Afternoon Fixers! If growing up watching Captain Planet taught me anything, it is that heart is a stupid power pollution is bad. Unfortunately the Planeteers didn’t exist prior to 1990 so how was Cleveland to know that pumping toxic sludge into the river was a bad idea? Oh I don’t know, the raging fires might have been a clue.
Yes, the river itself is on fire. This image is from 1952 but there were many, many more watery blazes which didn’t culminate into anything resembling concern until after the fire in 1969. Below is an image to give you a better idea of what exactly was feeding the fire.
Luckily, the fine people of Ohio finally realized that water catching fire wasn’t normal and instituted some changes; the most kludge worthy by far being the plastic tarp.
Basically, the mayor of Cleveland decided that in order to garner more support for cleaning up the river, he should make people want to use it. So on two of the beaches the city put up what amounted to a giant plastic tarp and anchored it to the riverbed. Then they pumped chlorine into the “pool” until the water level was clean enough for swimming. I beg you Fixers, if you have an old family photo of this please send it in for the gods of Google are being finicky.
The plan worked. Combined with growing concern for the environment in general, the Cuyahoga River fires led to sweeping reforms including the Clean Water Act and the creation of the EPA. Today, most of the river is within safe levels of pollutants, the fish population is soaring and the slick sludge reminiscent of the Ankh River is no more.
Thanks to Green City Blue Lake, Timelines.com, Cleveland Memory and Fixer The Deathbunnie for the information. One more photo and a vintage video about the problem after the jump!
Firefighters attempt to get the fire under control
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this is why great lakes brewery has a “burning river” beer. brewed right here in smoggy cleveland, ohio.
Actually, I’ll tell you, the sky was a lot worse in Cleveland, as far back as the 80s. We’re strict about emissions standards, reforesting the urban areas, and keeping pollution down so much now, that when I moved across the state to Toledo, I actually had a hard time breathing, due to the bad air. In the Cleveland of the 1980s, you couldn’t even see downtown on a sunny, clear day. Now, even through fog, you can see the skyline.
Toledo’s air sucks, eh? Probably explains why I’ve been living with perpetual sinus problems for the last two years (since I moved here.)
totalhell sucks in general, but the air quality near the refineries especially reeks.
Cuyahoga River Restoration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZA9OX2joUc
Oh wow. In germany we brew our beer with water from clean springs.
Oooohhhhh!!! Let’s turn thereifixedit into an environmental platform! Goooooooooooooooooooo TEAM!
butthurt
Going by the pretty reasonable assumption that this is “biting” sarcasm, I have to again mention how the internet sometimes just makes me depressed.
I’ve noticed more and more how any mere mention of any environmentalist cause will elicit this kind of response. I used to talk about environmental issues at times, but I’ve pretty much given up.
Any kind of talk about making the world a better place (like, “You can save money by doing this energy saving measure – see it’s good both for you and the environment, isn’t that awesome?”) will get either sarcastic or rather abrasive replies. For daring to suggest that it in our best interest to have a clean world around us I’ve been called such imaginative things as “polar-bear worshiper”, “eco-freak”, “green meanie”, a part of the “green agenda”, “green nazis” or the “green world order”, et cetera.
On this very thread, which just mentions pollution so heavy that a river catches on fire, and a populace so complacent with such rampant environmental destruction that nobody cared for decades, it sure wasn’t long until the term “eco-freak” was brandied about.
Honestly, it seems rather impossible to even mention that we are causing problems in the world without people getting all up in arms about it. At least people at this thread have yet to state that “the Clean Water Act is just another step in the Green World Order’s plan to dominate our lives and take away our freedom!” – but don’t worry, I’m sure it will come. I’ve seen such claims many times; so many seem to believe that any law that might help us avoid creating flammable rivers is nothing but an attempt to impose dictatorial control over people…
That was a lot of words for *sigh*
It’s not your fault. The Internet was designed as a faceless medium for information interchanged by the US government and a bunch of universities in the 1970s. It was never intended to be a platform unto itself.
