BUFFALO, N.Y. — The redevelopment of the waterfront never would have been possible without the cleanup of the harbor and Buffalo River.
Though shipping and steel helped build the city and nation, both left an environmental catastrophe behind.
“We had the Great Lakes right next door and we are a chief hydropower with Niagara Falls, and we had the railroad," said Jill Jedlicka, executive director of Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper. "Those are the pieces that made Buffalo almost an economic powerhouse, one of the largest economies in the world because of all these natural and built assets that came together here in Buffalo. But the more economically prosperous Buffalo became, the more polluted and damaged our environment became."
