Photo By Jymi Bolden

During a visit to Queen City Barrel Co. in Lower Price Hill, activists Mike Henson (left) and Mike Preston inspect a barrel marked "Hazardous Waste."

As he walks Lower Price Hill on an overcast day, Mike Henson is an olfactory tour guide.

This smell is burning plastic, says Henson, a project coordinator for the Urban Appalachian Council. Here, paint fumes. Here? The sweet, rotten smell of feces wafts from the Metropolitan Sewer System. And those are just the odorous emissions.

Even so, the small group of neighborhood activists following Henson's depressing tour seems to be in a good mood today. Maybe it's because Cincinnati City Council voted 8-1 May 5 to reinstate Title X of the municipal code, whose air quality standards had been rendered useless when the city's Office of Environmental Management (OEM) lost its funding in this year's budget cuts.

The new Cincinnati Clean Air Ordinance has even more teeth than Title X because it gives the city the option of pressing criminal charges against the most egregious and consistent offenders. Best of all, the new law won't cost the city anything.

That's largely thanks to the creative thinking of 23-year-old Nithin Akuthota. The second-year University of Cincinnati law student spent last summer working with UC's Center for Law and Justice to find a way to reenact an air quality ordinance without any additional cost.

Poor air for poor people
Under the guidance of Councilman John Cranley, Akuthota and fellow law students Mike Cappel and Jim Herbe talked to environmentalists in the Sierra Club, ECO and Ohio Citizen Action; community activists such as Lower Price Hill's Environmental Leadership Group; environmental lawyer David Altman; and the city's Community Development Committee, chaired by Councilman David Crowley.

Akuthota took what he heard in the community and translated into official-speak and legalese.

"I was able to facilitate between city council and the environmental groups," he says. "As a lawyer in training, I'm sure some of it's like that -- advocating for a group of citizens and trying to get their interests recognized by the city."

The new law is timely. The smog levels in the seven-county Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area recently failed federal health standards. About the same time, the American Lung Association crowned the area with the 11th worst year-round particle pollution in the country.

Akuthota considers air quality a justice issue as well as an environmental issue, because the most affected areas are also economically depressed -- neighborhoods such as Lower Price Hill, Winton Terrace, Queensgate and Bond Hill (see "The Color of Air," issue of May 16-22, 2002).

After a few false starts, Akuthota got a tip that the city's new community prosecution division might be able to act as the enforcement agency necessary to make the law effective. The Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services (HCDES) will continue to investigate, but instead of sending findings to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for enforcement, the city's law department can argue cases in Hamilton County Municipal Court.

Local enforcement of air quality standards is crucial, Cranley told council May 5.

Describing himself as the "point person" when city council eliminated OEM, Cranley said activists changed his mind in the past year and a half.

"We were thinking more about money at the time," he said.

The city had been spending $300,000 a year to finance the OEM.

But Cranley told council the elimination of OEM means some pollution problems have gone unaddressed.

"It's obvious that the Ohio and federal EPA have bigger fish to fry than some of these smaller offenders," he said.

Cory Chadwick, HCDES director, agrees. His department investigates cases, then refers them to the Ohio EPA for enforcement action. But nothing much happens, and when it does it takes a long time, he says.

Polluters hate jail
Councilman Pat DeWine cast the only vote against the new ordinance. His criticism of the measure jibed with those in an April 28 memo to Crowley from Doug Moormann of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce.

The ordinance sets a vague liability standard, unlike state and federal laws based on measurable scientific standards, according to DeWine.

The new law uses this language to define pollution: " 'Air pollution' means the presence in the ambient air of one or more air contaminants or any combination thereof in sufficient quantity and of such characteristics and duration as is or may be injurious to human health or welfare, plant or animal life or property or as substantially interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life, health, safety or property."

But Chadwick says state and federal standards are essentially the same as those that will now be used locally.

"It's as measurable as the height of weeds and the amount of graffiti on buildings," Crowley says.

The ordinance also forbids any air emissions that violate state or federal air quality laws.

Crowley had hoped DeWine would make the vote unanimous, as DeWine has actively supported action on other quality of life issues such as litter and graffiti. But DeWine said the city shouldn't be in the business of "subjecting people to a law that no other jurisdiction in the state has."

Cincinnati might be the only jurisdiction with potential jail sentences for polluters, but it's not the only community trying to regulate its air quality. Chadwick says his department contracts with at least 13 municipalities in four counties to investigate air pollution.

Another Chamber objection is the very reason criminal penalties might be useful.

"Even at the misdemeanor level, criminal penalties carry with them stigmas which most citizens wish to avoid," Moormann wrote.

Akuthota says it's a way to reach corporations that consider a fine "the cost of doing business."

Henson agrees, noting that the Ohio EPA recently assessed Queen City Barrel a $26,000 fine after a member of the Lower Price Hill Environmental Leadership Group caught one of its plants blowing paint fumes across the street onto a kids' ball field.

Residents of Lower Price Hill say moving isn't an option.

"This is where my family is," says Donna Jones, president of the Lower Price Hill Community Council. "This is where I belong, you know?"

Jones blames pollution for the congestion, sinus headache and asthma symptoms she experiences.

Gerry Kraus, a member of the North Avondale Neighborhood Association, told council the new ordinance will prove a useful tool, perhaps even a step toward a "renaissance of city living." ©