Stanley Spisiak

He spent a year in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) then worked at the Buffalo Museum of Science where he learned the art of gemology.

With a small loan from a bank he established his jewelry store on Buffalo’s East Side, Kaisertown, where he operated successfully for nearly 40 years.

After serving in the Civil Air Patrol during World War II, he intensified his efforts to bring attention to the hazardous wastes and contaminants being dumped in the waters of the Niagara Frontier.

He eventually attracted the attention of the local news media who began to report on his campaign to protect the wildlife and the environment.

Kennedy assigned one of his “Boiler Room Girls”, Mary Jo Kopechne to assist Spisiak whenever he was in Washington to do research.

[7] In 1965, in testimony before the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, he criticized New York State officials failing to take action against these businesses.

Over the next few years, the Corps of Engineers embarked on an ambitious program to build "Confined Disposal Facilities" throughout the Great Lakes to safely contain polluted sediment dredged from waterways.

[9] The previous month Spisiak had testified in Washington, D.C. at a hearing held by a US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Natural Resources and Power.

There he made several recommendations including Federal legislation to stop the discharge of toxic and deadly materials into any stream, body of water or municipal sewage lines at their source, publish the names of manufactures who refuse to cooperate and to imprison offenders convicted of bribes or other acts which caused their polluting activities to be overlooked.

On January 24, 1968 an oil slick on the river caught fire and flames nearly 30 feet high destroyed much of the substructure of a nearby bridge.