Coming clean

River a work in progress

By FRED CONNORS, For The Weirton Daily Times
WHEELING — The Ohio River has come a long way from the days when it was a cesspool filled with oil slicks, garbage, raw sewage and industrial waste.


With the exception of an occasional old shoe or tree limb, the river now contains little debris and offers fishermen an abundance of opportunities. Among the most popular prizes are smallmouth bass, crappies, walleye, sauger and, of course, catfish.The river is a work in progress - and its progress is being closely monitored by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission.


ORSANCO Executive Director and Chief Engineer Alan H. Vicory Jr. and West Virginia Commissioner David M. Flannery were in Wheeling recently in observance of the organization’s 60th anniversary.


“Sixty years ago, the Ohio River stood as a sorry monument to the excesses of civilization,” Vicory said. “It was little more than a sewer. In pursuit of affluence, we nearly lost a great natural resource. Things are much better now. The river is cleaner. There is new life in its water. Sport fish have made a comeback.”


ORSANCO was formed in 1948 to control and abate river pollution.


That’s not an easy job, Flannery said, noting the hard work it takes to keep such a large river clean.


“It’s 981 miles long and has 3,000 miles of shoreline from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Ill.,” Flannery said. “The river is a source of drinking water for more than 5 million people, supports 130 different fish species and carries more than 260 million tons of cargo each year.” He said the river is becoming cleaner because of a decrease in riverfront industries and because of more stringent controls on existing industries.


“We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go,” Vicory said.


One example of the river’s progress over the years came in 2005, when the National BassMasters Tournament was held on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh.


Vicory said river fish can be eaten in limited amounts, but some fish may be more harmful than others.


“Pollutants from over the years have settled in sediment, and bottom feeders like catfish or carp are likely to ingest them,” Vicory said. He said people interested in eating river fish should contact their local health department or state natural resources/environmental protection agency for current Ohio River fish consumption advisories.


ORSANCO works to protect the river and make it available for drinking water, recreational use and aquatic life through monitoring and testing water quality and fish studies.


In addition to cleaner water, riverbanks are also targeted for cleanup, as the organization members know the importance of community involvement.


Since 1989, ORSANCO has sponsored an annual River Sweep to clean up the banks of the river and its tributaries. This year’s event was June 21 with a cleanup location in each county bordering the river and at additional sites along the tributaries.


In 2007, nearly 22,000 volunteers participated in the River Sweep, removing more than 10,000 tons of trash from 3,000 miles of shorelines along the Ohio, Allegheny, Monongahela, Beaver and Kentucky rivers.


Education and awareness is also important to ORSANCO’s effort to keep the Ohio River clean. In 2004, The PA Denny River Education Center first set sail on the Ohio. The historic sternwheeler was renovated into a “river lab,” complete with scientific classrooms and hands-on activities like testing water quality, identifying aquatic organisms and making habitat observations. ORSANCO also makes use of a 2,200-gallon mobile aquarium to display fish species and a river watcher’s voluntary monitoring to collect water samples for evaluation.