Lake erie after a 100mile twisting and turning journey from its headwaters, is an exhaustive stream. Abused and misused by man and his machines. Without the cuyahoga, the spreading megalopolis of clevelandakron would not exist. The river was the reason for settling in the 1780s. The river called crooked by the delaware indians provided a waterway to the interior of ohio so man came and nearly 2 Million People live and work in the river basin. In creating this urban complex, man has used the river as men have always used rivers. The flow has been put to work as a navigable stream, a water supply and as a sewer. Mans mark is everywhere. Is this mark an epitaph for the cuyahoga . Joining us from the cleveland area is David Stradling, a professor of history at the university of cincinnati and the coauthor of where the river burned carl stokes and the struggle to save cleveland. Let me begin, though, by asking, physically, where are you located and explain what happened 50 years ago this month. Hi, steve. Thanks for having me. Were sitting near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River which is to say were sit wting where the cuyahoga reaches lake erie. See over my shoulder one of the Railroad Trestles that crosses the Cuyahoga River. There are a lot of bridges in cleveland. Downtown cleveland is to my left. To my right is ohio city neighborhood, the city of cleveland. Were sitting down in the area called the flats. Which are the lands right along the cuyahoga. They run up several miles. This is the former Industrial Area of the city of cleveland. And 50 years ago, on june 22nd, 1969, there was a fire on the Cuyahoga River at the end of navigation, couple miles south of here, end of navigation meaning boats could not go farther upstream. This is where a couple of low Railroad Trestles blocked some debris that was coming downstream is which is not unusual. The piers from the bridge, they got soaked in oil which also was not unusual. Then there was a spark, perhaps from a sparking train, we dont know exactly what set off the fire. And the trestles burned for about 20 minutes or half an hour. Day were doused by both a fireboat and from crews on the shore. Photographers didnt get there in time to give us a picture of the with the fire that happened in 1969. Thats because Time Magazine which ran a piece about Water Pollution in august of 1969 phom 1952 and simply indicated this was the tugboat basically trapped in flames. It was a very damaging fire. Sl was burning at that point. So most people outside of cleveland would have assumed that, you know, rivers dont catch fire on a regular basis, that what they were looking at in 1969 in Time Magazine is a photograph of something that skrus happened. From there the confusion gets more extreme. People began to think this in 1969 was a catastrophic fire, tremendous damage done, five stories tall, that it burned for hours. I saw somebody who said it burned for days. Mythology around 1969 burning begins to grow. My brother richard and i as we researched the book. Decided probably the reason the mythology about the Burning River why is grows is because peoples thoughts about Burning River having to be a a major event, you know, this is a biblical thing that rivers dont catch fire. It must be a sign of terrible Water Pollution of a type never seen before. And of course the many previous fires dating all the way back to the late 19th century is an indication that the pollution had been a longterm problem. And the first fire going back to 1868 describe describing the cuyahoga that oozes rather than flows and in which people do not drown but decay how bad was the river. I dont think there is any doubt it was terribly polluted in in fact, the pollution was much worse in the 1940s and 1950s which is one of the reasons why theres a significant cluster of fires in those two decades. One of the things the city of cleveland did to improve the Water Quality or at least torly Water Quality or at least to diminish the flammability of the river is to regularly clear the debris from the river and to break up oilth slicks with wate canons. But thats notot something that could be done aboveve the head navigation. So in particularr was not preventible in that way. But cleveland, like a lot of cities had been investing h significant amounts of money ind its Sewage Treatment infrastructure through the 20th century. And i think industry also had been making investments inth icl diminishing the pollution load t that it was dumping into the river. And i think significantly the the Oil Refinery Industry had sa basicallyrd left cleveland by 1969. So standard oil closed its refinery number one which was the last of the major refineries here. So the Water Quality was bad. The ecoology was greatly diminished. There was little ren for people to think of the cuyahoga as a hs ecological space. As a complete river. At the same time it was not as bad as it had been. Along with his brother David Stradling is the core thorough of the bike book where the river burned he maid his way from cincinnati to join us in cleveland on this sunday. We welcome our viewers on cspan3 minor history tv looking back at events from 50 years ago. We are dividing phone lines the region until for those in the eastern half of the country, wd 202748001. For the hea westernr fr side. We have a line for the cleveland and akron area wed love to heas from you if you remember the events. 