A river on flames It is certainly an unreal vision, by nightmare, yet in the recent history of industrialized nations these events have really succeeded: this is the case ofFire of the Cuyahoga river of 1969in Ohio (United States), an event today celebrated as the disaster that was born the EPA (Agency for US environmental protection) and an environmental consciousness in the USA. Highly contaminated by waste water and flammable pollutants deriving from the nearby industrial area, the fires to the river had become the norm for the inhabitants of Cleveland, up to that of ’69.
In those years, the relationship between the Americans and the environment had already been changing for decades, but the 1969 fire marked a turning point for themedia attention towards “River Fire” and the involvement of politics, also thanks to the commitment of the then Mayor of Cleveland Carl B. Stokes and of the Betty Klaric journalist. Thanks also to these figures, an accident like many could become a flag of US environmentalism and the river today is again the house of a varied fauna.
Fires on the Cuyahoga river
For the inhabitants of Cleveland the Fires on the Cuyahoga river For years, the normality have been: from 1868 to 1969 at least they were recorded Twelve fires on this river, which from the homonymous Valle leads to the lake eriethe southernmost of the large lakes on the border between the USA and Canada where the waters from the Cascate del Niagara.
Overlooking this lake and at the mouth of the river, Cleveland was then a city of more than 700 thousand inhabitants, and the entire region possessed a strong industrial fabric developed starting from the mid -19th century civil war along the entire Cuyahoga course: for this reason the river waters were heavily contaminated from industrial waste, oil and fuel materialsas well as from the urban waste water not adequately treated. It is easy to understand, given the high amount of flammable pollutants, how much these could easily catch fire by giving life to a fire.
Witnesses of the time speak of a river covered with sludge and oil spotsin which the only traces of fauna were the corpses of the animal in decomposition; A sadly normal situation, as well as dangerous, for citizens, so much so that already in 1922 traces of contaminants in potable waters of the city.
The fire that went down in history, developed the June 22, 1969 And it lasted about 30 minutesdamaging only a few boat and a bridge: a relatively less eventbriefly treated by the local media accustomed to this kind of accidents.
Carl B. Stokes and Betty Klaric: politics and media light the debate in the USA
There US environmental consciousness, However, it had changed in recent years, and this umpteenth fire triggered one unpublished reactionthanks also to the intervention of the mayor of the city, Carl B. Stokes. First African American administrator Elected in the United States, attentive to social and environmental issues, already in ’68 together with the municipal administration had attempted to reduce pollution due to city sewage plants, with a 100 million dollar plan.
Not being able to intervene directly on polluting factories, located above all outside the city borders, Stokes decided to denounce the disastrous state of the water By organizing press conferences along the banks of the river, and loudly asking for changes in national and federal environmental policies.
Among the journalists present, Betty Klaric, pen of the Cleveland Press followed firsthand the “Press Tour” of stakes and was one of the most important voices of the “Save Lake Erie” campaign becoming, in fact, one of the first environmental journalists of the country.
Political pressures and media attention They accelerated processes already taking place in the USA: 1970 saw the birth of the APA (United States Environmental Protection Agency), the US environmental protection agency, institution Since then, fundamental in the study and management of environmental disasters in all the United States, including the “Love Canal” case in the nearby city of Niagara Falls.
The Cuyahoga VIR Today: a reborn ecosystem
Attention to the environment brought to ten -year interventions and monitoring; To these efforts was added one industrial crisis, that already in the 1960s was hitting the area and which today brought the city under the 400 thousand inhabitants, a drop that he had like positive side effect the reduction of polluting activities.
This has allowed, in the decades, one reconquest of the habitats by the river fauna. Insects and fish have slowly colonized most of the river, also favoring the Return of amphibians and birdsto the point that one has also settled in the area. Couple of “white head” eaglesanimal with a strong symbolic meaning for the USA.
The struggle of the city of Cleveland against pollution has certainly made its fruits: to make it appear on the titles of the newspapers, since then, the environmental disasters have no longer been … at least until the invasion of the 1986 Palocini, but this is another story.
