Cuyahoga River Pollution Ohio 1967

I grew up in Akron, Ohio on the Cuyahoga River in the 1960s and recall the foaming soap suds (before phosphates were removed from detergents), smell and the pollution. On June 22, 1969 a river fire in Cleveland captured national attention. This event helped spur an avalanche of pollution control activities resulting in the Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the creation of the federal and state Environmental Protection Agencies. The 1969 fires was not the first. Fires plagued the Cuyahoga River beginning in 1936 when a spark from a blow torch ignited floating debris and oils. The largest river fire in 1952 caused over $1 million in damage to boats and a riverfront office building. By the 1960s the lower Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was used for waste disposal, and was choked with debris, oils, sludge, industrial wastes and sewage. These pollutants were considered a major source of impact to Lake Erie, which was considered dead at the time. The 1969 fire has been the subject of several songs, including Randy Newman's 1972 song "Burn On", R.E.M.'s 1986 song "Cuyahoga", and Adam Again's 1992 song "River on Fire". Over the past 40 years, the river has made a remarkable recovery. The Cuyahoga's story is a particularly apt example for future environmental efforts, because the once burning river can't just be cleaned up and "set aside" as a pristine wilderness park - it runs right through Cleveland, and like most American rivers, the Cuyahoga has to serve widely varying needs - aesthetic and economic, practical and natural, human and animal. The challenge: how to maintain industrial uses of the river near Lake Erie, encourage recreation and entertainment, and yet preserve the nature in and around the river. The 2008 film The Return of the Cuyahoga is a one-hour documentary about the death and rebirth of one of America's most emblematic waterways. In its history we see the end of the American frontier, the growth of industry, the scourge of pollution and the advent of a political movement that sought to end pollution. The film can be purchase from Bullfrog Films at www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/... . For more information on the Cuyahoga River, its pollution and recovery, go to the website of the Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization at www.cuyahogariverrap.org/ . This clip is from the 1967 film, The Crooked River Dies, produced by WKYC-TV the NBC affiliate in Cleveland Ohio as an episode of the documentary series Montage. The film deals with pollution and waste water treatment along the Cuyahoga River. It was filmed before the infamous fire in 1969. Native Americans called the river "Cuyahoga," which means "crooked river" in the Iroquois language.

[@Joe-kb1sm]

I live 2 miles from the Cuyahoga River, on the near west side of Cleveland. Being an old man, I well remember the final time it caught fire. The Cuyahoga, Indian for Crooked River, was instrumental in passing the 1972 Clean Water Act. Now it's a listed American Heritage River 50 yrs later. Times past, if you lived along the river, somebody in your family had cancer. Now days, my favorite local fishing spot is under the Harvard - Denison bridge. I've caught and released big catfish in summer, and Steelhead Trout in cold weather. Northern Pike are starting to come back too. A good fishing spot, my buddies and I can drink there. :) The old Hershaw Chemical Co. at one time a uranium refinery is now my fishing spot. Don't eat the fish, NEVER dig in the soil.

[@JohnnyUtah15]

I just watched a video posted about 4 years ago on KZbin that showed the progress since 1972 or so. In it, they showed some Burmese immigrants fishing and, apparently cooking some fish where the narrator (host) mentioned the EPA relaxed on some restrictions and, followed it up with a short segment on some craft breweries using the water. I’m guessing the EPA may still have restrictions in some areas of the river. Unless you just refrain from eating caught there from you knowing the history.

[@judpowell1756]

I remember the "iceburgs" of soap suds that came down the river through Akron generated by the Ohio Edison dam

[@clintonearlwalker]

I remember when a river caught on fire when I was in elementary school, maybe this is it. There is a song posted on KZbin about how bad Cleveland is, at the end of the song it says "at least we're not Detroit".

