bug goes crunch: it's been a book you read in reverse

bug goes crunch

Friday, April 20, 2007

it's been a book you read in reverse


so yesterday i downloaded the waterbody use designations for the muskingum river drainage basin (chapter 3745-1-24 of the ohio administrative code) and was quite surprised to see a stream named "nigger run", tributary to the mohican river upstream of its confluence with the kokosing river. i know those sort of names were common in the past, but i thought they had pretty much all been "revised" to something less offensive. i checked a usgs quad map online and saw that, as far as the federal government was concerned, the name of this particular stream was now "negro run". but then i looked in the index of all waterbodies and saw that there are in fact three "nigger run"s and one "nigger creek". the index was last revised on 4/2/2007, which sharp readers will quickly identify as the 21st century. perhaps OEPA staff are more concerned about finishing all those TMDLs, or maybe they are trying to teach us all something about the power of language, which we are stubbornly refusing to understand.

in case anyone is interested, the designated uses for this particular "nigger run" include aquatic life warmwater habitat, agricultural and industrial water supply, and primary contact recreation. it does not appear on the state's 303(d) list, however, so we may assume it is fully attaining these uses. maybe when the walhondling river gets its TMDL someone will take a closer look at nigger run.

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