Presentation short abstract

Ethnographic research with river users in Pittsburgh, PA, USA explores how people live with persistent pollution in post-industrial waterways. It examines how memories and sensory encounters with toxicity shape imaginaries of care, risk, and just environmental futures.

Presentation long abstract

In 2023, American Rivers named the Ohio River the second most endangered river in the United States, citing its long history and ongoing realities of industrial pollution. This history runs deep into the watersheds of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, whose confluence in Pittsburgh forms the Ohio. Between 1987 and 2021, Allegheny County recorded over 15,000 toxic chemical releases into its waterways, 32% of them in Pittsburgh and 26% involving carcinogenic substances (WPRDC 2023). Yet these same rivers have become increasingly central to post-industrial urban revitalization efforts that transform formerly industrial waterfronts into sites of recreation and economic renewal. This presentation draws on ethnographic research with Pittsburgh river users to examine how people understand the past, present, and future of river life amid overlapping legacies of pollution and redevelopment. I focus on the ways that memories of contamination and sensory encounters with pollution shape residents’ imaginaries of care, risk, and belonging along the rivers. By tracing these situated ways of knowing and engaging with polluted waters, the research shows how everyday river practices can articulate broader struggles over just urban environmental futures and social reproduction in post-industrial landscapes.