The Concerned Ohio River Residents is an Ohio Valley-based non-profit organization founded in 2018. Their mission is to organize and maintain a diverse grassroots organization dedicated to the improvement and preservation of the environment and communities through education, grassroots organizing, and coalition building. They are fighting for clean air and water, healthy communities, and a sustainable future where everyone benefits. Residents are threatened by living in the Ohio Valley, dealing with negative health impacts from unsafe air, fires, and noise pollution. The Concerned Ohio River Residents have a better vision for the Ohio Valley than being a repository or processing center for fossil fuels that are no longer needed, and health and climate can ill afford. They are asking elected officials to work with them in creating a better vision for the Ohio River Valley, diversifying their economy, and stopping the reliance on boom-and-bust cycles of the fossil fuel industry.
A rally despite bad weather because the community does not want their Ohio valley turned into another cancer alley like Louisiana for petrochemicals and plastics!
In May 2024, the group’s Facebook page informed its 1,400 followers of the extremely close call that resulted from fossil fuel business as usual. The back story includes an out-of-town company that moved into the Ohio Valley to conduct fracking (strike 1), used the “recovered” gas to make unsustainable and unneeded plastic pellets from petroleum (strike 2), and had its waste processed by a company that exceeded its legal intake limit, to the extent that hundreds of truckloads of uncontained fracking and cracking waste covered the company’s floor when it was forced to close (strike 3). When the Ohio River flooded soon after, it barely missed scooping the waste into the river or possibly carrying it to a drinking water well field just feet away. Local authorities responded, and were appreciated, but with toxic and radioactive fracking waste loose just 500 feet from the river and 1,000 feet from Martins Ferry’s wells, Concerned Ohio River Residents are clearly in a battle for survival.
Concerned Ohio River Residents rallying to stop these polluting facilities.