Protecting our river

Scheme to deregulate protection cannot be justified

From Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, the Ohio River flows through or along the border of six states. It is the largest tributary of the Mississippi River and it is the source of drinking water for more than 3 million people.

But the health and safety of the water that flows through the Ohio River could be at risk if the members of the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, known as ORSANCO, go through with a vote to end the organization’s pollution control standards.

The eight-state regional commission — Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia — has 27 commissioners who, historically, have recommended water quality standards for the states whose water supplies are affected in some way by the Ohio River. ORSANCO was founded in 1948 to undo the damage done to the Ohio River by industrial pollution. Setting regional standards for the quality of the Ohio’s water has been a critical part of that mission. The role is advisory, but it looks bad when states ignore the commission’s recommendations.

But the current commissioners want to do away with this process, arguing that each state should be free to set its own pollution standards. This short-sighted strategy, however, could produce disastrous results for the Ohio River.

Forcing each state to come up with its own set of standards would be costly, time-consuming and ineffective. In areas where the Ohio River connects two states — such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, for instance — there could be two sets of standards governing either side of the river. Conflicting rules would do nothing to protect the water or those who need it to live and work.

Individual states would also be able to reduce pollution standards to dangerous levels. And because the river flows through so many states, a greater allowance for pollution in one state will likely be felt throughout all the others.

It is likely that no resource will be more important to the long-term survival of our species and the planet than water. In this section of the United States, the Ohio River is one of the most critical sources of water. It would be foolish for ORSANCO to relinquish its guardianship of the Ohio, a role which it had assumed for the common good.

Without clean and safe water throughout all 981 miles of the Ohio, decades worth of progress will be undone.

The ORSANCO commissioners will meet on Oct. 4 in Lansing, W.Va., perhaps purposefully off the beaten path, to vote on rethinking their pollution standard controls — basically by neutering their own commission. The vote could be decided by the commissioners from Pennsylvania and Ohio, two states that cannot afford to see the Ohio River fall prey to an environmental crisis.

Water is an invaluable and irreplaceable resource. Once it is lost or compromised, nothing else can take its place. This means that Govs. Tom Wolf and John Kasich have a higher duty than to their own opinions, political fortunes, special interests or political cronies. Both governors should instruct their ORSANCO commissioners to vote to keep protecting the Ohio River.