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| Watch This Week's "The State of Ohio" Online |
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This week on "The State of Ohio": State lawmakers consider what they can do in the wake of the horrible and yet miraculous escape story out of Cleveland involving three women held prisoner in a house for a decade. New data shows more than half of all violent crimes are committed by a very small numbers of offenders. Lawmakers are now working to target that tiny group. And more thoughts on legislation that would dramatically change rules on unions in Ohio.
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| EPA Holds Meeting on Emissions in Cleveland. |
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By David C. Barnett - June 28, 2001 |
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Tonight the US EPA is holding its first meeting with stakeholders in a new
air toxins project in Cleveland. The EPA is hoping to create a national model
for helping local communities make significant reductions in toxic emissions.
Officials at the US EPA say they chose Cleveland for their pilot project, because
of the level of local awareness of air toxin problems. Tonight residents from
two Cleveland neighborhoods will join other local stakeholders from the business
community, government, and local environmental groups to talk about what kinds
of projects they want to undertake. Jack Barnette with the US EPA's Region 5 Office
in Chicago is overseeing the project. He says the goal is to have a significant
impact on air quality within one year. Barnette believes it's a new approach for
the EPA. |
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Jack Barnette (0:31) 
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| While Clevelanders will have input into designing ways to voluntarily improve air quality, Barnette says he already has two projects in mind. One, Tools for Schools, is a preexisting EPA program that would be implemented in the Cleveland Schools to clean up indoor air and reduce asthma attacks in children. The other would help pay for a retrofit of Cleveland city buses to new cleaner-burning diesel engines, which Barnette believes could make a dramatic reduction in the particulate emissions that help create ozone. He won't say how much, but Barnette says the EPA is putting some big bucks behind the program. |
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Jack Barnette (0:16)
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| Barnette says the plan is to make the new projects sustainable, so that they can continue to provide emissions reductions in Cleveland and also be applied in other cities. But no one knows how long federal funding will continue or if some aspects of the yet-to-be-designed program, now voluntary, will eventually become mandatory. Kevin Snape, who heads the Clean Air Conservancy in Cleveland, is one of those who doesn't expect the project to be able to produce the dramatic quick-fix the EPA is looking for. But he does believe it had potential. |
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Kevin Snape (0:35)
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