineum 15 minutes ago
            The epa doesn't have access to the federal budget
          • Ntrails 19 minutes ago
            And yet the number of projects with similarly insignificant costs is large, and they do add up.

            The argument cannot be "this money doesn't matter", it has to be "this represents good value for money" (imo)

    • kfkickdcimdvisi 1 hour ago
      [flagged]
      • SetTheorist 1 hour ago
        Only one party is systematically attacking research and destroying irreplaceable archives.
      • Kodiack 1 hour ago
        Why yes, 10-minute-old account with random letters for a name and one single comment, both sides are absolutely the same and people just shouldn’t feel encouraged to vote am I right?

        You’re not even remotely subtle smh

      • 9dev 1 hour ago
        Don’t make this a Both-sides thing please. There’s a clear difference between those who are working hard to void any environmental protection we have, and those who oppose that.
  • baggachipz 3 hours ago
    Wouldn't want any of that pesky true climate-change-proving data available, now would we?
    • amelius 2 hours ago
      We have alternative facts now.
  • dannyobrien 2 hours ago
    I'm presuming this is all preserved in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_Term_Web_Archive (though making that more easily available would be great -- another project for https://wayback-labs.sf.archive.org/ )
  • arjie 2 hours ago
    Has anyone scraped this already for offline use?
    • gs17 1 hour ago
      I think Archive Team might have scraped it, but their site is down due to PHP-related reasons at the moment.
      • arjie 1 hour ago
        Thank you. I'm going to scrape for now but I hope there's a bulk download available somewhere eventually.
    • MadrasThorn 1 hour ago
      [flagged]
  • toomuchtodo 3 hours ago
    https://web.archive.org/*/https://archive.epa.gov/

    Related:

    The EPA plans to sunset its online archive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30795719 - March 2022

    • icantevenhold 2 hours ago
      A “proper” mirror alongside archive.org would be good too
  • amclennon 1 hour ago
    I hate to say this because it's so overused, but this move is certainly veering into 1984 territory
  • rtuin 1 hour ago
    Wiping and rewriting history is straight from 1984 (novel). It's insane US let this happen.
  • dyauspitr 2 hours ago
    Everything bad is good for this administration.
  • Madmallard 2 hours ago
    Why are companies allowed to remove themselves from the web archive?

    They shouldn't be.

    • jacquesm 2 hours ago
      They're not. Someone on HN said that they just mark it as unavailable but they still keep it, I don't know what the expiry is on that though, or if they could be forced to actually delete something 'for real'. Nor do I know how you'd verify that beyond doubt.
  • vfclists 1 hour ago
    Where are r/archiveteam when you need them?
  • pstuart 1 hour ago
    If they weren't afraid of the data being public they wouldn't be removing it.

    The only saving grace of this administration is that their incompetence helps to slow down their evilness.

  • LW2026 2 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • icantevenhold 2 hours ago
    The adverb “quietly” has become such an AI smell to me, even if it’s probably not one in this instance.
    • paimapi 2 hours ago
      Pangram v4 shows 100% human written: https://www.pangram.com/history/aa7e5cb1-0070-4bcc-8694-6180...

      Don't let AI tells ruin professional writing for you.

    • Kapura 2 hours ago
      well, they certainly aren't advertising it, are they?
    • jimmiles 2 hours ago
      I hate the click-bait smell of "quietly". For me it's in the same category as "eviscerated." The hyperbole factory rolls ever onward...
    • mahboi 1 hour ago
      Well, they didn't call the archive load-bearing