Ohio’s clean water under attack 50 years after Cuyahoga River caught fire
Fifty years ago, the Cuyahoga River caught fire.
The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire — which was actually at least the 12th time it had occurred — ignited a movement in the city of Cleveland and nationwide. One year later President Richard Nixon (yes, Nixon!) created the Environmental Protection Agency, and by 1972 the Clean Water Act was law.
Fifty years later, the Clean Water Act and EPA still nominally exist — but under the Trump administration, they have been gutted and taken over by corporate cronies. Last year, the agency inspected fewer industrial facilities — cutting the number of inspections by half since 2010 — and assessed a little less than $70 million in civil penalties, the lowest level in decades.
Of course, it was industrial waste that led to the Cuyahoga River fire. Today corporate polluters know they have little to fear from Trump’s EPA, and it’s putting our lakes, rivers, streams and drinking water at risk.
It’s not just enforcement that’s being cut — Trump is rolling back clean water regulations, too. Most of Ohio’s streams would be left unprotected under a new proposal by the Trump administration.
That could endanger the water quality of the entire system.
“All of our water systems are connected. … Eventually with heavy rain flow or the wet season, whatever is in that waterway, even if it’s dried up part of the year, is going to end up downstream into our larger rivers and drinking water sources.” — Peter Bucher, director of water resources at the Ohio Environmental Council.
Earlier this year, the Columbus Dispatch editorial board connected the dots, between what happened 50 years ago and what’s happening right now, as the Trump administration attacks clean water protections:
As Ohio struggles to find ways to limit the agricultural pollution that turns parts of Lake Erie green every summer, the last thing we should do is strip away protection from streams and endanger much of the state’s meager remaining wetland acreage.
That’s what the Trump administration would do with its proposed replacement of an Obama-era rule that aimed to clarify what types of waters are protected under the Clean Water Act. That landmark law, inspired in part by the 1969 oil-slick fire on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, has in the past four decades helped many of America’s lakes and rivers recover from a century of use as open sewers, returning many back to healthy waters that can support life.
The Trump administration is making it harder to keep Ohio’s water clean, but Republicans at the state level are part of the problem, as well. In 2015, then-Attorney General Mike DeWine sued the federal government to stop the Obama administration’s clean water protections.
It’s frustrating that Ohio Republicans are aiding and abetting this assault because our state is particularly vulnerable to the threat of weakened protections for our water:
- Lake Erie continues to be plagued by algae blooms, like the one which resulted in the city of Toledo and its 400,000 residents going without safe drinking water for several days in 2014.
- Ohio has lost 90 percent of its historic wetlands — which help filter pollution from our drinking water, prevent flooding and provide habitats for fish, birds and other wildlife.
- The Ohio River has been ranked as the most-polluted body of water in the nation. Five million Americans rely on the river for their drinking water.
As the Trump administration abandons its oversight obligations, another organization that helps protect Ohio’s water is surrendering its authority. Just this month a multi-state commission that monitors the Ohio River — the nation’s most-polluted! — voted to make its pollution standards optional. All three of Ohio’s appointees to the commission voted in favor of the change.
Fifty years after Ohio and the nation took action to stop another Cuyahoga River fire, we’re watching this president and a state government dismantle our clean water protections. When will be the next algae bloom that shuts down an Ohio city’s drinking water supply? When will be the next industrial spill that contaminates the Cuyahoga or Ohio River? Could we see something like the Flint water crisis — five years later that city is still recovering — happen here?
Unfortunately, those are increasingly likely disasters in the making because of Trump and the GOP.
