GUEST COLUMN
Environmental Issues:
A PERSPECTIVE AND A CONCERN By: Alan Hahn The Cuyahoga River in Ohio was, for many, the poster child for today’s environmental movement. From at least the 1930s through 1960s, The Cuyahoga River was used as a dumping ground for industrial discharges. The river was worse than dead; it actually caught on fire several times. The worst occasion occurred in 1952 when fires on the river caused more than $1 million in damages. This was the river that Time magazine said, “oozes rather than flows.” Today, the Cuyahoga River is alive with more than 60 species of fish. There are also beavers and it is a nesting area for Bald Eagles and Blue Herons. This river is one of several examples of the progress we have made in the United States in being proper stewards of our environment. So, with significant progress in cleaning up “past environmental sins,” what are today’s
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PARTNERS Fall 2013
pressing environmental issues? More importantly, where is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) going to focus their enforcement efforts in the coming years? To answer this, we need look no further than the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, recently released National Environmental Enforcement Initiatives