"The Cuyahoga will live in infamy as the only river that was ever declared a fire hazard."
Congressman Louis Stokes
Rivers are not supposed to catch fire.
Isn't it sort of axiomatic that rivers - which, in theory, are primarily composed of water - should not be flammable? Even in these topsy-turvy modern times, certain things should remain the same. It's my conviction that when a river catches fire, it's a sign that something has gone terribly wrong in the world.
Apparently many other people share my conviction, as today, the Cuyahoga River is mainly remembered for the fire that started just before noon on the twenty-second of June, 1969. Such was people's shock at the thought of a flaming river that the Cuyahoga ignited a fire (if you'll permit me) beneath the feet of the nascent environmental movement, and horror at the thought of a flaming river played a part in the passage of the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972.
Interestingly, though, this was not the first time the Cuyahoga had caught fire. As a matter of fact, fires on rivers and in harbors were not all that rare during the first half of the twentieth century. The Cuyahoga was filled with debris and frequently slick with spilled oil; as an important shipping channel through the heavily industrial city of Cleveland, it's no surprise that the Cuyahoga was a foul, dirty river. The 1969 fire was actually put out within half an hour; in the local newspapers the next day, it was a minor event with a brief article buried towards the back.
"Some river! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows."
Time Magazine, August 1969
But a famous photo of the fire published in Time Magazine, which described the river with open disgust, brought the fire to national attention. Environmentalism was becoming an important topic of discussion, and it may be that the fire on the Cuyahoga River simply happened at a time when it could find an audience among the nation's citizens.
In fact, the fire was out so quickly that there was no time for reporters to get a photograph of it. The photo in Time? It was from 1952, when a much larger blaze had happened. In fact, river fires were an important enough concern in Cleveland that boats patrolled regularly to disperse oil spills and skim up potentially flammable debris. After all, fires were a threat to the river's role as an important shipping artery in the midwest. As river fires go, the 1969 one just wasn't that big a deal.
"It was strictly a run of the mill fire"
William E. Barry, chief of the Cleveland Fire Department
So in strictly historical terms, the Cuyahoga Fire of 1969 wasn't anything special. Nevertheless, it captured enormous media attention. The article in Time and Randy Newman's song "Burn On" served to publicize the event and inspire outrage across the nation. Cleveland was made the subject of public ridicule - even though efforts had begun a few years earlier to clean the river up. The Cuyahoga Fire was a rallying point for environmentalists who were just beginning to spread their message to the nation. In truth, the Cuyahoga River simply happened to catch fire at just the right time to pique the interest of a public just becoming aware of the problem of pollution.
The widespread disgust at the Cuyahoga River's 1969 fire was in many ways a sign of the growing campaign for public attention to the environment. That very year, the National Environmental Policy Act was passed, which created the EPA. The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970 and the Endangered Species Act followed in 1973. This was a time when people were already committed to establishing a uniform national approach to the environment, and the Cuyahoga River was more truly a useful symbol for the movement rather than the spark that set it off.
The river is a lot cleaner nowadays, as is Lake Erie, where it empties. It's still listed as one of the EPA's 43 Great Lakes Areas of Concern, but today there are fish swimming in it, even if it's not a good idea to eat them. The river is still contaminated with PCBs and fish populations are mostly highly pollution-tolerant species. Overgrowth of algae is a problem, and occasional contamination with sewage occurs. But an enormous amount of progress has been made. It's hard to tell how much of that progress is due to the fire of 1969, but at very least, things are improving.
Sources
http://web.ulib.csuohio.edu/SpecColl/croe/
http://pratie.blogspot.com/2005/03/cuyahoga-river-fire-of-1969.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/adler/adler200406220845.asp
http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/aoc/cuyahoga.html
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