Save our river -- from ourselves!

In the PBS documentary The Return of the Cuyahoga, we see a lot of positive actions all along the river, as citizens work to restore it to health. The film takes on the old "mistake by the lake" designation along with the metaphor of the burning river to show the progress that has been made on restoring the Cuyahoga river to health.

From vacuuming the surface of the shipping lanes to banning factories from dumping waste to restoring the headlands and the tributaries, the documentary is full of determined NE Ohioans working to bring a river back from the dead.

There are still some unsolved problems, including the Gorge dam in the Falls, still the object of conflict between an energy company and environmentalists. And the river, downstream of Akron, still receives human and industrial waste when rain and run-off water overwhelm the Akron combined sewers.

Note that this is the same sewer system that our mayor wants to sell to a private company to run. Buyer beware! As for Akronites, do we really want to continue sending everything we flush into the Cuyahoga? Or are we going to continue to pretend once it leaves the bowl it's not our problem?

If you missed the documentary, go here to order the DVD from PBS and visit the documentary's web site. Meanwhile, here's a clip: