For deckhand Ryan Gilleran, life on the towboat means long days on the Ohio River. But moving the building blocks of modern life up and down the river is work that's easy to find pride in.
Call it a silver lining. But states along the Ohio River have much better safeguards for drinking water supplies today as a result of some past disasters.
For decades, much of the Ohio River was used as an industrial sewer. And that long legacy of pollution is still being felt all along the river's near-thousand-mile course.
Interstate cooperation has been crucial to restoring waters in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. But so far, marshaling a regional effort to improve the Ohio River has proven difficult.
