As the price of five dollars was reasonable, I decided to make the purchase without further thought.
Here's your answer.
The same thing that happened in the 19th century, "The Great Stink". The name is real and it describes an event from the past which would repeat if they started throwing waste again. The river would become so polluted that disease and contagion would begin to spread. In the 19th century, it was cholera. Now, nobody knows.
This a simile. This is because a simile uses like or as to compare two things. A metaphor doesn't use like or as, but it still compares things.
For the first part, distinction's root word would be distinct and the suffix is
-tion.
