This is great work. I’d like to
Letters-to-the editor tips
|
CLEVELAND — “Now, it turns out the city will owe [Incinerator project consultant Peter] Tien an additional $450,000 should the state EPA issue an air emissions permit.
Ken Silliman, chief of staff for Mayor Jackson, acknowledges that the permit probably wouldn’t be used, since gasification is no longer the city’s ‘preferred option.’
Neighbors of the Ridge Road site where some sort of trash-to-energy plant would be built are adamantly opposed to such a project and the city has no money to build it. However, according to its contract with Tien, the city must make a good-faith effort to secure the permit.
Failure is definitely an option, though. How about a little help, Ohio EPA?”
— editorial, Cleveland Plain Dealer
link to article
 All those blue bags add up: Cuyahoga County communities recycled 227,473 tons last year. CLEVELAND — “Nearly thirty people testified—all in opposition. They worried mercury and lead emissions would put neighbors’ health at risk.
Nathan Rutz with environmental group Ohio Citizen Action says the county already has pollution problems, and sustainable alternatives make more sense.
RUTZ: ‘The people of Cleveland are in favor of more recycling, and no incinerator; we’d also like to see composting happen, and the great thing is that’s what the city’s own consultants told them is a better option than the incinerator.’”
— Nick Castele and Eve O’Connor, ideastream
link to article
 CLEVELAND — “Then, last month, city-hired consultants concluded that the facility would be too costly to build and operate and could eventually drive up rates for CPP customers. The consultant suggested recycling, composting and anaerobic digestion, a process that escalates decomposition of organic trash, as the most affordable and environmentally-friendly options.
But to the astonishment of some City Council members and City Hall observers, members of the Jackson administration said that the city still would seek permission from the OEPA to build a gasification plant.
Maureen Harper, chief of communications for Jackson, said seeing the permit process through makes sense given the city’s earlier investments in the idea and the possible, though unlikely, chance that changes in the energy market and cost of construction would make the project affordable.
A settlement agreement with fired consultant Peter Tien, who worked on the air emission permit application, also requires the city to show a ‘good faith effort’ to obtain the permit or pay him half of his $1.5 million contract.”
— Leila Atassi, Cleveland Plain Dealer
link to article
— Maureen Harper, City of Cleveland
 Cleveland is slowly stepping up its curbside recycling program so it sends less trash to landfills. (Bill Kennedy / The Plain Dealer) CLEVELAND — “City officials expect to see a boost in residents’ participation as the city continues to educate the public about the benefits of the program and as recycling becomes more culturally entrenched, Harper said.
The city makes about a half of a million dollars a year by selling recyclables and saves nearly $360,000 a year by not hauling those materials to landfills as trash.
The city began its recycling program as four-year pilot project in 2007, serving 15,000 households, and officially launched the citywide program in 2011, with plans of phasing it in over four years. Residents receive a 95-gallon black cart for garbage and a 65-gallon blue cart for recyclables.”
— Leila Atassi, Cleveland Plain Dealer
link to article
CLEVELAND — Another public hearing for the Ohio EPA air pollution permit for Cleveland’s proposed Ridge Road trash incinerator will be held on Wednesday, June 12th at 6:00 p.m. at the Estabrook Recreation Center, 4125 Fulton Road.
In 2012, Mayor Frank Jackson unveiled a proposal to build a garbage incinerator at the Ridge Road transfer station, which would have been one of the largest sources of air pollution in the city. Hundreds of Clevelanders attended public hearings on the project, stating their opposition to incineration and their support for recycling and composting. The City ended up firing the project developer Peter Tien, for incompetence.
The City said it was going “back to the drawing board,” and hired a consultant, who reviewed a limited range of alternatives. On May 8, 2013, the consultant told City Council that the incinerator would be the most expensive option.
However, despite all these events, the City of Cleveland has resubmitted its application to Ohio EPA for an air pollution permit to build the incinerator on Ridge Road.
— Ohio Citizen Action, Environmental Health Watch, and the Northeast Ohio Sierra Club Coal and Energy Committee
link to flyer
 City of Cleveland administrators are not ready to pull the plug on controversial waste-to-energy technology. CLEVELAND — “Council members, who assumed last week that the proposition had met its end, expressed frustration and disappointment after hearing that the administration would not eliminate it from consideration.
