evidence: As the Environmental Protection Agency becomes the subject of focus for major cuts under President Trump’s proposed budget — and as the U.N. marks World Water Day on Wednesday — it’s worth looking back at the moment in time when the EPA was first created, and why Richard Nixon saw a need for the agency to exist. [...] And so, in the summer of 1970, Nixon issued the dryly titled Reorganization Plan 3, which provided for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, reflecting the new understanding of ecology and the environment’s status as a system. In doing so, he told Congress that it was clear that the piecemeal development of environmental agencies would no longer serve such a large project. [...] As the year drew to a close — and TIME named the environment the Issue of the Year for 1970 — future Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee William Ruckelshaus became the first director of the agency.