Monday, November 21, 2011
For decades during which the Steel Valley earned its name, the Mahoning River never froze over. And during the summer, it was not unusual for the temperature of water flowing through Youngstown to reach 100 degrees.
In 1954, a study taken during December showed that the river temperature was 36 degrees at Leavittsburg and 80 degrees when it reached the intake pipes at Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. in Campbell.
The increased temperature of the water was an easily measured effect of how the river was used and abused by industry. And while common sense told everyone that heat wasn’t the only thing being added to the river running through what was known as the Ruhr Valley of the United States, the degree to which it was being poisoned was more difficult to quantify.
Still, 90 years ago, the river was deemed “filthy” and unfit as a source of drinking water, due not only to industrial pollution, but to the raw sewage that was dumped into the river by cities along its banks.
A fascinating and thought-provoking new look at the state of the Mahoning River appeared in The Vindicator on Sunday. It was produced by The NewsOutlet, a collaboration among Youngstown State University, Kent State University, the University of Akron, The Vindicator, Akron Beacon Journal and Rubber City Radio that pairs student journalists with professionals.
The project reminds us that a generation after most of the major mills along the river from Warren to Lowellville closed, the effects of three generations of pollution remain. The mills may be gone, and the few that remain live by far stricter pollution standards, but lead, zinc, copper, iron, cadmium, chromium and other pollutants remain.
And the project accentuates the sad state of the Mahoning River as an orphan, Attempts to reduce pollution of the river were deemed too expensive when the mills were thriving. They were rejected by industrial giants and the man in the street as a threat to the prosperity that the mills generated.
We’re talking big money
And now that the mills are gone, no one has the $100-million minimum it would take to clean the river. No one, that is, except the federal government, and, of course, there are those who argue that Washington, D.C., is broke.
It seems that the time has never been right to undo the damage that has been done to the river. And just as frustrating, there is reason for disagreement over how the river could be scoured clean if the money were available.
There are hazards in dredging the poisonous sediments lying deep on the river’s bottom by dredging or in releasing them by removal of some of the 10 dams on the Mahoning.
There have been a lot of studies, a lot of monitoring, an ample supply of posturing and even the banking of a few million dollars from some of the long-ago polluters.
For all that the river gave this area — and all it could give — it deserves better than half-hearted attention.
Regardless of which local entity or combination of entities provides support for the river clean-up, the lion’s share of the funding is going to have to be approved by Congress and appropriated to the Army Corps of Engineers. State and local governments will have to scramble for local shares, but the future of the Mahoning River is linked directly to the banks of the Potomac.