Confluence.

The author reflects on the environmental conditions of the river communities in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He states that the rivers were the back alleys of big industrial plants for so long that people moved as far from the riverbanks as they could. He adds that despite the improvement of water quality in the area in the late 1970s and 1980s with the closing of steel mills, the city still faces problems when it rains hard since its sewer pipes cannot hold both waste and storm water.