Cleveland

Environment

Cleveland's most vital natural resource is Lake Erie, the fourth-largest lake in the United States and the twelfth-largest lake in the world. It is 388 kilometers (241 miles) wide and contains 500 trillion liters (132 trillion gallons) of water. The cities that grew up around Lake Erie—Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Buffalo, New York—all spewed pollutants into Lake Erie from the early 1900s. In the late 1800s, vast deposits of salt were discovered beneath the lake, and the commercial enterprises continue to extract salt from mines about two-and-a-half kilometers (one-and-a-half miles) beneath the surface of Lake Erie. In 1970, pollution was so heavy that the governor of Ohio suspended fishing on Lake Erie because of mercury contamination of fish. Since then, environmental laws and downturn in industrial activity along the river have resulted in improved health of the river and Lake Erie ecosystems. In the 1990s, fishing was a favorite pastime. Fishers on Lake Erie catch as many fish as fishers on the other four Great Lakes combined.

The Cuyahoga River was one of the most polluted rivers in the country and actually burned in 1952, when a huge fire caused $1.5 million in damage, and again in 1969. The Cuyahoga River fire of June 22, 1969, elicited national headlines and created a national image of Cleveland as a polluted industrial wasteland.