-
Toxic Mercury Remediation in the Ohio River Hampered by Complicated Cleanup
By Jeff Brooks-Gillies Mercury flows through industrial wastewater into the Ohio River, and damages young brains. But the multi-state agency tasked with keeping the waterway clean hasn’t tightened controls on this pollution because it doesn’t have the authority to do so. While coal-fired power plants, chemical manufacturers and other facilities along the Ohio River are…
-
Analysis of state contracts to plug orphaned wells reveals that cleanup costs might creep into the billions
By Mark Olalde Plugging the myriad orphaned oil and gas wells around Ohio costs, on average, more than $110,000 per well, according to a new analysis of Department of Natural Resources data. The research was pulled from contracts the state awarded in 2019 by the ARO Working Group, a network that studies the decommissioning of…
-
Toxic Discharge Data Shows Where Pollutants Leach into the Ohio River, but Enforcement Remains an Issue (With Interactive Map)
By Bonnie Jean Feldkamp All Tim Guilfoile wants to do is fish. Before his retirement, he had two careers: one in business and one in water quality activism. Now, he serves as the director of marketing and communications for Northern Kentucky Fly Fishers. “We fly fish for bass, blue gill, striped bass and others. Not…
-
Ohio River rises: The minds behind Louisville’s riverfront revival
By Ryan Van Velzer In Louisville, Kentucky, the Ohio River has something of an image problem. It seems like everything imaginable has ended up in the river at one time or another. There are the usual suspects like plastic bottles, Styrofoam coolers and tires. There are the byproducts of cities and industries: sewage, landfill juice…
-
Bipartisan Group of Representatives Introduce Bill After Eye on Ohio Investigation into Property Tax Loophole
This story was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. Ohio lawmakers reached across the aisle to introduce a new bill that would close a property tax loophole on commercial property sales in the state. Reps. Mike Skindell (D-13) and Doug Green (R-66) co-sponsored HB449 in late December. The proposed law…
-
Behind 'Dark Waters'- the lasting legacy of C8 contamination in the Ohio River Watershed
By Taylor Sisk PARKERSBURG, W. Va. – Tommy Joyce is no cinephile. The last movie he saw in a theater was the remake of “True Grit” nearly a decade ago. “I’d rather watch squirrels run in the woods” than sit through most of what appears on the big screen, he said. But there’s a film…
-
Rising waters: Aging levees, climate change and the challenge to hold back the Ohio River
By Liam Niemeyer When 78-year-old Jim Casto looks at the towering floodwalls that line downtown Huntington, West Virginia, he sees a dark history of generations past. The longtime journalist and local historian is short in stature, yet tall in neighborhood tales. On Casto’s hand shines a solid gold ring, signifying his more than 40 years…
-
Cincinnati Councilmember Introduces Motion to Study Racial Disparity in Traffic Stops in Response to Eye on Ohio/Enquirer Story
On Friday, Cincinnati City Councilmember Jeff Pastor introduced a motion to examine police practices after an investigation by the Ohio Center for Investigative Journalism, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and Stanford University’s Big Local News program found that blacks and black neighborhoods were more likely to be traffic stop targets. Read the full story on the Cincinnati…
-
Ohio River community bands together to slow runoff and add greenspace
The city of Newport, Kentucky, is shaped on its north and west borders by the Ohio and Licking rivers. And while Newport hosts entertainment venues and a bourbon distillery bolstered by views of Cincinnati’s skyline, its geography and history also create challenges. As a Rust Belt town with a steel mill and a lead smelting…
-
How Have Deregulation and Extra Fees Affected Your Energy Bill?
This calculator provides cost and/or savings estimates of how much money you may have paid (or saved) each month following retail electric deregulation. It’s based on data shared with Eye on Ohio and the Energy News Network from a study that looked at how extra fees and more competition have impacted utility bills. (Note, however,…