A few news items for Labor Day

The Courier-Journal of Louisville gives a few paragraphs to a worker at the largest sewage treatment plant in Kentucky.

In the 1980s, a guy who worked at the treatment plant in Ironton, Ohio, asked me to refer to his place of employment as a "wastewater treatment facility." Those were the days when I claimed the title of World Champion Sewer Writer two years in a row.

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According to this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, now is the time to be on the watch for migrating birds and insects. I don't know enough about them really to say much, but a guy who lives near me say the hummingbirds have almost entirely left this part of the Ohio Valley.

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Here's an opinion piece in the Evansville Courier & Press about the amount of highway and bridge construction going on there. Toward the end, the writer mentions construction of a new Ohio River bridge that likely will require tolls.

That last part is not surprising. Bridges are more and  more expensive, and most for most proposed Ohio River bridges that I know of that aren't out to bid yet, tolls are part of the discussion. When you're talking billion-dollar numbers for big projects like those in Louisville and Cincinnati, tolls have to be in the mix, I guess.

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So have a good unofficial last day of summer, everyone.

M/V Charleston, 1 of 4

AmherstMadison had the towboat Charleston open for public tours at the Point Pleasant Tribute to the River this weekend. We got lots of pictures of the boat -- so many, I'm splitting them into four entries in order to avoid an overly long one.

This first entry will have some closeup exterior shots. I have lots of photos of the Charleston that I've taken from a distance. This is the closest I've been able to get to it.

Here goes:

The Charleston was built in 1947 by Hillman Barge & Construction Co. of Brownsville, Pa. It's 145 feet long and 28 feet wide. Its two engines generate about 2,400 horsepower. It's crew said it's the largest boat AmherstMadison operates mainly on the Kanawaha, and from a living environment, it's the quietest and most vibration-free.

Its original name was the Onward. Over the years, it has also been known as the Robert W. Lea, the Flagship and the Mike J. AmherstMadison, also known as Madison Coal & Supply, bought the boat in May 1971 and renamed it the Charleston.

The Charleston runs mostly on the Kanawha River and on the Ohio from about Parkersburg to Cincinnati. Its crew members said AmherstMadison plans to do some major overhaul and upgrades to the boat and its engines in the next two years.

For what it's worth, later entries will include interior shots and other exterior shots, too.