zlacker

The Thames wasn’t cleaned up until a bunch of rich people fell off a pleasure cruise and most of them died before they could swim to shore. Not from drowning, but exposure to the water.

See also the Cuyahoga catching on fire. Water burning is quite a poster child.

>>hinkle+(OP)
Do you have more details on this? I have never heard of it.

>>limbic+K3
I believe they are referring to the 1878 passenger steamer the "princess Alice", where > "In 1878 the passenger steamer Princess Alice sank right at the spot where the sewers released their waste into the Thames. Many survivors of the initial collision died after ingesting the polluted water." https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/pollution-river-thames-...

It is worth noting that this probably had more to do with the awful state of the city sewage system, so the water was well known to be contaminated. Luckily we've improved somewhat with sewage (I think).

Although anecdotally I've had a local lake closed for weeks at least due to toxic red algae blooms related to run off from farms (I believe it's fertilizer runoff that's attributed to these blooms)