Editorial: Jacksonville needs to fix its dirty little problem
Our view
Back the 1960s, Jacksonville dumped 50 million gallons of raw sewage into the river – every day. The industrial waste was even worse.
The St. Johns River had a national reputation as a polluted river. Gov. Claude Kirk commented: “If you fall in the St. Johns, you’ll die of pollution before you drown.”
Anyone swimming in the river downtown was at risk of catching one of 27 communicable diseases, according to the health department. Not that anyone swam in the river.
Hans Tanzler, mayor of the newly consolidated city of Jacksonville, vowed to clean it up. He said it would cost $90 million to build treatment plants and the infrastructure to go with it.