For our series, Reporting From the Mon, we’re talking to people with different perspectives on the Monongahela River.
John Detisch is with the Izaak Walton League in Pennsylvania and is the president of the H2O Headwaters to the Ohio Water Network, a coalition of groups working to improve water quality and access in the Upper Ohio River Basin. A few years ago in a meeting, Detisch heard about a platform called EarthViews, showcasing maps of places like Key West and Lake Tahoe.
“It’s an opportunity to bring to life the geography of the rivers,” he said. “It’s Google Maps for waterways.”
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So Detisch began a project to map the Monongahela River and its tributaries.
“Basically, you take a small, slow-moving vehicle, a kayak or a small skiff with a small motor engine on it, drive up one side, and then drive down the other side,” Detisch said.
He uses a GoPro camera, which is almost like taking a video. But with the rapid still images, he can achieve better definition. The photographs are sent to EarthViews and uploaded to the site. Detisch has had some help mapping tributaries of the river in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and on the river itself, closer to Pittsburgh.
“In some cases, we did a fantastic job with the photography, so the only thing you see is the water moving,” he said. “In other cases, you’ll see the top of the kayaker who’s taking the picture, but I think that adds a certain charm to it too. That could be me.”
Detisch hopes the finished project will be useful in a number of ways to different groups. Environmentalists could compare sites along the river’s banks to find areas in need of repair. Weekend kayakers could use the map to locate places to put boats in the water. School groups could use the EarthViews map to teach about regional history and ecology.
Detisch said photography for the project is 90 percent complete. What’s taking time now is gathering facts and anecdotes about places along the Mon to give the mapping some context for users.
Why choose the Mon? Detisch said he grew up along the river, and though it has had its problems with sewage overflow and industrial pollution, it has gotten much cleaner.
“I think the more people that come down and use it, the more people will want to say we can make it better,” he said.
Detisch hopes a cleaner Monongahela River with recreation will attract visitors, new residents and business to the region.
“It’s a gem,” he said. “It’s a beautiful river. There are a lot of trees and a lot of interesting bends. You can just go out and relax, and there’s still history that you can boat by and so forth. I think that the Mon River has a lot to offer.”
