Contact: Anne Perry Moore, 218-302-6605
St. Paul, Minn. — The fire barely made the next day’s news. After all, Ohio’s Cuyahoga River had caught fire 10 times during the previous 100 years. Direct discharges from industrial and wastewater plants, among others, regularly fouled the water with highly flammable contaminants and inadequately treated wastes.
But in June 1969, the mood of the country was different. Just mere months before America’s first Earth Day, a better-educated nation recognized this dramatic example of water pollution had ramifications far beyond a minor news story.
The fire literally ignited the country’s imagination and catapulted a 30-minute flare-up into an icon of environmental protection. Congress soon passed the ambitious Clean Water Act to reduce pollution and restore the integrity of U.S. waterways. Governmental units at all levels followed suit, creating regulatory agencies and standards to address threats to drinking water, wetlands, recreational areas, and other resources highly valued for their multiple beneficial uses.
Although no American rivers have caught fire since that ominous June day, 1969-era contaminants, and their potential to pollute water resources, have multiplied and continue to compromise our environment despite the expectations — and successful results — of the act.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) toxicologist Laura Solem said, “Existing water-borne pollutants are no less dramatic, and potentially more harmful, to our environment. The need to protect our water resources is even more important today than in 1969.”
Consider the chemical, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries’ growth since the Clean Water Act was enacted:
- Most of the 50 million chemicals known today were created during the past 40 years.
- Industry introduces 500 new chemicals each year.
- New uses are discovered for old chemicals (such as when a pharmaceutical drug prescribed for one health condition is found to benefit patients with a different condition).
Plus, “The act has yet to achieve all of its stated goals,” said Glenn Skuta, Water Monitoring Section Manager of the MPCA’s Environmental Analysis and Outcomes Division.
Here are four examples of problems still affecting our water resources:
- Nitrogen levels continue to rise. Most often introduced to our waterways through agricultural runoff or sewage, nitrogen can overstimulate aquatic plant growth and algal levels.
- Climate change has many implications for clean water. Each of its signature indicators — extreme temperatures, rain events and droughts and shorter and warmer winters — add new stressors.
- “Emerging chemicals,” or those which humans are using in industry, agriculture, personal care and household products, are now being added to the suite of chemicals scientists are testing for. One example is the pesticide toxaphene, which is not being applied in the local watershed, but is showing up in Lake Superior water quality analyses. Chemical byproducts, including endocrine-active compounds, also end up in our water and may have environmental and human health impacts.
- The increasing number of invasive plant and animal species continue to spread to more of our waters and watersheds, compromising the natural ecosystems and water quality and beneficial uses.
Solem sums up the country’s water-quality evolution this way: “Citizens recognized in 1969 that the Cuyahoga River, and by extension all of America’s waters, could not handle the volume of pollution our pipes were dumping into them. Now, it’s often the pollution we can’t see that we have to be concerned about.”
So, we’ll continue to look at the chemicals we humans are using, the possible human and environmental exposure and related toxicity studies, and take action when those levels exceed what we, or the environment, can safely handle. And remain vigilant to new threats whether they’re ignitable or not.
