Is contamination of ground water and surface water really a problem in Ohio?
Several communities in Ohio have experienced serious ground water contamination, which has forced them to spend over $1 million installing treatment systems to clean up contaminants. Although a portion of these costs may be reimbursed by the party causing the contamination, some costs have been passed on to consumers. Surface water supplies can face potential contamination from various spills into rivers, lakes and reservoirs. In 1977, a chemical spill resulted in tetrachloride being released to the Ohio River. In January 1988, the rupture of a storage tank resulted in the release of one million gallons of fuel oil into the Monongahela River, which flows into the Ohio River. A large industrial fire in 1994 resulted in the detection of ethylene dibromide in the Ohio River. Because of such releases, extensive monitoring and communication stations have been set up along the Ohio River to provide communities with advance notice of spills that might contaminate their water supplies.
