The Albert Pyle Urban Lecture: Becca Costello & Ella Rowen

Backed Up Podcast hosts Becca Costello & Ella Rowen deliver the 2025 Albert Pyle Urban Lecture.

There's something wrong with the plumbing in Cincinnati. Sewage is bubbling up in our basements and pouring into our waterways. Climate change is making it worse, and the powers that be can't seem to agree on how to fix it.

Backed Up is a podcast that demystifies one of the most complex systems of public infrastructure — our sewers — and tells the stories of the people suffering under decades of mismanagement.

6 pm reception/6:30 pm program

Free to members/$25 nonmembers

Registration required.

Becca Costello and Ella Rowen are co-hosts of Backed Up. Becca is Cincinnati Public Radio’s Local Government Reporter; she has a Master’s in Journalism from Indiana University and nearly ten years of public media experience. Ella is CPR’s Podcast Coordinator with a particular passion for sound design; she also produces and engineers CPR’s podcast Looking Up with Dean Regas.