Canals, Rivers and Lakes

Paris and Amsterdam's rivers and canals are beautiful, picturesque, and post WWII they were increasing viewed in romantic terms. Yet as I walked along their banks I could not help recall that what I saw was so sanitized from how they were 150-300years ago. Even as little as 100 years ago the canals of Amsterdam, the rivers of Paris and the canals of Venice we're  smelly, dirty sewers full of rotting dead animals and other human refuse. The wealthy of Amsterdam left town during the summer heat due to the stench of the canals. In Paris, the grand houses were some distance from the river so that the smells of a polluted river did not fill their homes. 

Polluted waterfronts were not a European issue only. Four decades ago the Toronto Harbor Front, Baltimore's Inner Harbor, the Hudson River in NYC were smelly and polluted.  Rivers in most major cities across North America were not the places of choice  for romantic and leisure strolls or where the wealthy sought to locate their homes.

I remember in the 70s the smells of the Toronto waterfront and seeing garbage filling the Hudson River and the images of the Cayuhoga River in Cleveland on fire.  I remember being in LA in December when the city was covered in a thick blanket of smog for as many as five days at a time.  Thank goodness for environmental activists who advocated for better cities in which to live and socialize. We are heirs of their work, with fresher air to fill our longs, and with cleaner and more pleasing waterways to enjoy with each other.  Let's not relax our standards, otherwise, the polluted  waterways of yesteryear will  return.