Warning – Combined Sewer Overflow During Periods of Rainfall. Water Flowing from This Pipe May Contain Materials which May Be Harmful to Your Health. Reports of Debris or Questions, Call the City of Columbus, Division of Sewage and Drainage at 614-645-7102.
Delaware for “river of the red face paint,” the Olentangy River has come to be known as the murky stream that flows through the communities of Delaware, Powell, Worthington and the campus of Ohio State University, before it joins the Scioto River in downtown Columbus. It is the primary source of drinking water for much of Delaware and Franklin counties, and yet its local reputation speaks to so much more.
“There are several places where I hunt on the river that you can actually see the water changing colors because of a discharge pipe from one of the city’s plants,” said Mike Wilmington, a Columbus-area resident for over 30 years. “I could also show you an area that we call Condom City and Tampon Town,” he said. “You can look in any direction at any given time and count a hundred of them in the water and all over the banks.”
There’s a small farm owned by the Carpenter family in Powell that runs adjacent to the shores of the Olentangy. Ben Carpenter, the farm’s owner and operator, explained why he can’t plant crops in some of his fields. “The EPA told me that Columbus had an overflow of incinerator ash, and it’s been spilling into my fields,” he said with noticeable frustration.
Such frustration, however, Carpenter shares with his entire community. Columbus, for the most part, has a secret history of neglecting one of its most vital natural resources.
Known in the 1940’s as one of the best small mouth bass rivers of the eastern United States, the Olentangy River suffered a devastating blow to its water quality through the installation of the Delaware dam in 1948. The project stands today as one of Columbus’ most destructive earthwork contracts in recent history. An ammonia spill in the 1960s further debilitated the health of the river, and a chemical spill in the early 1970s near Delaware was said to have killed every fish for a two-mile stretch.
Today, the Olentangy is threatened by rampant development in northern Columbus and by the resultant sewage overflows. Several factories continue to permanently change the color of the water running through the southern part of the Olentangy by coating the entire riverbed with a layer of orange slime.
Hope for a cleaner Olentangy does exist. In central Ohio, there are efforts underway to monitor the Olentangy’s ecosystem involving government, university and grassroots citizen volunteer efforts. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Surface Water Division, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Natural Areas and Preserves and the Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed have all been involved in monitoring the river’s vital signs and advocating responsible treatment of its waters.
Vince J. Mazeika, an enviornmental
specialist for a federal-state water consortium, thinks that the community could do more for the Olentangy River’s future.
“Right now the city is working on solving the pollution problems, but it is going to take millions of dollars and decades of spending to do so,” Mazeika said.
“We all contribute to the Olentangy’s pollution with things like fertilizer runoff and car exhaust. We need a community-wide effort,” he said.
Scott Greytak is a junior in political science. He can be reached at [email protected].
