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Stephanie Patrick
Minzi Su
POS 250
10 April 2022
Case Study:

Environment Ethics in Public Policy–We’re Still Burning

As Earth Day near approaches, environmental problems that have been plaguing this

country for decades are being brought to the forefront in the media and in politics. Earth Day

began a bit over fifty years ago in April of 1970 and now we celebrate the Earth and bring forth

talks about environmental justice annually on April 22. One such topic that has been

reintroduced is river and general water pollution. In 2020, 51 years after the last burn, the

Cuyahoga River in Ohio burned again just six months after finally being declared safe for food

production after that half century hiatus. The river’s pollution and subsequent health issues were

a major push that led to some of the United States’s most prominent environmental protection

and health agencies and discussions.

The Cuyahoga River is a river that flows into Lake Erie, the main lake that provides

water to the city of Cleveland, Ohio. The river had major pollution issues between the years of

1868 and 1969 when the river actually caught fire eleven times. When the river caught fire in

1969, the newly appointed mayor of Cleveland, Carl Stokes, was determined to clean up the river

and advocate for water conservation. The river was so polluted that one article in Times

magazine described it as “oozing rather than flowing” and that if a person were to fall into it,

they wouldn’t drown, but instead would decay (as cited in Siler, et. al, 2021). After the press of

the article and subsequent publications about the river’s pollution, the picture of a fire on that

very river seventeen years prior in 1952, and a press conference done by Stokes on the bank of

the river, America was coming to the realization that pollution was an issue that needed to be
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addressed. A massive oil spill that sent at least 21,000 gallons of crude oil off the coast of Santa

Barbara, California also in 1969, spurred more talks within the country about environmental

preservation (Mai-Duc, 2015). President Richard Nixon dedicated a third of his presidential

address to the environmental crisis and later that year, Stokes petitioned the Senate with health

and wellness concerns due to pollution.

In response to the fire on the Cuyahoga River, the oil spill off Santa Barbara’s coast, and

increasing concerns about air pollution in major US cities, on April 22, 1970 the Wisconsin

senator Gaylord Nelson organized a massive protest of 20 million Americans (nearly 10 percent

of the population at the time) on college campuses nationwide to help spread awareness of

multiple environmental issues (Siler, et. al, 2021). The day was later rebranded “Earth Day” and

the same issues Nelson brought awareness to are still being contested in Congress today. The

response to that protest was Nixon’s creation of the Environmental Protection Agency which is

still in operation today.

The problems that America has run into since the 1960s and 70s are still prevalent today

and some might say more so since climate change talks have been added to the discussion.

America is still burning; 51 years after the last river fire on the Cuyahoga River a new fire

burned on the same Ohio river. The problem has arisen as to how much America’s people,

business, and most importantly America’s government has been actually doing to prevent

ongoing environmental disasters. The answer isn’t as straightforward since each president has

had different views on the environment. For example, President Nixon introduced the EPA and

petitioned for a change, President Trump restricted the ability for state governments to regulate

their own waters (Siler et. al, 2021), President Obama proposed a reduction in carbon dioxide

emissions in the Climate Action Plan (National Archives and Records Administration, 2017),
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and President George W. Bush signed bipartisan legislation that called for cleanup of brownfields

(National Archives and Records Administration, 2004). Today, however, America's rivers are

still burning.

John Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) describes the policy process in three

parts: problems, policy, and politics. While each can run independently of the other, Kingdon

asserts that each must be intertwined to create the perfect window of opportunity for a policy to

be instituted. In this case, the problem is ongoing environmental justice problems–like the

continued burning of rivers and oil spills throughout American waters. To converge the problem

with politics and policy, there have been obstacles. For example, the politics have varied greatly

over the years with each president’s campaign focused on a different aspect and some denying

the problem altogether. The policy has only occurred successfully when a president and Congress

has agreed on the problem and solution.

Going forward and with climate change accelerating, the MSF will need to be utilized for

any policy to be enacted. Each president has a different agenda, each year comes with new

problems in environmental justice, and America’s history of pollution is returning in force with

the relaxation of previous legislation. To combat environmental changes, Congress and the

president need to meet in the middle to prevent America from burning any further and to allow

for previous environmental legislation to continue to have effect.

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References

Mai-Duc, C. (2015, May 21). The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that changed oil and gas

exploration forever. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-santa-barbara-oil-spill-1969-20150520-ht

mlstory.html

National Archives and Records Administration. (2004, July). Fact Sheet: Key Bush

Environmental Accomplishments. National Archives and Records Administration.

Retrieved April 10, 2022, from

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/07/20040714-2.html#:

~:text=Fulfilling%20a%20commitment%20he%20made,create%20jobs%2C%20and%20

revitalize%20communities.

National Archives and Records Administration. (2017, January 18). A historic commitment to

protecting the environment and addressing the impacts of climate change. National

Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-record/climate

Siler, W., Vermillion, S., Pennington, E., Rellihan, K., & Hanson, M. (2021, June 27). 51

years later, the Cuyahoga River Burns again. Outside Online. Retrieved April 10, 2022,

from

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/cuyahoga-river-fire-2020

-1969/