A river of fire may sound like the stuff of ancient legend.

But 50 years ago, on Oct. 9, 1969, that’s exactly what happened in Detroit. The Rouge River burst into flames over 50 feet high. It burned for hours near Zug Island just 1,000 feet away from the I-75 bridge — the result of pollution and neglect.

“When you have a river that burns, for crying out loud, you have troubles,” the Free Press editorial board wrote days after the calamity.

In the decades since, the Rouge River has seen a dramatic turnaround. Water quality has greatly improved, and consequently, the river's diverse native wildlife species have steadily returned.

But environmental policy under the Trump administration may jeopardize that progress, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in September that it is repealing regulations limiting which chemicals could be used near waterways. The agency also is eliminating some restrictions on fossil fuel pollution.

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The Rouge River was one of three major rivers — the Cuyahoga and Buffalo rivers being the others — that burned in the late 1960s in what is now known as the Rust Belt, igniting a push for progressive environmental policy under the Nixon administration.

The waterway's strategic location led to its exploitation and it being treated as a “working river used for industry and commerce,” rather than part of an ecosystem said John Hartig, author of “Burning Rivers,” one of the few books that chronicles the Rouge's fiery history.

Hartig highlighted several “tipping points” that contributed to the Rouge River’s decay and led to its eventual revival.

Detroit was the leading supplier of military goods in the U.S., supplying 10% of all military output during World War II. During this time, oil, heavy metals and many other contaminants were discharged into the Rogue in “unbelievable amounts,” Hartig said.

About 5.93 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Rouge and Detroit rivers each year from 1946 to 1948. It only takes 1 gallon of oil to contaminate 1 million gallons of water, Hartig said. That means the amount of oil dumped each year in that time frame contaminated 5.93 trillion gallons of water. Lake Erie's western basin holds 6.4 trillion gallons of water.

“Remember, we were the Arsenal of Democracy,” Hartig told the Free Press. “There were no environmental controls. Everything was geared around winning the war, but there was a cost to that.”

There were nearly instant repercussions following mass production in Detroit during World War II. About 11,000 ducks and geese died in the winter of 1948, according to Hartig’s book.

“Hunters collected the oil-soaked carcasses of waterfowl, threw them into their pickup trucks, drove them to the State Capitol in Lansing, and dumped them on the Capitol lawn in protest,” Hartig wrote.

That act of protest didn’t change much, and the fire of 1969 garnered little media attention, Hartig said, but did influence environmentally protective policy in the following years.

Although progress was sluggish, the health of the Rouge River began to improve following the fire, which was caused by sparks from a torch igniting oil-soaked debris. Regulations tightened what substances and in what amount could be discharged into the river.

“Oil is not being dumped anymore. There are strict limitations on oil discharge,” Hartig said. “Every once in a while, there is a small spill that occurs, but nothing compared to what it was in 1969 and 1948. It’s just amazing how much oil was coming out then — it’s dramatically less now.”

The last major Rouge River oil spill occurred in April 2002. A coalition of government agencies, including the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, reported that a total of 322,820 gallons of mixed diesel and waste lubricating oil were released during two discharges in the same week in the Rouge and Detroit rivers. It remains a mystery who was behind the spills.

For years, municipalities dumped raw sewage into the river, which led to waterborne illness, including a cholera outbreak so bad in 1834, it killed 7% of Detroit, Hartig wrote.

Because of the raw sewage in the Rouge River, the waterway lacked oxygen and a “putrid” smell emitted from it until the late 1980s, said Hartig.

“Carp were dying in the concrete channels. Can you imagine that? Carp is the most pollution tolerant of fish and it couldn’t live,” Hartig said.

The final “tipping point” the Rouge River endured before things really started to turn around happened in 1985 when a 23-year-old man fell into the river, swallowed water and died of Leptospirosis, or rat bite fever.

The Rouge revitalized

The Rouge’s positive turnaround was a result of government, citizen, corporate and nonprofit effort, Hartig said.

Friends of the Rouge, a nonprofit founded in 1986 with a mission to “restore, enhance and protect” the Rouge River, has hosted river cleanups and community education programs focused on improving the health of the watershed, said its executive director, Marie McCormick.

The group will be hosting the Rouge Burn Anniversary Celebration on Oct. 10, commemorating the river’s “remarkable recovery to the irreplaceable asset it is today,” McCormick said.

“It’s a reminder and a celebration that 50 years ago we were at a point in society where people just accepted that rivers had to be polluted in order to make progress,” she added. ”Now we have learned, in the past 50 years, that you can have both. You can have industry and you can have clean environment.”

The event will take place near the original source of the fire and will feature a boat tour of the river, a silent auction, an open bar with a special edition brew, live jazz entertainment and several speeches by authors and river experts.

Friends of the Rouge is offering two free tickets to the event for anyone with an original photo of the fire. As of now, there is only one photo known to be in existence.

How to minimize water pollution

Everyone has to play their part in order to continue the positive trend the Rouge River has recently experienced, Hartig said.

“The Rouge is an ecosystem, and we as humans are a part of that ecosystem,” he said. “What we do to the ecosystem, we do to ourselves.”

That kind of thinking must be in school curricula of all school systems in the Rouge River watershed and across the Great Lakes, Hartig said.

“We need to have strong environmental education that leads to strong stewardship and environmental ethics in the next generation,” added Hartig.

Friends of the Rouge is investing in the education of young Michiganders. The group is involved with dozens of schools in the watershed and hosts cleanup projects and other programs that the public is welcome to attend, McCormick said.

There are some things Hartig said almost anyone living in the watershed can do to minimize pollution, such as:

Don’t dump chemicals or waste into sewer grates;

Use appropriate, non-harmful fertilizer or no fertilizer at all;

Don’t use pesticides;

Plant trees, create a rain garden or backyard habitat for pollinators and birds;

If residing near water, don’t mow the lawn all the way to the edge — leave a buffer strip;

Use a rain barrel to catch stormwater;

Recycle and make sure trash gets where it should be.

Hartig stressed the importance of designing for environmental conservation.

“Government needs to provide guidance and incentives to build back green infrastructure to prevent strong water runoff and other issues associated with that,” he said, adding that 23% of surface in the Rouge River watershed is impervious.

“Ecologists would want that number to be less than 10%. We have so many people living in the watershed so it’s not realistic in the short term, but we need to be working toward that.”

Rivers have been revitalized across the Rust Belt, McCormick said.

“If the public becomes aware of the issues and progress continues to be made, the momentum will only increase,” McCormick said. “People in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Chicago rallied behind their rivers and realized rivers are a place to be celebrated and cared for.”

Hartig says the Rouge’s story is one of hope.

“Mother Nature is pretty forgiving," he said.

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Contact Omar Abdel-Baqui: 313-222-2514 or oabdel-baqui@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @omarabdelb