{"id":34071,"date":"2017-11-02T09:41:26","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T13:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=34071"},"modified":"2017-11-02T09:41:26","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T13:41:26","slug":"whats-in-the-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2017\/11\/whats-in-the-water\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in the water?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ohio

Formation of the Ohio River in Pittsburgh by the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. Photograph taken by Eira Tansey, October 2017.<\/p><\/div>\n

What\u2019s in the water?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ohio\u2019s status as a \u201cwater-rich state\u201d has meant that it has long been a flashpoint for concerns over how to ensure protection of our water resources, particularly as Ohio\u2019s waterways have played a significant part in regional industry. One of the most famous images of the environmental movement was Cleveland\u2019s Cuyahoga River catching on fire in 1969 \u2013 it was not the first time, as it had caught on fire<\/a> several times before, going back to the mid-1800s<\/a>. If you want to learn more about the political atmosphere of Cleveland during this event, UC history professor (and friend of the Archives and Rare Books Library) David Stradling has written a book about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the landmark federal laws that was placed under authority of the newly established EPA was the 1972 Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act actually traced its origins to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948<\/a>, and was the result of many amendments to the 1948 law. The Clean Water Act requires significant recordkeeping and information systems in order to support implementation of the law. Much of the Clean Water Act\u2019s powers are delegated to state environmental protection agencies (for example, Ohio\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency, or Pennsylvania\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection). One of the major parts of the Clean Water Act is a permitting system known as the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The NPDES system<\/a> \u201cregulates discharges of pollutants from municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants, sewer collection systems, and stormwater discharges from industrial facilities and municipalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a system of bureaucratic recordkeeping, the NPDES system reveals much about how we have attempted to take hard-to-quantify aspects of our environment, and pack it down into standardized documentation about human impact.<\/p>\n

For example, reviewing a recent draft permit<\/a> for a wastewater facility in the greater Cincinnati area, this permit will last for five years. It requires the wastewater facility to self-report sampling levels of their discharges to one of the tributaries of the Ohio River. Sampling must take place Monday through Friday but the time of day doesn\u2019t have to be reported, and the permit holder must retain records for three years. One can imagine arguing for modifying any of these recordkeeping requirements upwards or downwards, based on your orientation towards deregulation or to environmental protection.<\/p>\n

Recordkeeping is not a neutral act. What is reported and recorded reflects information necessary for regulatory fulfillment. Choices about recordkeeping – what to record, when to record it, who should record it, how often to record it, where to store it, and public vs proprietary access, reflect competing values attached to environmental information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s in the water? Ohio\u2019s status as a \u201cwater-rich state\u201d has meant that it has long been a flashpoint for concerns over how to ensure protection of our water resources, particularly as Ohio\u2019s waterways have played a significant part in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,31],"tags":[1438,549,58],"class_list":["post-34071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-uc","tag-environmental-history","tag-library-faculty","tag-urban-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}