[@kristinatidwell6563]

:P I'm originally from Detroit, I've been doing some research on the USEPA and I think the 1st mole was under Reagan(?) In 1982 Anne Gorsuch Burford was administrator of the USEPA www.cleanwateraction.org says there were letters of agreement signed with Texas which aren't being enforced, due to statements of her basing her administration on New Federalism practices, I'd be interested to look and see if that same kind of letters of agreement were signed in Ohio, Michigan and Mississippi?? This river in Ohio having fires spontaneously combust was listed as a reason to start the USEPA but this women lived in Colorado so she didn't care, right? I've been told Texas, Michigan, Ohio and Mississippi are the top 4 bad water states in the USA, the Clean Water Act isn't enforced here in Texas. I thought great! I've lived in 2 of the 4 bad water states, how do we get it cleaned up?I've friended Erin Brockovich to come to the Austin area because there's tons of human waste being dumped into the Colorado River, to the point that I've been fighting a benign brain tumor for these past 23 years. I've got lab reports that my tumor was 4x7 cm and 50% cyst and then (2) cysts that were 2.5x3 cm were removed on Mother's Day 2015, but the original tumor regrew to 4cm by June of 2016. I had cyberknife radiation mid july 2016 and all thru 2017 I've battled Aetna and BCBS for healthcare, so then I just went on referral to Scott and White in Temple, and now I'm being treated by the same brain team that's treating U.S. Sen. McCain, but the MRI's say that my tumor is currently down to 5mm so now I'm kicking butt and taking names where I can! July 10th 2018 I've got an appointment with Representative Paul Workman, who says, "It sounds like we have an LCRA issue here!" Due to Erin's saying there's a 3 year delay til she gets here (possibly this Oct.?) I've already contacted all 3 investigation news teams and they've helped me get all these water violations verified, all the way from Round Rock to LLano along the northshore of Lake Travis and then my EX had help to get other water violations verified by a nonprofit all thru the Texas Hill Country, (Don't drink the water in Fredricksburg!) and the map loops all the way over to another one of my battles I've been trying to help prevent City of Dripping Springs and Hays County from repeating bad history that's already happened here and in South Austin, it'll be a 2-fer if the USEPA and TCEQ don't listen to what I've said. In March and Sept. 2016 I've messaged the Sunset Commission who meets every 12 years and TCEQ asking them to deny the request or at least change the permissions, but so far as I've seen there's only been a dye test done to prove what I've said about this stuff going thru the aquifers. At least there's that positive item, y'all can see Austin's admission of dumping wastewater into the Colorado River if you google search "Pepto Bismol colored bath water in Dripping Springs" the water actually came up in the City of Driftwood, I'm trying to stop 995,000 gallons daily being dumped into Onion Creek, which is already a flood plain. Where's Army Corps of Engineers to redesign a new lake so San Antonio can have a future water resource? But I've promised they don't want to be drinking poo water either and dealing with all these immune diseases that will pop up. I've told them this wastewater needs to be filtered with reverse osmosis before it's dumped anywhere, yuck! My 1st brain team said, "Where's all these brain tumors coming from? (Each of the 3 Drs. said) We have over 100,000 patients who are all divorced for being sick! They've all become Drs. to keep families together! so I've asked Gov. Abbott to get some better Drs. here, and remove Irreconcilable Differences as an option to divorce in Texas, that's when he told me that Texas has the worst birth mother mortality in the world, HUH? I Googled that to find out it's been documented since 2000 by World Health Organization to the UN, if my husband had known about that here back then, he wouldn't have filed for divorce when I moved to Detroit to take a temporary job doing collections for a dental office with 8 dentists, so that I could qualify for secondary health benefits (Austin Fire Fighters Insurance would have covered 70% out of network) so I could go to U of M hospital for medical evals. I didn't want it to be disqualified for pre existence, Idk even really know what I had? I just knew whatever I had, I trusted those at the hospital to help me figure it out. I've told Erin I thought I saw a repeat of what happened in 1996 and 1997 and she's said, YES! All 5x I've been sick it's this dang water. They've done water upgrades in 2000 so it's a lot better than it was, but the HOA refused to allow us to install the filters to our house, which is another issue adding gas to my fire. If I had the filters from the Culligan Man, I wouldn't have gotten so sick.

[@billelkins1974]

Virgil Dominic is the narrator of this piece.

[@KellyThundercloud]

I'm surprised that river didn't stop flowing altogether! That is so disgusting I can't even begin to imagine what it was like. I'm up here in Wisconsin ranting about all the stuff they do to our rivers here but it looks like I need to reconsider how lucky I am after watching this!

[@macdaddybill]

in the mid 70's my sister friend had a boat and he took us out on lake erie and then we went into the river and I was amazed by the large ore ships we passed, and i also remember seeing many dead fish in the river an oil slick on it and the smell. the river and lake Erie may be cleaned up but i am still leery about eating lake perch

[@audreyramsey4835]

Yikes. Can't imagine how nasty it looked in color!