2027488002. I want to share with you the. A. Words of the president Richard R Nixon creditedon with the creatt of the epa. Here is what he had to say about our environment. In the next ten years we shall increase our wealth by a 50 . The profound questionl is does this mean we will be 50 richer in a real sense, 50 better offd 50 happier . Or does it mean that in the year 1980 the president standing in in place will look back on a decade in which 70 of our people lived in metropolitan areas choked by traffic, suffocated by smog, poisoned by water, deafened by noise and terrorized by crime . These are not the Great Questions that concern World Leaders at summit conferences. But people do not live at the uo summit. Any live in the foothills of everyday experience. And it is time for all of us toe concern ourselves with the way real people live in real life. The great question of the 70s is, shall we surrender to our surroundings . We make ourp peace with begin to make represent arations for the damage done to our air, land and to our water . [ applause ]ixon in from a 1970s state of the 10 union address. And David Stradling as you hear that from Richard Nixon in 1970 one year after the fire along the Cuyahoga River, your reaction. I think its a recognition of just how powerful an issue a political issue the environmentw had become. Nixon articulates in a very so common way at the time, which is to kind of suggest that things had just gotten so bad that now we finally have to deal with cul them. But you know asy my earlier comments suggest, that the virmg wsh o particularly the urban virmt around industry was so bad for so long that mostly what he is articulate something a changing sense that now we need something, because american citizens are demanding that they be given access to clean water and clean air, that their cities not be as filthy as they had been. I think that this is mostly a u recognition that ath tide had changed, that a series of events, including the Cuyahoga River fire, but also the Santa Barbara oil spill. There is a pesticide spill on the rhine river a couple days e afterto the fire in cleveland. All of these things build up on the spectacular events, to remind people just how bad the urban environment and industrial environment had become. As you look at the river behind you, how does it look toa you today . Y . Its remarkable the change that has taken place here. Becau its twofold. Its i mean itsst difficult to tell exactly whats going on in the water itself of course because d its still the. Milky brown rivr thats flowing out of agricultural and forested land, still has debris that floats ky downstream. But see fowl, something you wouldnt see 50 years ago, rnin. People out kayaking. I saw people in skulls earlier this morning. S an the cuyahoga has once again a much more complete river. It is an agricultural space im sorry a recreational space. There are new parks, new publich access along the river for people for the whole region. And this is something that goes well south of the city of nal pa cleveland. Rk the Cuyahoga RiverCuyahoga Valley National park has become kind of a regional and a National Treasure really. Its a remarkable space for recreation, getting out of the s city. Our clevela guest is david s, thehe coauthor of where the ie have burned, joining from us cleveland ohio, a professor of l history at the university of cincinnati. Before taking our first call weg want to t thank the music box ee supper club allowing us to put cameras in place to allow davidt stradling to share with us onsite on the scene of what its was like there and fact that its a supper club, there are bars and restaurants on thes flats tells you what. It tell us that this is a part of the city clevelanders are interested in returning to. This is notah an entirely new movement. In the 90s that cleveland started to reimagine the flats that so much industry moved out. There is an awful lot of interesting architecture here. Mostly you see the engineering. N its a spectacular space. The engineering of the various bridges. There are lots of different kinds of bridges, making it an interesting place to be. In the 1990s we had a bit of a kind of a kindling of this of this culture down here by the flats. And its come on much more intensely in the last, oh, five or ten years, much more capitala put in down here. And this is really one of the highlight areas of clevelands l culture. From nearby lorraine, ohio, o sandra, you are first up. Good morning. Yes, good morning. These rivers flow into the laken lake erie. Lake erie brings in 800 billion of revenue every year. So when in pollution well this pollution is very costly. And let me just add to that, that i live in lorraine, which has a river black river, which also leads into the lake. And a couple days ago there was an oil spill on the lake. And im im sorry on the river. And also there not to take away from that the rivers. But there was a spencer lake where a truck was found to be spewing outwi chemicals into a t wildlife refuge in spencer lake. And. Thank you, sandra were going to jump in and a response. Yeah, sandra points out, obviously, the problems of pollution have not been completely solved. There is still a lot of industry around lake erie, of course, and the other great lakes, even clear here in cleveland. T lorraine has a steel mill. Ve but herestme in cleveland the mo steel mills are up and running. L i do, believe they have made significant investments in Water Pollution control and also air pollution control. But no doubt accidents happen. Lf and there are, of course, other kind of contributors to Water Pollution. Cleveland, like rots ofmbined c that grew in the late 19th and early 20th century has combined suers. Meaning that sanitary sewage combines with storm runoff. Int and when it rains that means that untreated sewage flows into both the cuyahoga and directly into lake erie. We also know that lake erie ost, suffers from nonpoint pollution nonpoint source pollution. Agricultural runoff mostly no e particularly fromrm toledo in t monmi river. As i tell my students there are no permanent victories in environmental protection. Its an ongoing effort. You have to adjust