The Wake-up Call To Action

The Burning of the Cuyahoga River in 1969

Luckily, we don't need to have advanced degrees in ecology to be good ecologists.  We just have to have an observant eye and look for patterns.  From the mid 19th to mid 20th centuries not many in Ohio used their skills of observation to note the pattern of decrease in the quality of the overall environment based on the decrease in species that were once abundant.  But eventually we could not overlook the obvious.  The State of Ohio is one of the leaders in the field of biomonitoring, because of the shameful destruction of aquatic environments in the mouths of most major Ohio rivers prior to 1972. 

The burning Cuyahoga in Cleveland November 1952

Photo:  James Thomas

The burning of the Cuyahoga River in 1969 was only one of many burning river events in the 20th century in Ohio.  But in 1969 citizens, primed by the growing environmental movement, realized the implications of river burning to their own lives - not only was aquatic life being killed, their own lives, based on clean water as a fundamental need, were also being threatened by this ecological disaster caused entirely by human influences.  The burning Cuyahoga became an international symbol of human negligence and a disgrace not only for Ohio, but for the United States, resulting in passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Daniel C. Factor  and Dennis J. Taylor

dcfactor at gmail.com - taylordj at hiram.edu

last updated 10 June 2008