Hartig writes in his book Burning River, “Most citizens accepted the fires as part of the industrial operations that brought jobs to the area.” (When our rivers caught fire) Hatrig also tells a very personal story in his book about how they never stored anything of value in the basement because the sewage from the river backed up in the basement. Reading about this is hard and imagining is almost like trying to relieve a nightmare. It’s depressing that people thought this was normal. It was normal for sewage from the river to flood the basement; it was normal to look at the river and see an oily covering on top; not to be able to swim or fish. It really is upsetting. However finally after making people, politicians and businesses aware he Nixon signed the 1972 Clean Water Act. Though swimming the rivers might still be ill advised, it can be done without serious …show more content…
I have seen clean-up crews on boats trying to skim Barren on multiple occasions. Warren County is a certified clean county which is funny to me but compared to some of the places I have been it’s a clean county. Every week prisoners in the detention center pick up trash along the city streets. I think that the city of Bowling Green is very aware and committed because of the Barren River. I do believe that if it had not been for the river being so polluted that the city effort would not be as great. Western Kentucky university campuses do great job with actively recycling and pollution awareness among all if not most of their campuses. All the campuses in Bowling Green have set policies/procedures and very high standards. Owensboro on the other hand is lacking a bit, Bowling Green is more developed so I expect Owensboro to catch up in about five years. As for me and my house, we do recycle and we do reuse a lot, it might be to save money as well but hey, why not save the environment and your money? My husband recycles for his job too. I took a Biology class and our class project was to recycle for a month, record findings and present a human failure to protect the environment. I believe that as a people we are becoming more