The Internett makes most people depressed after a while
Well, you’re correct Marcus, it is apparently impossible to avoid mention of “The Green World Order’s plan to dominate our lives and take away our freedom!” And guess who mentioned it; you did!
not a lot you can do really, most people think someone else will fix things for them when they have to do things themselves. Most people probably would put something stupid like tl;dr beneath your comment. Cheer up though, america got over severe racism, so this is just another problem where everyone has to work together for a better future. I’ll leave it at this before some idiot says something about me writing paragraphs… lol.
I actually feel bad for you. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a clean environment to live in. You are an unfortunate victim of the ridiculous “Global Warming” movement that is based far more on individuals looking to profit on bad science than on actual concern for making the world a better place to live. Don’t give up trying to help, some of us appreciate it. Even staunch conservatives like me.
*sigh*
Unfortunately Marcus, environmentalists are a victim of their own success. In the 50′s and 60′s, the water was polluted. They worked to fix it. In the 60′s and 70′s, we were told we would not be able to breathe in the year 2000. We fixed the problems. Now we are told that the Earth will overheat and we will all drown. While we will fix that, most people hear the hype, and don’t see all the work (and expense) that went in to fix our previous problems. It just sounds like more hype. Yelling louder will turn people off – we need to be honest, let people know when we are unsure, and work together. Name calling helps no one. There are legitimate concerns, it’s just that many of us are seriously overwhelmed.
Where do you live? You need to move to Colorado, especially Boulder. The “greener” you are the more you are considered high society. Boulder even has VIP parking spots for low emission cars at the shopping malls. You can actually hear the whispers of disapproval when you get plastic grocery bags for your non-organic food! lol Here, being “green” is a sign of wealth, health and success and definitely something most strive to become.
Sadly, this reminds me of the Southpark episode with hybrid cars.. but generally, it is good to try and pollute as little as possible.. plastic bags are indeed not needed, we can easily live without them, with a bit of effort
hope that attitude spreads to texas sometime soon, not that i am getting my hopes up, but it sure would be nice (moved here from germany and experienced a bit of culture shock when i noticed how little people seem to care what happens to the planet they live on, or their trash for that matter!)… or maybe I need to move again?
And in my humble opinion: I think it is great that not only funny stuff is shown here… what? a little reality/truth hurts?
lastly @ Marcus: please don’t stop, or let ignorant people get you down, there are others fighting the same (hopefully not) loosing battle… just remember: every little bit helps and we can’t change the world in one day…
Now you can fish there but they recommend only one meal per month (which is a big improvement). http://epa.ohio.gov/dsw/fishadvisory/limitmeals.aspx
Bonus points to Ms. Fix-It for an interesting bit of history and a Terry Pratchett reference, all in one go.
I thought the same thing! I recently moved to the Cleveland area from Philadelphia, PA. When I learned about the river fire I was incredulous. An interesting piece of history. And I’m a huge Pratchett fan
In searching for a picture of the swimming kludge Ms. Fix-It was scouring the Internet to find, I came across this awesome comment I wanted to share from the following link: www[dot]cleveland[dot]com/science/index.ssf/2009/04/cuyahoga_river_fire_galvanized.html
brendanmc7 says:
“Yeah… I was born in Cleveland in 1975 and I’ve always been amazed at how sparkling clean the Cuyahoga has become. Sometimes, when it gets hot in the summer, I love just diving in the river and swimming around all afternoon gulping the fresh water. I’ve gotten really good at swimming since I started growing gills and flippers. “
No wonder there is a generation of eco-freaks. They saw this in “assembly.” Ain’t progress great?
“… eco-freaks”?
eco-freaks = overly demonstrative tree huggers.
As opposed to those who don’t give a rodent’s posterior for life and the future of our only world. Ah, I see now. Thank-you for clarifying that for me. Much obliged.
Gladly these things are only toxic to humans and most lifeforms we know of. Look a Chernobyl, once humans pollute themselves out of somewhere nature’s fine again… just a bit different.
