![]() Steel mills and other industries along the waterfront were shuttering, and the streams of effluent they emptied into the river were slowing.īy 2005 the water was so clean that Pittsburgh hosted the Bassmaster Classic, a fishing tournament that brought in $13 million from tourism alone. When Stolz started his work in the region in the early 2000s, the Ohio River’s water quality appeared to be improving. In Pittsburgh, for example, where the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers meet, Stolz studies the three rivers and has seen firsthand how shifting state standards can affect downstream waters. Cogen says those states may not have the resources or personnel to go through the scientific processes to develop, implement, and enforce their own rules, the result being weaker or fewer standards. States that already have and enforce stricter standards, such as Illinois and Ohio, supported the measure, but others, like Indiana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, rely on ORSANCO to set standards. ![]() During the public comment period, 4,150 people wrote in to oppose the change only 9, most from industry, supported it. And with the Trump administration rolling back or simply not enforcing many federal environmental protections, many people in the Ohio River Valley are concerned over the proposals to weaken or dissolve the ORSANCO rules. Some of the ORSANCO standards are more stringent than those established by state regulations or the Clean Water Act. “That being said, I don’t think that water quality will improve.” “There’s no weakening of water quality in the Ohio River,” says Rich Cogen, executive director of the Ohio River Foundation and co-chair of ORSANCO’s Watershed Organizations Advisory Committee. Supporters of the move, however, argue that standards under the Clean Water Act make the regional requirements unnecessary. They also point out that because the water doesn’t stop flowing at one state’s borders, standards should be consistent along the length of the river. Though the standards weren’t explicitly required before, they weren’t explicitly voluntary, either-until now.Įnvironmental groups like the National Wildlife Federation and the Ohio River Foundation say the decision will open the door for pollution from plastics manufacturing and the fracking industry. A proposal last year seeking to dissolve those requirements led to public outcry, so ORSANCO opted instead to change them. Over time, federal and state water quality laws also became stricter.Īt its inception, ORSANCO set pollution standards for contaminants, later adding limits to pollutants such as mercury, which is often discharged by power plants, and nitrates, which regularly wash into waterways from farms. The group signed a compact requiring its member states to regulate what entered the Ohio and work together to install wastewater treatment plants. “The river was in deplorable condition and an impediment to economic development,” says Richard Harrison, executive director and chief engineer of ORSANCO. At the time, 99 percent of wastewater from towns and cities along its path went directly into the waterway. When ORSANCO was created in 1948, the Ohio was even worse. Five million people rely on the Ohio River for their drinking water, and despite decades-long cleanup efforts, the river remains one of the most polluted in the country. “It’s really important to maintain the water quality,” says Stolz, who spoke out against the change in April at a public meeting in Pittsburgh. And more pollution is something the Ohio can’t afford. The change allows the states to adopt varying standards for what industries can discharge into the shared waterway, potentially putting the river-and those who depend on it-at risk. Governor-appointed commissioners from eight states (which also include New York and Virginia) and federally appointed ORSANCO members voted in June to make the current regional water pollution standards voluntary. “Eventually, the pollution is going to get to you if you’re downstream,” says John Stolz, a marine microbiologist at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.Īnd therein lies the problem with the recent decision by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) to change the river’s water quality rules. So that means a contaminant that enters the water in Pennsylvania or West Virginia could wind up in Kentucky, Indiana, and beyond. Along the way, the Ohio River passes steel factories, farms, and power plants and etches out the borders between Ohio and West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, Indiana and Kentucky, and Illinois and Kentucky. Named for an Iroquois word that means “the great river,” the Ohio flows 981 miles southwest from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, where it sends more water into the Mississippi than any other tributary.
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