The EPA Is Quietly Killing Its Web Archive

(motherjones.com)

167 points | by robtherobber 3 hours ago

13 comments

  • mike_bob 1 hour 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 46 minutes ago
      EPA planned to do the same thing in 2022...

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

      • nomel 25 minutes 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.

    • kfkickdcimdvisi 58 minutes ago
      [flagged]
      • SetTheorist 48 minutes ago
        Only one party is systematically attacking research and destroying irreplaceable archives.
      • Kodiack 46 minutes 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 48 minutes 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 2 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 1 hour 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 1 hour ago
    Has anyone scraped this already for offline use?
    • gs17 20 minutes ago
      I think Archive Team might have scraped it, but their site is down due to PHP-related reasons at the moment.
      • arjie 20 minutes 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
      three fiddy
  • toomuchtodo 2 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 36 minutes ago
    I hate to say this because it's so overused, but this move is certainly veering into 1984 territory
  • rtuin 35 minutes ago
    Wiping and rewriting history is straight from 1984 (novel). It's insane US let this happen.
  • Madmallard 1 hour ago
    Why are companies allowed to remove themselves from the web archive?

    They shouldn't be.

    • jacquesm 1 hour 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 45 minutes ago
    Where are r/archiveteam when you need them?
  • pstuart 59 minutes 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.

  • dyauspitr 1 hour ago
    Everything bad is good for this administration.
  • 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 1 hour 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.

    • mahboi 25 minutes ago
      Well, they didn't call the archive load-bearing
    • Kapura 1 hour ago
      well, they certainly aren't advertising it, are they?
    • jimmiles 1 hour 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...