Huh, I guess without “eco-freaks” we’d be setting rivers on fire accidentally. We’ll leave you and your swill pool alone, next time.
Am I the only one that did not need to click the link to get the Ankh River reference?
it’s the only river you can draw a chalk outline on =^_^=
You are not! I understood it, too! Those books are *awesome*!
I got it… unfortunately the best I have is “any footprints would have seeped back by now.”
Oh no, I certainly got it. I have been re-reading through the Discworld novels recently, in fact. Pratchett’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis broke my heart; my father-in-law has early-onset, too.
I clicked the link just to see where it would take me, though. (I hate link-shorteners! Why can’t they give me a “this link goes to [X site]” next to them?)
By no means. But then I’ve been reading Pratchett since TCoM was first published on this side of the pond.
Me neither. I even went to a Discworld Convention as the Librarian.
There’s a red moon rising
On the Cuyahoga River
Rolling into Cleveland to the lake
There’s an oil barge winding
Down the Cuyahoga River
Rolling into Cleveland to the lake
Cleveland, City of Light, City of Magic
Cleveland City of Light you’re calling me
Cleveland, even now I can remember
‘Cause the Cuyahoga River
Goes smokin’ through my dreams
Burn on, big river, burn on
Burn on, big river, burn on
Now the Lord can make ya tumble
And the Lord can make ya turn
And the Lord can make you overflow…
But the Lord can’t make ya burn
Burn on, big river, burn on
Burn on, big river, burn on
Randy Newman
Sail Away
1972
First thing I thought of…the brass & wooodwinds & those wonderfully ironic (nay, almost snotty) lyrics.
I love Randy Newman. I hear the sad piano notes playing.
Fan of the song, and yet never understood the references in the song until you put it in front of my face. Thanks, really. Sad, but amazing.
And hey, isn’t hilarious that someone really did reference eco-freaks as a bad thing, only a few posts after someone predicted it would come up? This is why I sometimes avoid my iGoogle page with all the news feeds showing up at one time. It can be hard to hold my head up after some of the outright stupidity in the headlines.
I cannot believe that guy actually stuck his hand in that sludge water.
For Halloween he wanted to be the bad guy from Spiderman 3.
We totally need captain planet back, look at what al the bad guys are doing these days!
Heart was indeed a crappy power, crying for help telepathically? Get a mobilephome…
I always figured Heart was like the Kneepads of allure http://www.worldofmunchkin.com/faq/#kneepads ….but the kid didn’t know how to use it correctly.
Awesome win for throwing Munchkin out there!
I’m pretty sure he didn’t poke his hand in the water, I think it lept up and grabbed him
FTW!
Where’s Steve McQueen when you need him?
was it a careless flick of a match, or was it terrerism?
Damn those Terriers! *shakes fist*
Damn those pyromaniac terriers! *shakes fist*
I’m confused. Am I looking at mankind messing up the environment, or is it one of the rivers of Hell come up to swallow the souls of mankind?
Yes.
It’s a future-pic of the Mississippi delta. Taken in a couple of weeks after more of the oil comes to shore.
River from Hell. Its Spawn? Zombies From Cleveland.
What? You’ve never heard of them? Yes, there everywhere now.
I want a Cuyahoga zombie movie now.
Now, if they could only do something about the lower Mississippi.
The Ankh! LOL
I love the way the fire department is putting out a burning river.. by pouring water on it!
yeah, shouldn’t they be using baking soda or something??
Cleveland wasn’t the only place it happened. It was, however, the place that got the media attention when they couldn’t put the fire out.
Sounds familiar
http://www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/showitem.asp?article=73&parent=7&link=Y&gp=3
Terry Pratchett Reference WIN!
I live in Ohio. The rivers are still gross.
As in, you’re not allowed to eat fish that are caught in some parts of them unless you’re less than 5 miles from a hospital. :/
My mother remembers this quite well. She was there. I told her it was on TIFI and she went nostalgic on me
Two things you should note before you make fun of the supposed tree hugging effort from this tifi article:
1. the second picture was what it looked like on a daily basis. Try to imagine getting a cargo ship through that without damaging it.
