Why the Thames? Why a template?

 

For the selection of a historical clean-up success story – why the River Thames? Why not Chernobyl, Love Canal, the SuperFund site next to my kids’ pre-school? Because the Thames has been a fundamental center of life to a thriving series of towns and one giant city for centuries. For those impacted by the Thames – it was centrally important – just like our environment is to all of us now. If many were careful with the river waste, a few upstream could still destroy it.

For centuries inhabitants of London dumped their trash into the River Thames. In the 1800′s the population swell and industrial revolution added up to too much trash, and the government came up with a plan to clean up the river. They were successful, and the resulting sewers, water reservoirs, and standards resulted in a stronger London and a river that is still source of pride, recreation, and business. 

 

Why study an old event  when we have a new problem to fix? Because their is somthing to be learned in that new event. It is clearly a prototype of today’s challenges. While history focuses on the 1858 Great Stink leading to cleanup, surely there is more to the story. While a summary points to one engineer, there is more to the story – how was he chosen, how big was the team?

 

First of all recognizing that we humans have tackled a truly complex problem like this one before, where the solution is a mix of technology, policy, and influence,  will be inspirational, probably even directional. There are many other environmental clean-up stories which led to a combination of economic growth in concert with care for the land, water, and air — but the River Thames is a good beginning.

In this blog, I will share more about the plans and projects for cleaning up the River Thames with the goal to map this success story with our effort to clean up our atmosphere.