“Fifty years ago the river boiled like a cauldron. This was all very black, and just constantly bubbling like a stew on a stove,” said Captain Wayne Bratton of Trident Marine, who worked on the river for 50 years.
When TIME magazine reported on the fire in the August 1969 issue, it created environmental concern around the state and country. The river fire helped spur the environmental movement and led to the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972.
We’ll talk to people who worked on river before and after the fire, those who pushed for the clean-up, and local officials who are working on sustaining the worlds’ largest single freshwater resource, the Great Lakes.
Frank Samsel, founder of Samsel Supply Company and the river cleaning vessel, The Putzfrau
Dr. Bob Heath, Director Emeritus, Water Resources Research Institute, Kent State University & Vice-President of the International Association for Great Lakes Research
Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio)
Tinka Hyde, Director, Water Division Region 5, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Sean Logan, Director, Ohio Department of Natural Resources
A New Take on the Lake: 40th Anniversary of the Cuyahoga River Fire