2. They also say the smell from it was so bad that you could “smell” the river from 10 miles out.
Good job on the Discworld reference, there. The moment I saw the picture I said “Wow, looks just like I imagined Ankh-Morpork to be”
^_^
Thanks for using and referencing our site Timelines.com!
Any three-eyed fishes live there?
First this, and now they lose Lebron James.
….the horror, the horror………..
Cleveland is indeed a cursed city!
I actually watched as they put out the fire in 1969 from the hood of my fathers station wagon, I was 10 at the time. My dad had just came home early from workgathered up all of us kids and drove back to watch the fire trucks and fire boats put it out. I think he knew it was something we needed to see.
I now live on the banks of the same river some 20 miles downstream and it nice!
fantastic clean up effort
I home the gulf of mexico ends up as lucky!!
I live there but
im tirerd of cleveland
This was happening earlier in my hometown of Naugatuck, Conn., where Goodyear used to have a factory. Runoff would go into the Naugatuck River, which would sometimes catch on fire. Sixty yearly later, the watershed has still not recovered.
I’m from Naugatuck, too. Did the river really catch on fire. Did you ever see it?
too long text, didn’t read it
thanks for sharing your deficiencies. We’ll be glad to hear about your impotence next.
lol
jesus had deficiencies? OMG
Gotta love my Cleveland! But I only allow my family one walleye dinner per month out of the mighty Cuyahoga.
Slowhio
“During periods of slow flow conditions, the Cuyahoga has been known [dramatic pause] to smell.”
But… Rivers that burn are natural… In Iceland and bits of Hawaii.
Cleveland just wanted an exotic feel, what’s the harm in that?
The ironic part about this? One of the reasons the river is cleaner is that there is very little industry left in Cleveland…and the city never recovered from being relegated to the “rust belt”. Spent five years in the area andf in some ways they’re even more backward than Arizona !
Jeezo, that same old myth. The famous’ burning river’ was a refinery oil spill that caught fire. It had happened several times before. I will agree that a lot of effort went in to ‘cleaning up’ the Cuyahoga, to the point that Sturgeon are back in Lake Erie, and Steelhead Trout run in the Cuyahoga every year with no problems.
Most of you don’t realize that Cleveland was the original home of the Standard Oil Company, and the ‘flats’ industrial area was loaded with refineries and chemical processing plants. Now if NY can just cleanup the East River…
I don’t know as the cause matters so much as the effects. End result = same
As I remember, BP bought out Amoco, which was originally Standard Oil Company (Indiana). Now, BP has this problem in the Gulf. Strange coincidence?
Actually industrial contaminates were a minor part of the river pollution. The vast majority was from sewage and urban runoff. For a long time Cleveland’s sewer system consisted of sometimes separating out larger debris and dumping the rest in the river.
Gotta love it. Only CLEVELAND can make thier waterways FLAMMABLE!
So now I see what London was trying to do during the millenium.
I was about 5 when this happened, but I still remember it. It was like a thunder cloud rolled in and stayed to my mind. I left Cleveland back in 1972, but I still miss it. I go back and visit friends there every few years, and I’m amazed at the difference. My mom still talked about it for years.
maybe its just me, but why don’t you lift up the cage, there is a hole in the bottom of it. Unless it is screwed to the counter…
Ahh, Cleveland. “The mistake by the lake.”
Good luck with that. I still wouldn’t swim in there…
I always hated Cleveland even before I learned about the river fires (I’m from out west. Cleveland sucks.)
go suck yourself…
Things I learned on the Cheezeburger network #2235: People who think water probably shouldn’t be flammable are “eco-freaks”.
I Can’t believe you referenced Terry Pratchett. I love the poster so much. My favorite is Going Postal
Thief of time is absolutely excellent too.
ooo this is nasty… i thought it was bad in my country… suddenly it doesn’t seem so bad here
Talk about smoke on the water
These pictures should be shown to anyone who has the nerve to suggest that the EPA ought to be shut down or neutered.
