Rivers Run Through This

Mil­lions of gal­lons of briny, toxic, waste­wa­ter from shale gas drill­ing and frack­ing op­er­a­tions could soon be loaded onto barges and pushed down the Al­le­gheny, Mo­non­ga­hela and Ohio riv­ers.

A loose net­work of river tank ter­mi­nal and barge com­pa­nies has floated plans to be­gin ship­ping waste­wa­ter con­tain­ing pe­tro­leum con­den­sates, can­cer-caus­ing chem­i­cals and ra­dio­ac­tive ma­terial, be­tween as many as seven river ter­mi­nal sites spread out over hun­dreds of miles of the re­gion’s ma­jor wa­ter­ways.

For a long time, biologists didn’t know much about catfish in Northern West Virginia’s Monongahela River. They do now.

For two years, they plied the river in boats, shocking the water to bring catfish to the surface where they could be weighed, measured and released. What they found out caused them to ask for a change to the river’s fishing regulations.

What’s in the water? For 1/3 of testing sites in Pennsylvania, the answer is chemicals known as PFAS, or ‘forever chemicals.’

The state’s Department of Environmental Protection tested a random sample of more than 400 sites across the Commonwealth.

The DEP found only two results above the federal government’s threshold for contamination, but more than 100 with some level of chemicals detected.

In 2014, a West Virginia legislative rule established a no-wake zone at the Morgantown Waterfront.

The no-wake zone is "on the Monongahela River at the Morgantown waterfront beginning 500 feet downstream from the Westover bridge extending upstream to the Morgantown lock and dam, " according to West Virginia DNR Lt. Brad McDougal.

Residents in Elizabeth Township are fired up about the push for a gas-fired power plant.

The Allegheny County Health Department held a public hearing on the proposed plant on Tuesday. People in the township are concerned about their way of life if the plant goes through.

“It’s going to be less than one-third of a mile from us,” said Cathy Anderson of Elizabeth Township.

As part of its mission of treating and distributing clean water to the Morgantown area, Morgantown Utility Board has installed a floating monitoring station along the Monongahela River. Located about two miles upstream of the water treatment plant main intake, the station will monitor and provide real-time data to MUB staff.

“This floating station is part of our overall Source Water Protection Program,” said MUB Director of Communications Chris Dale. “Because 80% of our drinking water currently comes from the Monongahela River, having a device such as this to monitor its quality is of obvious importance.”