In May, newly drafted Pittsburgh Steelers offensive guard Gennings Dunker amused Pittsburgh residents during a news segment, asking whether it was OK to swim in the rivers or eat the fish he planned to catch.

The live reaction – surprise, laughter and more than a little uncertainty about the right answer – revealed something the Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory encounters regularly in its public outreach: Many Pittsburghers aren’t sure whether their rivers are safe.

Pennsylvanians have invested over US$1 billion in state funding over the past four years to restore the Chesapeake Bay’s watershed quality and ecosystem health. Up north, policymakers in the U.S. and Canada are working together to keep the Great Lakes intact.

Pennsylvania residents have a legal right to fishable, swimmable waterways – a standard the rivers of Pittsburgh have not always met.

As an associate professor of geology and environmental science, I study how human activity reshapes waterways and urban landscapes. My field work with the Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory tracks changes in the city’s streams and rivers over time.

The 3 rivers are improving

Fifty years ago, a fish population survey caught all of the fish in the Braddock Locks, one of the nine organizational structures of the Monongahela River, and found a single fish. One fish.

In........

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