Fall Winter 06-07 Newsletter

With our busy lifestyles, many of us must deliberately slow ourselves down to renew ties with our family and friends. The holiday season, the blazing fireplace, the shortening days, and winter’s slower pace all invite annual gatherings and the ritual sending of cards and cookies. Renewed ties also sustain the environmental movement.

Many of us think of the environmental movement as a collection of activists, supporters, and advocacy groups. But one emerging view is that the environmental movement is actually the network of connections that link us together. Renewing and strengthening connections between activists, between supporters, and between groups will strengthen the environmental movement. We need to focus on becoming a community rather than a collection! So, this season, instead of picking up another project (or present), why not pick up the phone, pick up a pen, or pick up a friend for lunch? It’s time to renew the ties that bind.

You are invited to read about the collaborative work behind Community Shares (page 1) and the Mayor’s Forum on the city budget (page 2). These stories demonstrate that the Movement as Network is alive and well in Cincinnati!

ECO is one of the twenty-five local organizations which comprise Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati. Community Shares is a partnership of organizations which collaborate to build social and economic equity and a healthy environment. Community Shares' member organizations are joined in a common mission: to address the root causes of social problems facing our community. Community Shares organizations provide education, promote health care, protect children and women, work for a cleaner environment, advance home ownership, train workers and find employment, build neighborhoods and to end discrimination and intolerance.

Focus areas of Community Shares include increasing community awareness of the member organizations and raising needed funds for the groups doing such important work. Through the Community Shares workplace-giving campaigns, tens of thousands of people can learn of, and support, ECO's work to protect the environment. If you would like for your workplace to offer a Community Shares campaign, providing employees with the ability to make payroll-deduction contributions to Community Shares organizations, contact ECO.

Progressive politics embody a common worldview and core values. University of California Linguist Professor George Lakoff says, “In this view, the job of government is to care for, serve and protect the population (especially those who are helpless), to guarantee democracy (the equal sharing of political power), to promote the well-being of all and to ensure fairness for all. The economy should be a means to these moral ends. There should be openness in government. Nature is seen as a source of nurture to be respected and preserved. Empathy and responsibility are to be promoted in every area of life, public and private. Art and education are parts of self-fulfillment and therefore moral necessities.”

On November 16th, Queen City progressives turned out in droves to Mayor Mallory’s Budget Forum to advocate for programs serving the homeless, abused women, and youth, for community recreation facilities, for the arts, for environmental protection, and for social services. ECO Program Director Marti Sinclair was speaker 168 and, with roughly 200 speakers signed up, speakers were necessarily concise. But speakers were also respectful, well-spoken, on point, and the testimony sincere, heartfelt, and frequently deeply moving.

Advocates generally spoke to their own specific issues, but there was a sense of united purpose in the room as one after another local residents presented their vision for Cincinnati as a robust community served by government and serving as the engine for a dynamic, vibrant, growing local economy.

Mayor Mark Mallory’s budget recommendations echoed values expressed at the forum and he summed up well, “The best way to grow our city is by investing in our people. Cincinnati is blessed with many resources; however, the citizens of Cincinnati are our greatest resource. My pride in the people of Cincinnati was reaffirmed during a public forum in which 550 citizens attended and spoke passionately about the future of Cincinnati. The views expressed at the forum helped me develop my budget recommendations.”

Mayor Mallory made the following budget recommendation, “I am asking Council to adopt a budget that invests in people and focuses on the following priorities: Public Safety, Youth Employment, Recreation, Neighborhood Development, the Arts, Human Services, Economic Development, and Good Government. … In addition ...I enthusiastically support ...the creation of Office of Environmental Quality [and] re-establishment of the Department of City Planning.” 1

ECO recommends that members of the local community who support the Mayor’s budget recommendations contact City Council members to urge:

Creation of an Office of Environmental Quality reporting directly to the City Manager

Continued support for public safety, social services, youth employment and recreational opportunities, community and neighborhood resources. and the arts.

1 The American Planning Association had decried the abolishment of the Department of City Planning and complained that the recommendations for abolishment of the City Planning Department by Mayor Luken’s Economic Development Task Force, dominated by developers, “lack balance and give developers excessive influence over the city's future growth while diminishing the influence of citizens groups."

In 2003, Cincinnati City Council disbanded the Office of Environmental Management citing budgetary concerns. Community leader and activist Dr. Carl Evert has been a reasoned and articulate advocate for the reestablishment of an environmental office in the City of Cincinnati. As a result of efforts by Carl and other city residents, a newly constituted Office of Environmental Quality is included in the Mayor’s proposed budget for 2007. However, the funding awaits approval by City Council. We are reprinting Carl’s persuasive letter on the wisdom and importance of funding the Office of Environmental Quality here.

On the issue of restoring funding for an Office of Environmental Quality, I ask you to recall from the January 11, 2003 Farewell Letter to the Citizens of Cincinnati by Dennis Murphey [former Director of Cincinnati’s Office of Environmental Management]:

1- " The OEM's employee safety program reduced serious injuries to City workers by 80% and saved the taxpayers millions of dollars."

2- The OEM "also generated significant amounts of external funding grants for important environmental activities and helped the City avoid major liabilities from acquisition of contaminated property and from non compliance with regulatory environmental requirements."

