On June 22 , 1969 , the Cuyahoga River captivate fire . But it was n’t the first fourth dimension the waterway near Cleveland , Ohio , burned . The river was so polluted that industrial waste and oil - soaked rubble atop its surface caught blast so on a regular basis , this particularly blaze did n’t even raise supercilium among local anesthetic . But it did get the attention of reporters at Time clip , who published exposure of the burning river and claim it was so polluted it " oozes rather than flows . "
Time ’s story on the burning Cuyahoga River spark outrage among Americans , and make for national attention to the country ’s need to cleanse up its waterways and protect the environment . It finally aid contribute to changes like the Clean Water Act and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement .
The Cuyahoga clause was even instrumental in President Richard Nixon shape theEnvironmental Protection Agency(EPA ) in 1970.Its mission then — and now — is to " protect human health by safeguard the air we catch one’s breath , water we drink in and country on which we hold up . "
But now the EPA face an uncertain futurity with the menace of massive budget cuts , minify in research funding and rollbacks of Obama - eraenvironmental regulation , include those to America ’s waterways , streams and wetland . Now , nearly 50 years after the EPA was created , there ’s serious lecture about decimating it .
So has the environmentimproved since the innovation of the EPA ? Between 1971 and 1977 the newly form agency hired freelance photographers to document problems for a serial titledDocumerica Project , and in 2011 the National Archives digitize more than 15,000 of the image . Take a facial expression at some here to see how the surroundings looked before the EPA stepped in to pick it up .
