Tar Creek Superfund site is a United States Superfund site, declared in 1983
I cannot find an exact date, but it is possible this story line is referencing Tar Creek.
Edit: nope, it probably is this in Chicago
Dow Plant Pollutes River, EPA Says
March 31, 1983
CHICAGO
– Potentially dangerous levels of dioxin are being released into Michigan’s Tittabawassee River in waste water from a Dow Chemical Co. plant, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded in a preliminary report released yesterday.
“This is going to become the ticking bomb for human beings if it is accumulated over years and years,” EPA Region 5 Administrator Valdas Adamkus told a news conference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_Creek_Superfund_site
I cannot find an exact date, but it is possible this story line is referencing Tar Creek.
Edit: nope, it probably is this in Chicago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/04/01/dow-plant-pollutes-river-epa-says/774c1c59-b449-429d-92a4-8e86bcbd090d/
I have to drive through it whenever I drive south. There aren’t enough cabin air filters in the world…