In addition, the reduction in the cost of city supported health services when air quality is improved has not been quantified, but it must be significant and should not be overlooked.

Today any major city without a focus on the impact of the environment on the health and wellbeing of its citizens and thus the sustainability of its tax base, is a city courting failure. You, as City Council members, have heavily invested City resources in downtown development, department stores and various corporate headquarters. I sincerely urge you to recognize that an Office of Environmental Quality is also a fundamental part of our City infrastructure and fund it accordingly. We have already lost four years of productivity from this essential component of municipal government.

Volunteer Sue Wolinsky has started work as a contract technical writer for the National Homeland Security Research Center at US EPA in Cincinnati. We thank Sue for her great work here at ECO and wish her the best in her new job.

Board Member LaVerne Mayfield has resigned her position. Laverne continues her work for the Greater Cincinnati Occupational Health Center, coordinates the City of Cincinnati Brownfield Workforce Development Project, and serves as Director of Community Outreach for the ICWUC Center for Worker Health and Safety Education. We have enjoyed working with LaVerne and look forward to future networking.

ECO organized a neighborhood meeting with Mike Harmon of the City Solicitor’s Office so that neighbors could get the latest updates on Cincinnati’s Clean Air Act.

This article is reprinted by permission from the Communities United for Action newsletter.

Mike Harmon, from the City Solicitor’s office, met with residents of Winton Place and Findlater Gardens, activists, representatives of Environmental Community Organization, Ohio Citizen Action and CUFA on Thursday, October 19. Harmon updated the group on industries that have recently been fined for non-compliance with Title Ten, otherwise known as the Cincinnati Clean Air Act; these included companies such as Cognis and Berghausen Chemical Company.

Here’s how the process works: You smell an odor (i.e. butter flavor, cat urine, butterscotch,

etc.) in your community and call (513) 946-7777 to file a Complaint with Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services (HCDOES). Hotline operators are educated on differentiation of odors. HCDOES then performs an investigation and gives their finding to Mike Harmon. When the Office of Environmental Management was closed, Harmon became responsible for the enforcement of Title Ten through fines and other action. Cognis has received hefty fines for its stack emissions and also for water contamination that resulted in the death of fish and other wildlife. So keep calling in those complaints and holding business accountable!

However, Harmon said Title Ten does not have jurisdiction over mobile sources of pollution, only stationary ones. This means it can’t be used to address an increase in diesel fuel exhaust from an unknown number of trucks driving to and from our already polluted neighborhoods if CSI opens a transfer station on Este Ave.

According to a European Respiratory Journal article, Health Effects of Diesel Exhaust Emissions: “Acute effects of diesel exhaust exposure include irritation of the nose and eyes, lung function changes, respiratory changes, headache, fatigue and nausea. Chronic exposures are associated with cough, sputum production and lung function decrements.” (1) The article also cites studies which have shown that diesel exhaust emissions worsen asthma and may contribute to the allergy pandemic.

The next question is; IF the Clean Air Act doesn’t have jurisdiction over diesel exhaust, then who does? ##

(1) Sydbom, A. et. al. 2001. Health effects of diesel exhaust emissions. The European Respiratory Journal. vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 733-746

Council Person	Email
Ms. Cole	laketa.cole@cincinnati-oh.gov
Mr. Cranley	john.cranley@cincinnati-oh.gov
Mr. Crowley	david.crowley@cincinnati-oh.gov
Ms. Ghiz	leslie.ghiz@cincinnati-oh.gov
Mr. Monzel	chris.monzel@cincinnati-oh.gov
Mr. Tarbell	james.tarbell@cincinnati-oh.gov
Mr. Thomas	cecil.thomas@cincinnati-oh.gov
Mr. Berding	jeff.berding@cincinnati-oh.gov
Mr. Bortz	chris.bortz@cincinnati-oh.gov

Represents about 80% of the cancer risk posed by all hazardous air pollutants nationally

Five of the eight Northeast states have anti-idling regulations for diesel trucks: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, NJ, and NY

In New York City, where emissions problems are the most severe, the New York City Sanitation Department has equipped 252 trucks with advanced emission control technology.

When Brooklyn, NY, residents complained about trucks idling on the street for hours while waiting to enter the local transfer station, that the idling made it difficult to sleep, and that the streets were suffused with diesel fumes, the transfer station permit was tightened. All Cities Paper’s permit requires that, “Truck traffic would be governed by a service agreement which the Applicant would enter with its independent truckers. Among other things, the agreement would restrict truck idling time and alert truckers to the access routes determined to be acceptable by the state transportation department.”

Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services has issued a draft permit-to-install to Cognis Oleochemicals for the installation of four new multi-fuel fired boilers. Two of the new boilers will be fired with natural gas and #2 fuel oil only and the other two will also be able to burn landfill gas and process waste (tallow sludge, glycerine residue, fatty alcohol residue). In order to comply with federal regulations, Cognis will be required to restrict the operation of one of their existing coal-fired boilers to reduce the air pollution. Cognis is moving forward with the retirement of several of other currently-operating coal-fired boilers. When this entire set of purposed modifications at the plant are completed, air emissions should be reduced overall.