Written by Ella Abbott and Ray Padilla Two and a half hours southeast of Kent, we found ourselves in Steubenville, Ohio — one of two stops to really understand what it’s like to live near a coal fired power plant. It was a warm and sunny Saturday in September. We both had never ventured down [...]
The Ohio Sea Grant College Program has worked with researchers and educators for over 30 years to protect Lake Erie's environment, as well as the other Great Lakes. Based at The Ohio State University, it is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is a network of 33 sea grant programs across [...]
The past month, my practicum group members and I have spent a lot of our free time learning about pipelines -- so much that it’s almost become a joke with us . For example, we took a picture together in “pipeline country,” as I repeated multiple times throughout our drive through rural Medina. But as [...]
When President Trump decided to repeal the Obama Era Clean Air Act, and enacted his Affordable Clean Air Energy Rule he allowed states to determine their own regulations on standards for things like emissions pollution. For neighborhoods around coal plants that is important because if the state you live in doesn’t create strict regulations, you [...]
Between renewable, non-renewable and a plethora of other energy variants, sometimes it is easy to get mixed up in what "energy in Ohio" actually means. Because of that, I created these three graphs to give a quick snapshot of energy in the state. Coal still plays a big part Long thought dying and surpassed by [...]
One of the worst contributors to air pollution are coal-fired power plants. In 2015 coal produced 81.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This puts Ohio fourth highest producing CO2 emissions in the country. Fortunately, the state is stripping away its coal power plants and finding alternative [...]
In the spring of this year, my family planned a trip to one of my late grandfather’s favorite vacation spots in Florida to celebrate his life. In the summer months, something began popping up over and over again in the news: red tide. Two weeks before our trip, we, along with many other families and [...]
There's a question to be asked when it comes to the environment's role in fashion: can fashion be sustainable? Believe it or not, sustainable clothing is easier to find than someone might think. From using different dyes to a creating a greater carbon footprint through manufacturing, laboring and shipping, the fashion industry is constantly involved [...]
Superfund sites are normally fuming with hazardous substances, many of these toxic to humans and the environment. When the U.S. government recognized areas contaminated with hazardous waste were threatening the health of communities, it created the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) — AKA Superfund — in 1980. If you’d like to learn [...]
Well, to answer your question — and pretty obvious from the photo — Superfund sites are not very pretty. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) website, Superfunds are “contaminated sites … due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed.” Most of the time, these are “manufacturing facilities, processing [...]
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