Water on Fire Imagine taking a stroll around a lake when suddenly a blaze of red yellow and blue meets your eyes. Well Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River which flows into Lake Erie was so polluted with chemicals that on June 22 1969 it actually caught fire. People were so shocked it started the environmental movement. Since then there’s been a massive cleanup all over the country and many of America’s lakes and rivers are looking much better. Fish species that had disappeared from the Cuyahoga and Lake Erie are returning.