[@moralitiesaspook168]

Audrey Ramsey well some how the lake is alive and well today quite hilarious when you think of it

[@donbeck8835]

Moralities A Spook There hasn’t been a fire in 50 years. They cleaned it up. That was the EPA.

[@gleechharnog1117]

@@moralitiesaspook168 please explain the "hilarity" or perhaps you don't understand words?

[@Abcdefg25152]

@@gleechharnog1117 I love how he just said something and you are instantly mad. I mean, it’s hilarious that a river would be on flames and 50 years later you see nothing of it?

[@Porygonal64]

And it took 13 fires ON the river itself to spawn the EPA.

[@waterandafter]

The 64th Shadow ta'rump will set rivers on fire again

[@briankilbane7043]

Thank god for that river!

[@kylebook]

@indyfan22k A lot of U.S. TV stations were still doing local programming in black & white in 1967, and through the late 60s. It took several years & a lot of money for black white film, studio camera & videotape equipment to be upgraded to color at local stations.

[@andystevenson5067]

I’d love to see this colorized and cleaned up

[@mommy9976]

now is i went there!

[@whitewaterdreams]

Just curious how I can go about using excerpts from this for a film project I am currently working on?

[@usa02]

This was from WKYC's local TV show, "Montage" ( originally broadcast in Color and this was filmed in Black and White Kinescope) and I believe the narrator was Virgil Dominic (who would later become News Director and Station Manager at WJW (WJKW) TV-8 (now FOX-8) ).

[@jordanrosales2324]

Who cares

[@kurttoy5035]

Saw this film on one of the C-SPAN channels three or four years ago.

[@xavieous]

Ugh, if only we could see the damage we are causing today as we did on the Cuyahoga, people would recognize that change does not mean improvement but a shifting of where the pollutions go...

[@THEactualTANIS]

DAMN.

[@mereimage00]

the river is not the only "crooked" thing here.

[@maplemanz]

it's kinda funny these things are going on china here in 2014!!

[@chiparoo222]

+Brian Lillquist ..... as you know - U.S. environmental laws are not applicable in China. Lucky if they are enforced against the resistance of many U.S. corporations, as you know (?) in addressing your comment point of > FUNNY

[@indyfan22k]

gotta wonder why in 1967 the film is in black and white. did the production company not have a good budget inorder to buy color film ? When dealing with pollution , black and white film doesn't show a good indicator of the mess.

[@russiasvechenaya58]

Saw the Mouth of the river recently and it was clean and there was what looked like 100,000 seagulls

[@LibertyHarding]

You think this is bad type in Citarum River Java,Indonesia you will be shocked

[@MenwithHill]

Thank you. I needed that.

[@feleciaclemons5074]

Damn!!

[@vernondouglas4425]

now they are doing the green river

[@sabeth17]

Just think, only forty years later, there are fish in it and it is so much cleaner. All the industries are closed or moved to China. If you want to see pollution like that, just go to China.

[@vernondouglas4425]

yep

[@KellyThundercloud]

@ShadeToSun Yeah I know! and so many times too! Rediculous!

[@noelleelizabeth9991]

I know its better now, but it hurts my heart to watch this.

[@karinbarger9192]

Noelle Elizabeth,and horrifyingly it will be like that again,with this monsterous trump administration. An EPA that is now an oxymoron,along with all the other oxymorons such as Dept.of Ethics! Monsters Are Gutting America. Sad.

[@noellelore9138]

Karin Barger I know 😞

[@nonautemrexchristus5637]

Karin Barger Hillary would have the city burn rather than the river, she wanted war and disorder

[@generalzod7959]

@@karinbarger9192: so, how bad is it now? Just the same? Yep, thought so. Fear monger much? 😆

[@aedanpersonal843]

@@nonautemrexchristus5637 100% fact. That was proved when she got the Russians involved in the elections.

[@KellyThundercloud]

@xavieous SAY IT AGAIN!

[@KellyThundercloud]

@xavieous SAY IT AGAIN!!!!

[@pwnzerofroblox2861]

The current color in the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh is dark green and brown so this must of looked something like the Monongahela River

[@karenwalters7131]

Jesus, I've never seen such filth. Out west where I live that has NEVER been okay.

[@jujuisyoboo9934]

I'm new

[@CowSaysMooMoo]

to the planet?

[@999across]

Ironically, today this video would be labeled Liberal propaganda.

[@sw8741]

And thats why Nixon created the EPA, to rub it in Liberals faces. 🤣🤣