The Ohio River Watershed

Lesson 1: A Quick History of Mount Washington and the Surrounding Area

Mount Washington stands above Pittsburgh and is a great viewpoint of a vast majority of the city skyline, but it has a rich geological history both with mining and the Ohio River.  Mount Washington was originally known as Coal Hill, because at the base of this hill was easy access to the Pittsburgh Coal Seam, which is the thickest and most extensive coal bed in the Appalachain Basin.  This Coal Seam is the most economically important coal bed in the eastern US.  This coal bed is extensive as it spans over 11,000 square miles through 53 counties spanning Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia.  In 1760, Captain Thomas Hutchins visited Fort Pitt, across the Monongahela River from where you stand at the posted coordinates, and reported that there was a mine on Coal Hill, where you stand. The coal was extracted from drift mine entries into the Pittsburgh coal seam along the hillside about 200 feet above the river. The coal was poured into trenches dug into the hillside, rolled to the edge of the river, and transported by canoe and boats to the military garrison. Sometime around 1765, a fire broke out in this mine, which continued to burn for years, leading to collapse of part of the face of the hill. Mining rights were formally purchased from the Six Nations in 1768, and from this point on, coal fueled the explosive growth of industry in the Pittsburgh Region.  

In the early 19th century, Pittsburgh coal became the city's primary fuel source and about 250,000 bushels (approximately 400 tons) of coal were consumed daily for domestic and industrial use.  The primary reason for the switch from wood to coal was economics. In 1809, a cord of wood (128 cubic feet) cost $2.00 and a bushel of coal (80 lbs) cost $0.06, delivered. The coal was plentiful and the laborers, working in mines within a mile of Pittsburgh, earned about $1.60 per week and could produce as many as 100 bushels of coal daily.

Beginning in the 1910s, important technological and industrial changes spelled the end of the Pittsburgh seam's importance. By-product coke (type of fuel made from coal) ovens, which yielded more coke per ton from coal, replaced most beehive coke ovens from 1910 to 1940. By-product ovens utilized coal that was lower quality than Pittsburgh-seam coal, greatly reducing demand for Pittsburgh-seam coal. The Great Depression also contributed significantly to the decline of production. Pittsburgh-seam output continued to fall after a World War II surge as steel mills adopted alternative fuels such as natural gas and oil and improved the energy efficiency of iron furnaces. Another major blow came during the late 1970s and 1980s as the American steel industry closed many steel mills in the Pittsburgh region and elsewhere. The decline of Pittsburgh-seam mining brought large-scale social and economic changes to southwestern Pennsylvania, as unemployment climbed, the region lost population due to out-migration, businesses dependent on coal miners' income folded, and municipalities had declining tax bases.

Despite two centuries of mining, about 16 billion short tons of resources remain, with the largest remaining block in southwestern Pennsylvania and adjacent areas of West Virginia.

Lesson 2: The Ohio River Watershed

I have chosen this location for this EarthCache because it gives you the best view of the intersection of the 3 rivers (Ohio, Alleghany, and the Monongahela) and of the surrounding watershed in my opinion.  Now what exactly is a watershed and how does this apply?

A watershed is the area of land that drains to the same point, such as a stream, lake, wetland, or ocean. Water always flows downhill. The stream next to your house is flowing down to meet another stream, and that stream flows into another stream until all the water in our region ends up in one of the 3 Rivers. Watershed boundaries are made by hills and ridges. Think of a watershed like a funnel: if it were to rain or snow into a funnel, the water would stay within the borders of the funnel. Watersheds can be as large as the ocean or as small as a footprint.

The watersheds in this region of Pennsylvania can change from a beautiful woodland setting to a stream that is located in an urban area surrounded by concrete and buildings. Each is different: a watershed in an agricultural area may have nutrient pollution issues, a watershed with old coal mines may have acid or aluminum issues, a watershed in a heavily populated area may have stormwater issues. Construction heavy environments tend to pollute the water with concrete run-off and other hazardous materials.  Concrete itself, used in a lot of residential and commericial applications, is heavily alkaline and can cause erosion issues by contaminating the top layer of soil.  By understanding what the problems are in a watershed, we can improve the quality of the local streams and the 3 Rivers, where all of the water ends up. 

The Ohio River watershed (shown above) starts in Northen Pennsylvania/Southern New York.  The Ohio River is 981 miles long and drains almost 204,000 square miles in 10+ states.  This is the largest watershed in the eastern US, and it has many connecting tributaries (a river or stream flowing into a larger body of water) as it makes it's way towards the Mississippi River and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico.  That's a little crazy to think about as you walk around Pittsburgh today, the water that you see flowing down the side of the road or through someone's front yard eventually ends up in the Gulf of Mexico.

In order to understand why watersheds are important to water resources, we need to understand that whatever happens upstream affects water downstream.  Damage caused in one area doesn't stay there. That's the way of the watershed: everything is connected. This means that when neighbors are over- fertilizing their lawns in Ohio , pollution moves downstream to Tennessee, or when a woodland is made into a new business, all of the runoff moves downstream.  

With this in mind, where does your water come from? Water treatment plants in your community take water from streams, reservoirs, and rivers to provide drinking water and water to meet all of our household needs. The water that comes out of our faucets began as rainfall or snow that made its way to the place that your water is drawn from. This means that your everyday actions-- how you fertilize your lawn, cleaning up after your dog, the amount of paved surfaces on your property-- all contribute to the quality of the water coming out of your faucet.

EarthCache Logging Requirements:

1) Looking out over Pittsburgh and surrounding watershed, name 3 environmental hazards that impact the quality of the water source?  (Please be specific, run off from where? etc.)

2) Based on Lesson 1 and 2, how has coal mining in the area affected the surrounding watershed and the Ohio River?  What issues would you assume this watershed has based on that? (Lesson 2)

3) Using this resource, what 8-digit Hyrdological Code (HUC) do you think applies to our region?  This code identifies the watershed or river it applies to.

4) Looking across the river at the river banks specifically, what material do you think affects the water resource in this location?

5) Since EarthCaches can now have photo requirements, it is required that you have a picture attached to your log from a visit after this EarthCaches publication date.  This picture does not have to include you or any group members if you are camera shy!

That's All Folks!

Thank you for visiting Mount Washington and I hope you enjoyed this EarthCache!