SURVIVAL REVIVALS
FROM MISTAKE ON THE LAKE TO ENVIRONMENTAL POSTER CHILD.
PHOTO: CHRISTINA SPICUZZA/FLICKR
POLLUTED Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River leads the Rustbelt Revival
As in most great stories of transformation, Cleveland’s greatest ignominy was also the beginning of its comeback. June 22, 1968, is the day the Cuyahoga River caught fire. The event is immortalized in
a folk song, Burn On, appears on cheeky “Burning River Surf Club” tourist T-shirts, and is remembered as the
nadir of the period Clevelanders called their city, “The Mistake on the Lake.” “Of course Cleveland hit rock bottom when they had a fire
break out on the river, but that was a driving force in a very positive way,” says author Doc Fletcher, who profiled the Lower Cuyahoga among six urban Midwestern rivers for his new book Paddling & Pastimes. “That got a lot of notoriety well beyond Cleveland and was a
major factor in passing the Clean Water Act in the early ‘70s and the International Joint Commission for Great Lakes water quality. You can even say that it was a major driver for the creation of the EPA.” We can all thank Cleveland for a cultural and political shift
toward river stewardship that’s part of a larger trend of urban and environmental renewal across the so-called Rustbelt, and continent-wide. Akron, Ohio, upstream of Cleveland on the Cuyahoga, is another
city undergoing a multidimensional overhaul and turning a caring eye to its river. The source of the Cuyahoga’s worst pollution— spilling raw sewage into the river for more than a century— Akron’s undertaking a “big dig” to revamp its sewers and treat 100 percent of its outflow by 2027.
60 PADDLING MAGAZINE
Fletcher observed the same pattern of renewal in Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Milwaukee. Pittsburgh’s Allegheny River held only one species of fish in the 1950s; today it’s home to 53. Dan Hudak, owner of River Cruiser Kayaking, regularly reels
edible large- and smallmouth bass out of the Cuyahoga while guiding clients through the city’s industrial heartland. His three- hour tour from Harvard Avenue to Lake Erie takes you on a flashback to the late 1800s. As you pass 900 acres of smoke-belching factories at
ArcelorMittal, one of the world’s largest steel companies, you vividly witness the industrial bustle that once drove the river’s decline. But you’re floating on water that’s cleaner than it’s been in a century. Nearing the Lake Erie mouth you’re more likely than ever to see people out dipping paddles and oars into the water, or even swimming. “Back in the ‘70s there were just motorboats and people partying and drinking. Now it’s the opposite,” says Hudak. Canoe and kayak registrations statewide doubled in a decade from 50,000 to over 100,000. A citizens group, Friends of the Crooked River, rejoiced when
two dams were demolished along the Cuyahoga’s length. The river had nine dams choking its 100-mile course until 10 years ago. Now four have been bypassed or pulled down, replacing brackish water with healthy, oxygenated flow and clearing the way for fish—and paddlers. All but two remaining dams are now slated for removal. Friends of the Crooked River is turning the Cuyahoga into a state
water trail, and publicizing the watercourse’s turnaround from a symbol of shame, to one of pride. In the words of spokesperson Elaine Marsh, “It’s becoming a real river again.” —TS
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