First of all I take offense to the use “Ohioans”. There are people who live in Ohio and then there are those from the Mistake on the Lake. Please don’t lump them all in one. These pictures show the reason that Cleveland will never have a sports championship. They have been cursed.
I did a (happy) double take at the Pratchett reference. Glad to see others out there that enjoy the Discworld.
This is a glimpse into the future of the the Gulf of Mexico.
this reminds me of Smoke on the Water lol
What a travesty, this “Clean Water Act”. As if we really needed more pesky government interfererence! I wish we could go back to the good old Free Market days before the Nanny State pushed all these regulations on us. If the customers wanted a clean river, they’d just boycott the companies polluting it!
Give B.P. a shot at it. I’m sure they could get those rivers back to sludgeville in no time!
Don’t forget to check out our Top Ten Most Embarassing Moments in Ohio History… The Cuyahoga River fire holds a prominent position on the list! http://ohiohistory.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/top-ten-complete/
I’m surprised so few people have come on to point out that this is basically a myth, one of the standard “capitalism causes pollution” eco-myths that were spread by radical activists in the 1960s. (Yeah, that’s why pollution was so much less in East Germany, and the Russians still enjoy fish from the beautiful Aral Sea …)
The Cuyahoga has burned many, many times in its history: roughly once every 8 years since it was first recorded by “white man”. The first such fire recorded by history was in 1868, long before there was any industry on the river. Like all the subsequent fires, the main fuel was in fact naturally occurring driftwood.
That’s right folks: most river fires are *natural*. All it takes is a river that rises in a forested area, then feeds in to slower moving shallow patches were wood can build up, plus a seasonal flow so it can get high-and-dry in summer. In such a situation, a fire will eventually break out and you will get a “burning river”.
It’s true that the 1969 fire was slightly exacerbated by floating street litter (i.e. discarded paper) and an oil spill. But while the contribution of the oil spill to myth was enormous, its contribution to the fire was tiny. The standard version of the myth, deliberately created at the time, was that floating oil several inches thick was commonly seen on the river. In fact only a few hundred gallons of oil were involved — not nearly enough to burn on water had the logs and paper not also been there.
While there is less industrial pollution in the Cuyahoga today, the main reason there are fewer fires today is because of regular patrols to remove floating debris — including driftwood — which ironically has caused habitat loss. These patrols had actually started the year before the 1969 fire, and were the reason it was actually quite minor …
Minor? Yes, the infamous 1969 fire, by the way, was extinguished in just 24 minutes, so quickly that it was out before photographers arrived. The oft repeated photographs of walls of flame — shown above, very widely claimed to be a picture of that fire, and massively circulated during lobbying for the Clean Water Act — is a fraud. It is actually file footage from a refinery accident fire, taken in 1952. “Time” decided to run those photographs to illustrate the 1969 story because, well, journalistic integrity and all that.
Roger, I worked for an environmental technologies firm that was involved with cleaning not only parts of the Cuyahoga River, but also the coke wastes that were dumped in the Black River in Lorain, Ohio. Kindly peddle your “burning rivers are a natural thing” pollution denying crud elsewhere. There WAS industry dumping pollution in the Cuyahoga well before 1868 along with sewage that contained lamp oil and various tanning acids. “Capitalism causes pollution”. Pffft. People concerned about the environment don’t believe that, they know that industries that don’t properly dispose of waste is what causes pollution. It been proven that companies can make profits while making sure they don’t pollute and can actually save money by recycling some wastes. But I guess it’s easier for someone like you to dismiss “eco-freaks” with a ridiculous statement intended to marginalize them than to actually actually admit that you think that profit is king, to heck with anything that stands in its way, even if it means that we destroy our home.
I think this could be used as an example for the gulf. Everyone screaming the gulf is dead and going to be dead and yada yada. I mean all it takes is time and people actually doing crap to clean up.
That and thankfully the gulf is to big to have a plastic tarp placed over its bed and have chlorine pumped in until the water’s clear.
gotta love my home state of ohio ;D