It’s about 130 miles long, has nine locks and dams, and flows north, from the mountains of West Virginia to the Point in downtown Pittsburgh. That’s where it meets the Allegheny to form the Ohio River. Yes, it’s the Monongahela River — the Mighty Mon as some call it.
For the “Reporting from the Mon” series, we head out into the watershed. We visit a stream on the way back from a devastating fish kill, stand next to the hulking remains of a steel plant along the river’s shore, and examine pollution sources that threaten water quality.
The series won a 2026 Golden Quill from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania for Excellence in Audio Journalism in the Science/Environment category, and won the Ed King Memorial Award for best-in-show for audio journalism.
The judges called the series “the perfect combination of rich storytelling and astute, data-driven field reporting. The format of short audio pieces coupled with contextualizing digital articles and photos made for an especially immersive experience. It was almost like following a true crime podcast but much more meaningful.”
Funding for the series comes from the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds and the Robert F. Schumann Foundation.
