John Fabian knows a thing or two about Northeast Ohio’s rivers. Born and raised in Ohio, he has spent the last three decades studying these waterways. Since then, it’s gone from a relatively unknown waterway for fly-fishing to a regional hotspot stocked with steelhead and trophy fish.
Although, It wasn’t always this way. Cleveland had one of the most polluted waterways in the country. The Cuyahoga River was littered with pollution and unregulated industry, often dumping waste in the river. This caused the river to catch fire over thirteen times.
To no one’s surprise, it caught fire again in 1969, but this time it sparked an environmental movement that prompted President Richard Nixon to pass the Clean Water Act in 1972. Today, the rivers have been restored, but river stewards like John often fight to keep it this way.
