When the great power projects were installed in the western United States, the impounded water was usually converted into a recreation area. Hoover Dam forming Lake Mead gave us the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Glen Canyon Dam forming Lake Powell became the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and so on. Yet the great dams that were built on the Ohio River, Upper Mississippi River, and other navigable rivers of the eastern and central United States were not accompanied by official recognition of their recreational potential, even though they are the habitat of game fish and migratory birds, have interesting plant and animal communities, and could be as much a source of enjoyment for city residents as any body of water anywhere.

Moreover, these rivers are easily accessible to urban dwellers. New Yorkers have ready access to the East River, the Harlem, and the Hudson, as do Pittsburghers to the Ohio River, the Monongahela, and the Allegheny; Akronites to the Cuyahoga River; Bostonians to the Charles River; and any number of other cities located on large and small waterways. A group of New Yorkers recently made a 120-mile canoe trip on the waterways of New York and never lost sight of the city. True, they encountered a good many problems including oil slicks that fouled some of their equipment and pilfering at piers where they stopped along the way, but they proved that it is possible to take a 120-mile canoe trip without leaving the environs of New York City.

Most of the great rivers of the United States that run through large cities have flood control and navigational aids that make the rivers safe to use. In essence, these man-made alterations to the river create a series of oblong lakes with little current. If one drives from Pittsburgh south toward Steubenville, Ohio, Huntington, W.Va., and Cincinnati, Ohio, one is struck by the fact that the many cities, towns, and villages do not front on or look toward the river, but have turned their backs and left the river abandoned on the other side of the tracks.

The Ohio River is a peculiar one formed by the drainage of the glacier, and its walls are relatively steep, its flood plains relatively narrow, and in the cities, towns, and villages of the Ohio River Valley there are stretches of river bank that are wild and scenic, but little used. Until recently, the pollution and acid content of the Ohio made it virtually impossible to engage in any form of water sports, and to swim was to expose oneself to the dangers of waterborne diseases. In 1949, the seven states bordering the Ohio River entered into a compact to clean up the river and there has been considerable progress. The result is a revitalizing of the area with marinas and pleasure boats and the development of other services associated with the life of the river. But swimming and water contact sports are still not recommended.

But the Ohio effort notwithstanding, the waterways in most of our cities are wasted resources. A beautiful river runs through the resort town of Estes Park, Colorado, but it is not visible from the town. The city faces a main street, while the river runs through the back of the town, out of the way and encased in concrete. Engineering skills have made the river easy to cross but it cannot be used by residents or visitors. The exception is the tenant in a back room of one of the enterprising hotels that face the street and back onto the river. These advertise "Fishing from your own back porch," and the fish are trout! The commercial potential of the river has not been developed as it could be if the shore were a city park, a place for people to meet, to stroll, and to enjoy, as well as to fish.

Such development has taken place on the Ohio River near Empire, Ohio. When the Cumberland lock and dam were installed, the river backed up into Yellow Creek, a little stream between Toronto and Wellesville, Ohio, deepening the creek and creating an environment favorable for a marina. So far, it remains inadequately developed but it provides facilities for a number of boats and for a recreational area on the stretch of the Ohio River that is accessible to many people.

Excursion boats once operated between cities located on rivers and amusement parks at sites some distance up or down stream, such as Rock Spring Park near Chester, West Virginia. In Pittsburgh today an excursion boat carries passengers onto the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. The boat is a floating nightclub whose patrons can select from among several dance floors featuring different styles of music, and for the 3-hour trip they remain within sight of the city and can view its skyline from a new perspective. The University of Minnesota maintains a link with the past with a showboat that takes theatrical productions to river towns on the Upper Mississippi. The University acquired a river packet, the General John Newton, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, rebuilt the superstructure in the form of a small theater, and launched its career as part of Minnesota's centennial celebration.

There is no doubt that a thriving recreation industry could be developed on most rivers of the United States, and such development would be most appropriate, not to say profitable, at places where the river runs through heavily populated areas. The impoundment of the rivers for flood control and for navigational purposes and the utilization of the rivers for municipal water supplies are in no way incompatible with the use of the rivers for recreation. This is not to suggest that all rivers should be impounded and made into lakes, for obviously many wild and scenic rivers should be preserved precisely as they now are.

If the rivers in our cities were clean, if the water were potable, and if the water had its natural biological, physical, and chemical properties restored, how could they be used? Obviously, the rivers could be used for swimming, for fishing, and for water skiing, and they could be the starting point for hunting trips, for canoe rides, and for excursion boats and showboats. A few cities already have restaurants floating on barges in their rivers.

But much of the waterfront of many of our large cities is in a rundown industrial area. The city of Pittsburgh held an exposition in the 1880s and the exposition building sat on the bank of the Allegheny River until after World War II. In 1940, a visitor seeking the remains of Fort Pitt's blockhouse was directed to a hole in the ground that was a repository for tin cans and waste paper.

Today, Fort Pitt in the Triangle Park development demonstrates what a little civic pride can do. The old exposition building is gone too, but the possibilities for development of stretches of the Monongahela, the Allegheny, and the Ohio Rivers still escape the riverfront real estate developers and others interested in introducing new business into the area.

