"Lifelong Cleveland resident Steve Gove recalls when the Cuyahoga River symbolized shame — fetid, lifeless, notorious for catching fire when sparks from overhead rail cars ignited the oil-slicked surface.
“It was pretty grungy,” said the 73-year-old, an avid canoeist in his youth who sometimes braved the filthy stretch through the steelmaking city. “When you went under those bridges where the trains were hauling coke from the blast furnaces, you had to watch for cinders and debris falling off.”
It wasn’t the only polluted U.S. river. But outrage over a 1969 Cuyahoga fire — the latest in a series of environmental disasters including a 3-million-gallon oil spill off California’s Santa Barbara months earlier — is widely credited with inspiring the Clean Water Act of 1972."
John Flesher reports for the Associated Press October 17, 2022.
SEE ALSO:
"The Clean Water Act at 50: Big Successes, More to Be Done" (Yale Environment 360)
"Clean Water Act Marks 50 Years as Lawyers Say Improvement Needed" (Bloomberg Environment)
Advertisement 
