Mill Creek: The River That Died and the Long Argument Over Whether to Revive It

Mill Creek drains about a hundred and sixty-six square miles of southwestern Ohio before it meets the Ohio River at the western edge of Cincinnati. It is not a large river. For most of the twentieth century, it was also barely a river at all. The Army Corps of Engineers channelized major sections of it to prevent flooding, replacing the natural streambed with concrete and steel. The riparian forest was cleared. The floodplain was built over. What remained was a drainage ditch running through an industrial corridor.

The industries that lined the creek contributed to what went into it. By the early nineteen nineties, Ohio EPA studies found raw sewage throughout the stream along with lead, heavy metals, organic compounds, pesticides, and ammonia, all at levels exceeding federal and state standards. In nineteen ninety-seven, American Rivers named Mill Creek among America's Most Endangered Rivers, specifically calling it one of the most severely polluted and physically degraded urban streams in the country.

The designation helped, eventually. Advocacy organizations organized around the creek. Combined sewer overflow projects reduced raw sewage discharge. Fish that had disappeared came back. The Mill Creek Alliance documented the recovery and pushed for continued investment.

But what made the Mill Creek story complicated was the geography of who lived alongside it. The creek runs through the communities that Cincinnati's segregated housing market had concentrated poor and Black residents into: the West End, Northside, St. Bernard, communities that bore the industrial pollution while having the least political power to address it. Environmental injustice was mapped onto the physical channel of the stream.

The creek is cleaner now than it was in nineteen ninety-seven. It is not clean. The argument about what to restore and who pays for it is still running.