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Swimming with sharks can be good for your health!

Local Columns

July and August are “holiday” (vacation) months in Europe. Working with European companies interested in expanding to the USA for over six years, we learned Europeans take “holiday” seriously. Shale Crescent USA is helping the CEO of a large European company with U.S. expansion plans. He told me he would be on holiday for the next month to “swim with the sharks.” I asked what he meant and received a photo of one of the tiger sharks he swam with. His hobby is literally swimming in the ocean with tiger sharks, hammer head and other sharks. The sharks ignore him and his partner. ...

Injection Wells

Letters to the Editor

I recently attended a meeting hosted by the Buckeye Environmental Network at the Warren School in Vincent, Ohio. The topic of the meeting was wastewater injection wells. I live in downtown Marietta, on Washington Street, which is also State Route 7. Dozens of brine trucks drive past my house every day so I am very aware of the issue. What shocked me was the proximity of the injection wells to the City of Marietta water wells which supply water to more than 15,000 people who live in Marietta, Devola and Reno; they are less than two miles apart. At the meeting I heard from well owners ...

The urgent case for reviving the Ohio River Basin

Local Columns

The Ohio River Basin covers a vast region that encompasses portions of 14 states and homelands of over 40 federally recognized Tribal Nations. The waters of the basin supply drinking water to more than 30 million people in the states. The Ohio River and the many local streams, creeks, lakes and wetlands are the foundation of the region’s economy and culture. Yet, this vast region is currently under siege, as it faces continuous challenges and threats such as aging infrastructure, extreme flooding, sewage contamination and legacy toxic pollution. We can still hope for our region if we ...

The time to work on such challenges is now

Editorials

As Ohio’s elected officials continue to hope for economic growth, there’s a factor some may not have considered. According to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, the Buckeye State’s fertility rates are dropping — standing at 56.2 births per 1,000 women in 2023. That’s an 8.9% decrease from the state’s average of 61.9 per 1,000 between 2011 and 2020. Interestingly, births to mothers younger than 20 and ages 20 to 24 both fell dramatically compared with 2007 data. “Historically, fertility rates have dipped during economic downturns but tended to recover as conditions ...

Financial distress and cost of living

Editorials

One of elected officials’ favorite tricks is to drag out the line “But are you better off than you were (insert politically beneficial timeframe here)?” It gets people thinking: Am I better off? For West Virginians living in a state that hopes to win an economic “Backyard Brawl,” the answer may very well be “no.” But according to WalletHub’s “States with the Most People in Financial Distress,” the Mountain State is ranked 45th. In this case, that’s a good thing. West Virginia’s total score was 33.17. For comparison, the least distressed folks were in Hawaii, ...