The City of San Antonio, Texas, agonized over the problem of the San Antonio River as it passes through the downtown section of the city, and proposals included covering it with a street as an aid to flood control and sewage disposal. Happily, the more rational views of civic leaders, businessmen, landowners, and real estate developers prevailed and today the 3.5-mile stretch of river has gained national attention as the Paseo del Rio. It is a charming development of shops, restaurants, promenades, and parks that not only enhance the beauty of the city but also provide a recreational area for residents and visitors. Flood control, planning, zoning, business enterprise, and civic pride made it possible and it has become a model for urban development of waterfront property. The long-range plans for San Antonio include expansion of this concept on the river.

The number and kinds of activities that can be developed on a river recreational area are almost unlimited and will be the basis for a whole new industry centered around marinas, boats, sporting goods stores, restaurants, pleasure trips, and second-home sites. For those less energetically inclined, the rivers will once again provide excellent opportunities for observing nature and enjoying the scenery of the countryside. The recreational development of the rivers in the cities will require some precise and stringent regulations relating to sewage and solid waste disposal, as well as methods of enforcing such regulations. Some limitations of power boats and water skiing might have to be imposed, particularly at narrow stretches of the river, and regulations that would promote the harmonious intermingling of commercial and recreational traffic on the river would undoubtedly be required. In some areas, particularly at locks, appropriate regulations are in force and aids to navigation and law enforcement on the nation's waterways are provided by the U.S. Coast Guard.

It is interesting to speculate on recreational areas for cities and to consider that most of the large cities of the United States have many miles of riverfront and hundreds of acres of river. Much of this acreage is in public ownership and much of it is available for immediate use and could be developed for recreational purposes. The present practice of river use is based on single factor cost-benefit ratios, where the cost of cleaning up the river is balanced against costs that are related in terms of reducing costs of water treatment. If the sewage water could be cycled so that its nutrients were utilized for the benefit of the cities and the surrounding agricultural communities, what benefits would be derived? If the efficiency of industrial processes is considered, the cost-benefit ratio can be analyzed from the engineering as well as the environmental point of view. Significant quantities of valuable materials are dumped into our waterways and their recovery is extremely difficult, but these materials could be salvaged at the source with relative ease. The tons of acids from heavy industry that enter our rivers and the quantities of valuable elements that arrive via industrial sewers destabilize or destroy the aquatic ecosystem, deprive man of the use of the rivers except for transportation purposes, and may seriously affect the public's health. Viewed economically, what is the market price of one million pounds of sulfuric acid that is dumped into an eastern river daily? What would be the savings if the acid was recovered for further use? To what extent do these contaminants alter the cost-benefit ratio of river development?

If one figured the cost-benefit ratio of using the Cuyahoga River as an open sewer as against using it as a scenic recreational area, one might discover that the ratio is not overwhelmingly in favor of industry and an open sewer. Only when the cost-benefit ratio is calculated on single uses does the open sewer concept appear to have merit and only then because the river itself is deemed to have no value. For instance, the comparative cost between allowing industrial wastes to enter the river or building industrial water treatment plants is clearly in favor of the former. But if the cost of treating the municipal water supply—essential when the water is industrially polluted—the balance moves in the other direction. If the cost of illness and disease, the value of wildlife, and the value of hard cash-on-the-barrel recreational potential is included in the equation, the cost-benefit ratio tips further away from the use of the river as an industrial and municipal sewer.

When the interests of the total ecological community are ignored in favor of some of its components, the cost-benefit ratio for the despoliation of the environment is in favor of a single or several individual users. In the economics of the new environment it will be necessary to have an accounting sheet with more entries than the cost of industrial water treatment, the cost of sewage disposal, and the cost of municipal water treatment. Future balance sheets will have to include the myriad complex but accountable factors of fish and wildlife, game, recreational facilities, the purchase of boats, the servicing of boats, the building of resort communities, the building of second-homes, the increased demand for consumer goods, and the products of industry that are necessary in order for our economy to grow, as well as a beautiful environment that enhances the healthful life of man.

In short, if the rivers are restored to their best biological quality, it should be possible to devise cost-benefit ratios for the use of the rivers for many purposes. Under these circumstances, the value of the living rivers as recreational areas, for wildlife production, and for hunting, fishing, swimming, and other water sports will outweigh their single purpose value as channels for industrial and municipal wastes. Clean rivers will serve the larger community and continue to serve the industrial community as transportation routes and sources of the bulk chemical, H₂0, providing that pollutants are removed before the effluent is returned to the river. The marvelous characteristic of water is that it can be reclaimed and reused and can serve all of the purposes of sustaining basic life processes and technology as well. For too long we have considered water a cheap, expendable bulk chemical that by some miracle would process and purify itself. Perhaps there was a time, when there were loss pollutants and lower concentrations of biodegradable materials being pumped into the rivers, when natural processes could rectify the damage caused by man. But today, we have so altered the biota and the biological properties of the waterways that natural processes can no longer rectify man's abuses.

The river as an unexplored, undeveloped resource for city recreation is second to none in its potential, and yet we search for space in which to locate recreational facilities in the city while ignoring the most obvious. To develop city recreational facilities centered on the river is not to deny the merits of the wild scenic river. The scenic river as part of an unspoiled, untrammeled, unexploited area of the countryside should be preserved and developed for its own sake. The river in the city, however, can be as great a resource of delight as any lake or other body of water that people drive hundreds of miles to admire and to use.