Pip: J News Network — where the news is industrial-strength, sometimes literally.
Mara: Today's episode covers three distinct corners of Ohio public life, brought to us by the Investigative Team: a contaminated Cleveland site being converted into housing, a major drug trafficking bust in Portsmouth, and a new policing partnership in Meigs County.
Pip: Quite a range. Let's start with the Cleveland property and what it means to build apartments on ground that still has a contamination problem.
Environmental Cleanup And Housing
Mara: The former Voss Industries site on West 25th Street in Cleveland is being redeveloped into apartments, retail, restaurants, and coworking space — but contamination is staying in the ground, managed rather than removed.
Pip: The Ohio EPA remedy document spells out exactly what that management looks like: "contamination will remain in place and requires engineering controls designed to prevent future occupants from being exposed to contaminated soil and chemical vapors."
Mara: So the upshot is that residents will be living above a managed contamination zone, protected by concrete slabs, clean soil cover, paved surfaces, and two sub-slab depressurization systems continuously pulling vapors out from beneath the building. Indoor air sampling is required before anyone moves in, and again after occupancy begins.
Pip: The contaminant list is long — TCE, PCE, benzene, lead, arsenic, hexavalent chromium among them. The EPA links long-term exposure to cancer risk and organ effects, which is exactly why the quarterly inspections and annual compliance reports to Ohio EPA exist. The covenant protecting the developer from liability holds only as long as those controls hold.
Mara: From housing on contaminated ground, we move to a very different kind of story — drug trafficking in Portsmouth.
Drug Trafficking Arrests
Mara: A Thursday morning operation in Portsmouth resulted in two arrests, significant drug seizures, and the discovery of an outstanding murder warrant — a case that moved fast once the Southern Ohio Drug Task Force closed in.
Pip: The task force's account is precise on the numbers: investigators recovered "approximately 118 grams of suspected fentanyl and 87 grams of crack cocaine, with an estimated street value of $24,720."
Mara: What that means in practice is a combined first-degree felony trafficking charge and a first-degree felony possession charge for each suspect — Al'Jurdon Christian Gooch, 26, and Christian Ray Jackson, 23, both from Columbus. First-degree felonies in Ohio carry the most serious penalties available below homicide.
Pip: And Jackson's situation escalated further. Authorities also took him into custody on an outstanding murder warrant out of Columbus — so this drug operation surfaced a separate, serious open case.
Mara: The operation itself involved the Southern Ohio Drug Task Force, the Portsmouth Police Department SWAT team, and additional Portsmouth officers, converging on a residence in the 2800 block of Gallia Street just after seven in the morning. Digital scales and $1,014 in cash were also seized.
Pip: Both men are being held without bond, scheduled for arraignment in Portsmouth Municipal Court. The case goes to the Scioto County Prosecutor's Office for grand jury consideration, so this is far from its final chapter.
Mara: The Portsmouth case is about filling a gap in enforcement. The next story is about filling a different kind of gap — in patrol coverage.
Local Patrol Coverage
Pip: Middleport has a police department that isn't staffed around the clock, and the question is what happens to public safety during those hours. The answer, now, is a formal county partnership.
Mara: Sheriff Scott Fitch described the arrangement directly: "Our deputies will be dedicated exclusively to the Village during these hours, allowing for proactive patrols, faster response to calls for service, and increased visibility throughout the community."
Pip: That dedicated-exclusively piece matters. This isn't deputies swinging through Middleport when available — it's guaranteed coverage: full 24-hour patrols on weekends and nightly patrols from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Friday, effective immediately.
Mara: The Meigs County Sheriff's Office framed this as a model it intends to replicate, saying it will continue pursuing similar partnerships with local governments across the county.
Pip: Managed contamination, a drug bust with a murder warrant attached, and a county stepping in to cover a village's off-hours — Ohio's local infrastructure, in all its complexity.
Mara: The through-line is accountability: who monitors the vapor systems, who prosecutes the trafficking case, who patrols when the local department isn't there. More from J News Network next time.
