Copper, water and rock from Cuyahoga River, bits of broken glass collected during a river cleanup.

I grew up near the Cuyahoga River in Ohio. By 1960 the river was very polluted from the dumping of industrial waste. In 1969, the oil and debris caused the river to catch on fire. This gained national attention and directly contributed to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Clean Water Act. Decades of cleanup transformed the Cuyahoga into a cleaner ecosystem that now supports fish and wildlife. In 1974 it was designated as a National Recreation Area and in 2000 it was redesignated as the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.