Advocates of unconventional natural gas drilling cite the potential for benefits for surrounding communities. In Pennsylvania, researchers found that the financial impact on the mostly rural school systems where fracking occurred was negative. Unconventional natural gas development has transformed American energy over the past decade. Hydraulic fracturing, often popularly referred to […]
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I live in Mount Washington, on the east side of Cincinnati, roughly the midpoint of the 981-mile Ohio River. Below us, near the mouth of the Little Miami River, marinas, barge terminals and Cincinnati Water Works’ Miller Treatment Plant line the river’s bank. The Water Works has these old red-roofed […]
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The Ohio River watershed is dotted with thousands of small dams. Many are remnants of bygone days of grain mills and the steel industry, which used dams to pool water needed during production. The dams are no longer needed. And, because they can be a safety hazard to boats and […]
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Looking upstream, the Kinzua Dam seems to protrude brusquely from the Allegheny River. Nestled securely between the rolling hills of Warren County, Pennsylvania, the dam holds the river back. Behind it, the resulting Allegheny Reservoir stretches 27 miles long and 120 feet deep. The Pittsburgh District of the United States […]
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The rain came hard and fast early on the morning of June 23, 2016. By 2 p.m., water was knee deep in Bill Bell’s appliance store on Main Street in Rainelle, a small town on the western edge of Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Bell began elevating the washing machines and […]
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Pennsylvania’s Act 54 is the 1994 amendment to the state’s mining law, providing for the protection and restoration of water supplies affected by mining and of structural damage to buildings and homes above mined land. It also requires an assessment every five years of how the law is being implemented by the […]
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