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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…
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Ever hear of a nurdle? This new form of pollution could be coming to the Ohio River
By Julie Grant When the petrochemical plant being built by Shell Chemical Appalachia in Beaver County is complete, it’s anticipated to bring 600 jobs as well as spinoff industries. But some researchers and activists warn that it could also bring a new type of pollution to the Ohio River Valley — nurdles. First sightings of…
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Fighting pollution and apathy on the Lower Ohio
By Jeff Brooks-Gillies When Jason Flickner was a kid, he built a dam on the creek behind his grandparents’ house causing it to flood a neighbor’s basement. When he tells the story now — at 45 and living in the same house — he says his dam was a violation of the federal Clean Water…
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What the petrochemical buildout along the Ohio River means for regional communities and beyond
By Sharon Kelly The R.E. Burger coal-fired power plant’s final day ended, appropriately enough, in a cloud of black smoke and dust. From 1944 to 2011, the plant generated power, fumes and ash in the Ohio River Valley. It was one of dozens of coal and steel plants dotting the banks of the river, which…
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360-degree video interactive: A journey to revitalization on an Ohio River tributary
By Jeffrey Boggess, Ariel Cifala, Bijan Fandey, Shae McClain and Mark Schoenster The Cheat River courses through one of the largest undammed watersheds in the eastern United States. The river forms from tributaries high in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia and flows northward to meet with the Monongahela River just before crossing into…
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One Ohio River town that’s using outdoor recreation to boost its economy
By Julie Grant Every September, tourists flock to historic Marietta, along the banks of the Ohio River, for a celebration that harkens back to the Ohio Valley’s early days. The 44th annual Ohio River Sternwheel Festival held this year attracted an estimated 30,000 visitors to the small southeastern Ohio city. The streets buzzed with activity…
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‘That’s vinegar’: The Ohio River’s history of contamination and progress made
By April Johnston In 1958, researchers from the University of Louisville and the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission gathered at a lock on the Monongahela River for routine collecting, counting and comparing of fish species. At the time, the best way to accomplish this was what’s called lock chamber sampling, or filling a 350-by-56-foot…
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The water is cleaner but the politics are messier: A look back at the Clean Water Act movement after 50 years
This is first in our Good River: Stories of the Ohio Series By Lucia Walinchus In June 1969, a Time Magazine article garnered national attention when it brought to light the water quality conditions in Ohio: a river had literally caught fire. Oil-soaked debris ignited after sparks, likely from a passing train, set the slick…
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Fewer Invasive Species Reach the Great Lakes, but Those Here Continue to Spread
Scientists, Regulators and Industry Representatives Debate if Ballast Water Treatment is an Option By Jim Malewitz, Sarah Whites-Koditschek More than $375 billion in cargo — iron ore, coal, cement, stone, grain and more — has flowed between Great Lakes ports and foreign nations since 1959. That’s when Queen Elizabeth and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower…
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Q & A: Why is Lake Erie’s algae bloom growing again?
GIBRALTAR ISLAND, Ohio — Four years ago, Lake Erie algae wreaked havoc on the Toledo water system, affecting 400,000 residents in Ohio and Southeast Michigan. Known as harmful algal blooms, the deep green ooze grows by the mile each year, fed by phosphorus-rich runoff from farm fields. Though not always toxic, the eyesores gunk up…