On the recordJuly 31, 1996
Take clean water. The reason the Clean Water Act was initiated is because the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire, not once, but three times. After the third fire, people around the country started saying, ``Maybe we should do something about this.'' I respond to my friend from California that when the Clean Water Act was initiated, 80 percent of the rivers and streams in America were polluted. Now, some 25 years later, those numbers have almost reversed. Approximately 80 percent of the streams and rivers in America--you can swim in them and drink out of them. They are in pretty good shape. It is not perfect. We have a long way to go, but we have done pretty well.
Source
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