Tag: ohio river

Lax Mercury Regulation Revealed

A chlorine manufacturing plant is discharging mercury at the highest rate of any industrial plant in the nation. A state agency is trying to get the plant to reduce the pollution. The GLRC’s Fred Kight has the story:

Transcript

A chlorine manufacturing plant is discharging mercury at the highest rate of any
industrial plant in the nation. A state agency is trying to get the plant to reduce the
pollution. The GLRC’s Fred Kight has the story:


The PPG Industries plant has dumped as much as 32 pounds of mercury a year into the
Ohio River. Mercury is a toxic chemical that causes nerve damage in humans. West
Virginia’s Environmental Quality Board found that state regulators had allowed PPG to
dump mercury in amounts many times the legal limit.


Margaret Janes is with the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment.
She praised the decision against the plant:


“They’re using a technology that is from the 1800s. There are other cleaner technologies available.”


The plant reportedly is one of only nine in the country that makes chlorine by pumping
saltwater through vats of pure mercury. PPG Industries says it will appeal the West
Virginia ruling.


For the GLRC, I’m Fred Kight.

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Walleye Discovery to Change Management Practices

  • Researchers have found a strain of walleye that is adapted specifically to the Ohio River. (Photo Courtesy of the USGS)

Scientists have identified a unique strain of walleye that lives in the Ohio River. The discovery has wildlife officials thinking about the way things were and how they could be once again. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight explains:

Transcript

Scientists have identified a unique strain of walleye that lives in
the Ohio River.
The discovery has wildlife officials thinking about the way things
were and how they could be once again.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight explains:


Fishing for walleye is a big sport on Lake Erie, but many people do
not know that the fish also live in the Ohio River.
Matthew White is a Biological Sciences professor at Ohio University.
He helped determine that the Ohio River walleye have a different
genetic
make-up from those in Lake Erie and other northern lakes.


White says the original walleye species was severed from the other
tens of thousands of years ago when the river that is now the Ohio was
blocked and stopped flowing into Lake Erie.


“These walleye evolved in the river, so they’re well adapted to the
river environment. And these walleye have also survived the 100 years of
abuse that we heaped on the river.”


Armed with this new information, wildlife officials are taking steps
to alter their practice of importing Lake Erie Walleye.
Instead, they’ll use the native species for their stocking program.


For the GLRC, I’m Fred Kight.

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One Man and a Wheelbarrow

  • Using donated boats and motors, more than 200 tons of trash and junk has been pulled from the river during the last two years. Pregracke is looking toward new rivers now.

One man is on a campaign to clean up the nation’s rivers. He’s not
pushing a public relations campaign… he’s pushing a wheel barrow. Last
year alone he picked up 200-tons of trash along the Mississippi River.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… now he’s
moving on to other rivers: