Coal Smoke Over the Ohio River

There are many ways to view the communities impacted by industrial activity. Brett Ciccotelli is paddling a kayak solo from Pittsburgh, PA to New Orleans, LA for the next couple of months. He plans to document the impact of energy, in particular coal, on that watershed and its communities. I will occasionally cross post his updates for this community. If you have a chance to stop and see him along the way, he will be taking out at towns along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Coal smoke over the Ohio River.

On December 2, 1875 Nathaniel H. Bishop launched a small boat into the Monongahela (Mon) River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After several hours the Mon joined the ice covered Allegheny and the two rivers below his “sneakbox” the Centennial Republic became a third, the Ohio. Three years later he published an account of his trip from Pittsburgh to the Gulf of Mexico. In it he describes the region around Pittsburgh:

“The use of the soft bituminous coal in the towns along the river, and also by the steamboats navigating it, filled the valley with clouds of smoke. These clouds rested upon everything. Your five senses were fully aware of the presence of the disagreeable, impalpable something surrounding you. Eyes, ears, taste, touch, and smell, each felt the presence. Smoky towns along the banks gave smoky views. Smoky chimneys rose high above the smoky foundries and forges, where smoke-begrimed men toiled day and night in the smoky atmosphere.”

And later in Wheeling, West Virginia he writes of smoke and soot that coated his small boat and of an oily shine that covered the river for miles downstream.

One hundred and thirty-six year later dark clouds no longer linger over Pittsburgh or blacken the fresh snow…

Read the rest of the article here: http://banksofthebasin.com/2011/03/11/coal-smoke-over-the-ohio-river/

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