to new threats, new problems. And to be sand ridge lantd about regulation and enforcement. To the west of cleveland is toledo tim is on the air. W yeah i kyu up, born and raised along the source of the u wamy river. My da flowing into lake erie. I can remember as a kid, the foams, when the water washed out i used to fish with my as dead. It was foamy and dead fish on theno river. As a kid you dont know thats not normal. But it was disgusting thinking back. That was in the 70gs. I remember the commercial with the indian where he walk along the garbage and all that, tear on his cheek all that. Have now the the river and all that is a lot better. We got small mouth bass in there that was never in there before. Always karp and sea pad and sometimes the game fish like the wahl eye run but now its p cleaned up a lot. Lately now all of a sudden we seem to be getting back to do t we dont care about protecting the environment. That. Because like we won the battle e and we doing the same thing al over again with the oceans and all that. Its sooner or later we got to wake up and realize you cant keep polluting where you live at. I mean its just logic. Tree basic facts. But if you Say Something to somebody youre a tree hogger op want to destroy the planet all u the crazy things said . Cant be with be a logical species and say we cant 500. Years aigt you didnt go upstream and relieve yourself and downstream and get drinking water. Weve gotten stupid as a specie which is the environment. We are poisoning ourselves. Thats how zbliefl thank you for the call. Wheat well get a response. S ree yeah, i appreciate the where reference to the foaming river. He is referring to a period of time when the detergents were adding lots of phosfates. This was a new load. They got clothes cleaner but waterways dirtier. Providing nutrients. And we got algo blooms in the mid1960s. That was solved through regulation. But, you know, we no longer see the visible, you know, suds from that problem. But we do see some visible problems in lake erie. Including the algo blooms that happen every summer. S mostly contributed by agricultural runoff. S as acan be broader comment, i m, the visibility of Environmental Issues can be really important h toat gathering, you know, image political will. I think thats one of the t reasons the cuyahoga fire became so important because even thougl the imagey came from a differene fire, the imagery of a river on fire really galvanized people. It was a recognition. Thats one way to see water plagues is foz a river on fire. Otherwise, as i said its tests. Assess the Ecological Health of a river. You have to do tests then its issue of numbers rather than visibility. This is an issue that has o iden playinged trying toti solve the problem, the larger problem of i Climate Change. Is its difficult to identify an imagery that can create this political valance that gets a re people moving the way nixon was forced to move in 1970. With the Cuyahoga River behind opheim our guest is David Stradling. Ourp next caller is audrey from decatur blachl. This is audrey from decatur, alabama i havent called in about a year. But boy you have really touched something ifd ocd about. The plastic bottles, the plastic plates, jugs, i have told my sister andd threatened to carry my cat litter big plastic bucket when it gets empty refill it and leave it at target. But i want to remind people, this fourth of july, you know, you cant find the little thin paper plates anymore. Silver w plets, please, please, wash your plate and use your own silver ware. And love cspan. Love all yall, steve and have a wonderful day. Thank you. Audrey. Thank you. David stradling what about the plastic bags and Water Bottles and other debris . That is certainly an ongoing problem as far as the great ocean of course into which they flow. You know, we do see trash debril floating down river which has been a longterm problem. But of course now its plastic it lasts much longer and doesnt break down. She is absolutely right. This is something that needs attention. You know, going all the way back to the first earth day in 1970, the focus there for students for young people generally was to th pick uper trash, much less of which would have been plastic at the time. But there again, its about that effort was about visibility, right, that you can see that there is an ecological and environmental problem. Because you can see the trash. And even though it may not be the most urgent of issues in 1970. It was one people felt they could tackle and put effort into. And and i think we see cleanup efforts on river banks. Certainly on the ohio im from cincinnati. Every year we have a major cleanup around the river banks. It makes its a visible problem with a very visible impact when you pick up the trash. Brief history of the Cuyahoga River, which the river that bends in cleveland, ohio. There are reported at least 13 separate fires. The first dating back to 1868. The largest fire we talked about a moment ago in 1952, causing z more than 1 million in damage. And in 1969 Time Magazine e pers describing theon cuyahoga as th. River that oozes rather than flows. And in which a person does not drown but decays. A key person in all this was ths mayor of cleveland ohio, and the subject of your cover story, carl stokes his response to all this at the time, mr. Stradling. So carl stokes was the first africanamerican mayor of any major city. And, you know, he really understood the problems of urban america. Raised in poverty himself here in cleveland, grew up in one of the most degraded neighborhoods in Public Housing in central is the neighborhood. He had a kind of a unique view on the problems of urban america as far as major politicians are concerned. He well understood that concentrated poverty and adequate housing were primary co