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A study of major sources of industrial pollution in Hamilton County has found significant violations of the federal Clean Air Act.
The Environmental Community Organization (ECO), a local network of environmental activists, checked the compliance of 124 significant air pollution sources in the county. ECO found that 43 facilities violated the Clean Air Act for at least one quarter between 2004 and 2006 and 28 had been in violation for eight or more quarters. ECO relied on from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Enforcement and Compliance History Online database.
Monitoring of ambient air quality has shown Greater Cincinnati repeatedly failed to meet standards for ozone and particulate matter, according to the EPA. The ECO report cites direct emissions of sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, ammonia and volatile organic compounds.
The Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services is enforcing a state implementation plan to bring Greater Cincinnati into compliance with federal air-quality standards.
Pointing to smog and soot as seriously harmful, especially to those with asthma, lung disease, heart disease and other circulatory diseases, ECO reports 2,052 admissions to Hamilton County hospitals for asthma and bronchitis for the years 2001-2005. Local children have been deprived of the equivalent of an entire summer's worth of days due to indoor restriction on smog days -- more than 83 days for between 2001 and 2010, ECO concludes.
The group reports that nearly 17 percent of Hamilton County’s residents under the age of 18 have been diagnosed with asthma, approximately 35,000 people.
More than 50 percent of minorities in Greater Cincinnati live within a one-mile radius of one or more facilities in the city, ECO says. About 10,000 people live within a one-mile radius of the Givaudan plant in Carthage, the world's largest producer of flavors and fragrances -- and a violator of Clean Air Act standards.
That kind of information has gotten the attention of people who have heard the report's findings, according to Marti Sinclair, author of the report and program director for ECO. She described the reaction at a recent ECO open house.
"The public reaction was profound," she says. "People were gasping when they heard and saw on slides that were made in this study. ... The study verified that in fact it's a widespread problem. I was shocked at the degree of noncompliance by Hamilton County and the city of Cincinnati compared to the rest of the state, and that shocked people also."
The rate of non-compliance with the Clean Air Act by major facilities is 76 percent in the city of Cincinnati, 55 percent in Hamilton County and 45 percent statewide, ECO says.
But there are many steps being taken to combat the growing laxity of environmental compliance.
ECO also finds some cause for optimism, including the re-establishment of the city's Office of Environmental Quality and the Cincinnati Clean Air Act -- Title X of the municipal code -- which charts citizen complaints about pollution and odors. ECO also says the timeliness of enforcement by the Ohio EPA and Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services has been steadily improving.
The report says an increasing number of administrative orders have been issued, with fewer old enforcement cases, and enforcement actions from 2001 to 2005 reduced soot and smog forming pollutants by 11,700 tons per year -- although there was no information provided on how much of that reduction occurred in Greater Cincinnati.
Pushing corporate giants to comply with the law has to come from the federal level. But some of the air monitoring is now a grassroots effort.
The county operates the Summa Canister Sampling Program, which allows people who are concerned about odors or emissions from a nearby source of pollution to collect air and have it analyzed by the Department of Environmental Services.
"It is well past time for citizens, political leaders, and enforcement authorities to take the situation in hand," the report says.
To read the full report, visit www.env-comm.org. For information on the Summa Canister Sampling Program, visit www.hcdoes.org.
