environment – Eye on Ohio

Utilities, gas industry coordinate to oppose Ohio village’s clean energy goal

Emails obtained by a utility watchdog group reveal push by Dominion Energy and allies against a local resolution. By Kathiann M. Kowalski Dominion Energy’s opposition to an Ohio village’s clean energy proposal appears to be part of a larger trend nationwide in which gas utilities are becoming more active at the local government level. Unlike…

Environment

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…

Environment

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…

Energy, Environment

‘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…

Environment

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…

Environment

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…