When our rivers caught fire

I found that many young people don't know about this. Even people old enough to remember have often forgotten.

http://www.environmentalcouncil.org/priorities/article.php?x=264

July 2011

When Lake Erie – or more exactly the Cuyahoga River which flows into Lake Erie – caught fire in 1969, it ignited a firestorm of public outrage over the indiscriminate dumping of sewage and industrial chemicals into the Great Lakes.

But the incident was not particularly unusual. Nor was it the most significant of a long history of fires fueled by the thick oily sludges that fouled the Lakes and their arteries. The Chicago and Buffalo rivers also repeatedly caught fire. So did Michigan’s Rouge River.

“Burning Rivers – Revival of Four Urban-Industrial Rivers that Caught on Fire,” a new book by Michigan environmental hero John Hartig, chronicles the shameful and lasting damage done to the greatest rivers in the most spectacular freshwater ecosystem on our planet. More importantly, Hartig recounts the concerted and successful efforts to restore the rivers – not to their natural state, but at least within hailing distance of acceptable water quality.

For citizens and environmentalists worn down by the exhausting and seemingly fruitless battles to engage the public and policymakers in defense of our Lakes, the lesson is this: We’ve done it before. We can do it again.

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Those questioning the wisdom of unrestricted discharge of feces, oils, solvents and industrial chemicals were labeled anti-progress wackos (sound familiar?) and politicians were loath to oppose the powerful industrial lobbies (again, ringing any bells?).

Fires on the Chicago River were so frequent they were community events. Spectators gathered on bridges like it was a Fourth of July celebration.

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Hartig shows us graphically how oil sludge and industrial chemicals fouled the river so thoroughly that tens of thousands of oil-soaked waterfowl died in 1948. Furious sportsmen loaded them in pickup trucks and drove them to Lansing, dumping them on the Capitol lawn in protest.

In 1969, shortly after the notorious Cuyahoga River fire, the oil-matted Rouge River in Detroit caught fire, shooting flames 50 feet in the air and sending smoke billowing near the I-75 highway bridge.

“The 1969 Rouge River fire didn’t get much local media attention,” Hartig writes. “Most citizens accepted the fires as part of the industrial operations that brought jobs to the area.”

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Adding to the industrial pollution was a torrent of sewage flowing into the Rouge and other waterways. Mats of dense fecal matter mixed with condoms and other unmentionables joined the oil sludge in a macabre cocktail of toxicity. I

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But even as the river was burning in 1969, public awareness was forcing politicians to act.

The era saw the establishment of Michigan’s first pollution control programs, including the Water Resources Commission, and a new rule requiring state approval for all new uses of Michigan waters.

Nationally, the landmark 1972 Clean Water Act signed by President Richard Nixon continues to be the primary law protecting the nation’s fresh surface water.

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