Ohio Dirtiest River, PennEnvironment Study Finds
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
23 March 2012
By Rick Wills
From the choice of photo on the report's cover to its portrait of
contaminants in the nation's rivers, environmental experts
questioned a study released on Thursday that said the Ohio River
has more industrial pollutants than any major river in the
country.
PennEnvironment, a nonprofit, environmental advocacy group,
prepared the 48-page report, "Wasting Our Waterways 2012." It
paints a harrowing picture of the country's rivers and lakes and
ranks Pennsylvania seventh among the states in toxic industrial
emissions that get into waterways.
The state Department of Environmental Protection said the report's
cover photo, showing a pipe pumping dark, murky water into what
appears to be a waterway, is an edited version of a stock photo
showing dark-colored water gushing from a pipe into a contained
treatment facility. The photo is from Shutterstock, a website with
stock photos.
"This kind of report should be based on facts and science, and to
use that as a visual calls into question the organization's
credibility," said Katy Gresh, a DEP spokeswoman.
The report says more than half of the country's rivers and streams
and about 70 percent of lakes are unfit for recreation. The 1972
Clean Water Act mandated elimination of toxic discharges into
waterways by 1985, which has not happened.
"Pennsylvania's waterways are a polluter's paradise right now,"
said Erika Staaf, clean water advocate with PennEnvironment.
Staaf did not respond to phone calls about the photograph.
Even though the goals of the Clean Water Act have not been met,
some experts said, there has been major improvement.
"Rivers are much better than they were. Things are not getting
better as fast as we would like. But industries have clear limits
to what they can discharge, there are pretty stringent reviews of
chemicals industry can use, and we have not had rivers catch on
fire, like the Cuyahoga River, for a long, long time," said Brian
Dempsey, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Penn
State University and an expert in drainage and wastewater.
The report noted that toxic chemical emissions in Pennsylvania
declined from 10.7 million pounds in 2007, when the state was the
country's sixth-biggest polluter, to 10.1 million pounds in 2010,
the last year for which figures are available.
Two years ago, the Ohio River received 32 million pounds of
toxins, according to the report. PennEnvironment said it took its
numbers from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release
Inventory. The river's tributaries received 13 million pounds.
More than 20 percent of the toxics released into all U.S.
waterways in 2010 were released into the Ohio or its tributaries,
the report stated.
The Monongahela River was the nation's 17th-most contaminated
river in 2010 and was the 21st in 2007, the report stated.
"The report does not specify what toxics are in the waterways. It
also talks about nitrates, which are generally from agricultural
runoff. They are a big problem, but they are not toxic or from
heavy industry," said Albert Ettinger, a lawyer who represents
Environmental Law & Policy Center, a Chicago environmental
advocacy organization.
PennEnvironment has been criticized before for its choice of
photographs. In September, after flooding from Hurricane Lee
damaged swaths of central Pennsylvania, The Patriot-News in
Harrisburg reported that PennEnvironment had placed a photo of a
submerged drilling rig on its Facebook page and tweeted the photo
saying, "Here's more evidence Marcellus shale drilling pads should
NOT be allowed in flood plains."
That photo was of a flooded rig in Pakistan. The group apologized.
Rick Wills can be reached at rwills@tribweb.com or 412-320-7944.