Cuyahoga River Fire of 1969, a Spark for Environmentalism

On June 22, 1969, an oil slick and assorted debris caught fire under a railroad trestle on the Cuyahoga River. It was a relatively quick fire, having only burned for 30 minutes. The occurrence was barely covered in the local Cleveland newspapers, and did not receive much attention until a month later, when Time Magazine made it a national issue.

What most people don’t know is that the fire was one of a dozen similar incidents when oil and chemical-soaked debris ignited on the Cuyahoga. And it didn’t happen only in Cleveland – rivers flowing through urban centers often served as sewers for industrial waste.

40 years later, the Cuyahoga fire remains a powerful symbol of an industrialized planet in peril and our impending environmental crises. The event had such a great impact that many credit it as being a catalyst for Congress to pass the Clean Water Act in 1972, and for the creation of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency.

In recognition of the four decades of progress since the fire, 2009 has been dubbed “The Year of the River” in Cleveland. This year is a celebration of the progress made in cleaning local waterways, and to recognize that additional efforts are still needed to further clean and maintain these natural resources.

Also commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Cuyohoga River fire, Positively Cleveland is has compiled a nice list of the 75 “green” things we love about Cleveland.

Additional Articles and Videos on the Cuyahoga River fire:

• Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization
• Positively Cleveland – 75 Green Things We Love About Cleveland
• VIDEO: Retired Congressman Louis Stokes talks about his theory for pursuing clean water laws: If we could clean up the Cuyahoga River, we could clean up any body of water in the nation.
• VIDEO: Ben Stefanski II remembers standing at the river with Mayor Carl Stokes the day after the fire, declaring war on water pollution.
• VIDEO: Frank Samsel, retired owner of Samsel Supply Co., wasn’t surprised the river caught fire. He recalls regularly sucking up fats from rendering plants along with fuel and chemical spills.

What Deformed Frogs Say About Our Drinking Water

On Sunday, April 5th of this year, Thirteen/WNET’s Nature Series premiered Frogs: The Thin Green Line. Emmy award winning filmmaker, Allison Argo, blended poetic cinematography with masterful soundscapes in a disarmingly straightforward masterpiece delineating the relationship between sewage water and the growing number of frogs being born with defects.

“It’s uncomfortable to realize that we are part of the problem,” Argo explained to me in a phone interview on the topic, but “It’s also exciting and stimulating to realize that we are part of the solution.” Argo’s ability to maintain an optimistic perspective on this bleak situation is grounded, in part, by the day-to-day lifestyle adjustments she makes. She switched to public transportation for her travels between her Cape Cod studio and Boston, she has been swapping old light bulbs for more energy efficient ones, and she is building a frog pond in her yard this summer.

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Coors: The Banquet Ethanol?

Molson Coors is brewing more than just beer out in the great Rocky Mountains.  In partnership with Merrick Co., Coors produces some two million gallons of ethanol per year using waste beer and spent yeast from their Golden, CO brewing operation.  The E85-ready ethanol needs no further refining, and is shipped directly to local refineries to be blended with gasoline.

Coors Brewing Co.’s production matches well with Colorado’s thirst for alternative fuels–the state uses about 100 million gallons of ethanol per year.  This is largely because their clean air laws mandate that ethanol be blended with gas during the winter to reduce vehicle emissions.
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