‘The city’s own study demonstrates that the waste-to-energy plan is an economic lead balloon,’ said Councilman Jay Westbrook. ‘Call it for what it is, and stop tormenting tax-paying, conscientious residents.’
For several years, the city has flirted with the technology called gasification, which calls for burning pellets made from compressed trash to generate electricity for city-owned Cleveland Public Power.”
— Leila Atassi, Cleveland Plain Dealer
link to article
— Leila Atassi, Cleveland Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, OH — “There is an ironic juxtaposition at play in Ohio concerning the fundamental right of property owners to control the use of their land.
Ohio land owners, as a group, are of two minds about this right, at least when it comes to land atop shale oil and gas. Many property owners believe they should have the right to use their land as they please — that is, to lease drilling rights to potential shale oil and gas developers, or to have their land included in a drilling unit. After all, it’s their land. They should have the right to make that decision.
But what if they want to exercise their right to control the use of their land in a different way? What if the landowner wants his land not to be used for shale oil and gas development? Would a landowner have the right to make that decision as well?
Actually, not necessarily.”
— Heidi Gorovitz-Robertson, Crain’s Cleveland Business
link to article
 Paul Bender, the city of Cleveland’s new head of public utilities. CLEVELAND — “At Bender’s swearing-in ceremony last month, Jackson praised him for his range and depth of experience and said Bender will play a critical role in ensuring the future viability of the city’s utilities.
But not everyone is sold on the new director just yet.
Environmentalists say they have yet to see where Bender stands on controversial issues involving Cleveland Public Power. The city is still studying the possibility of building a waste-to-energy plant, which would burn trash to generate electricity. And the utility is snagged in expensive long-term contracts with coal-burning power plants. In one case, a plant was never even built, but the city is on the hook for millions of dollars in stranded costs. The failed plant is at the heart of a pending lawsuit, involving CPP and a consortium of other cities that signed the deal.
Bender said in a recent interview that he has only begun to review CPP’s contracts and energy portfolio. He also deflected questions about the waste-to-energy plant, stating that the mayor is taking the lead on that issue.”
— Leila Atassi, Cleveland Plain Dealer
link to article
 A mountain of trash at Cleveland’s Ridge Road transfer station, where the city had planned to build a waste-to-energy facility. CLEVELAND — “Mayor Frank Jackson opened the door to other ideas in April after the gasification concept suffered a beating by environmentalists and some City Council members concerned about pollution and the cost of building the facility.
Critics argue that the mayor’s call for new suggestions intimated a continued preference for methods that convert waste to energy, resulting in submissions predominantly from companies specializing in some aspect of incineration or gasification. And environmentalists say that the city’s persistent pursuit of an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency air emissions permit based on the earlier gasification model is a clear indication that Jackson still envisions a gasification plant at the city’s Ridge Road garbage transfer station.
‘The idea of pursuing an air permit before the city has made a decision contradicts their claim that they haven’t made a decision,’ said Sandy Buchanan, executive director of Ohio Citizen Action. ‘It’s critical that the city listen to the hundreds of Clevelanders who spoke out during public hearings and said, ‘We don’t want new sources of air pollution. We want strong composting and recycling programs.’”
— Leila Atassi, Cleveland Plain Dealer
link to article
CLEVELAND — “These groups already in place in Cleveland are well positioned to help develop proposals that would reduce waste, and generate income for neighborhood groups. As evidenced at the Cleveland Recycling/Composting these local groups already have contact with local and national public and private sector experts in reuse, recycling and composting.
While in an ideal world, the City of Cleveland’s Administration would be working closely with neighborhood groups to develop proposals to reduce waste, however that is not the case. The Frank Jackson Administration currently seems intent to develop an incinerator to burn garbage to create electricity. However, the grassroots groups can show the administration that there is an alternative and that the public can be engaged in reducing waste and creating jobs in a way that doesn’t pollute our air and the environment.
— Chuck Hoven, Cleveland Plain Press
link to article pdf
CLEVELAND — ” In a hotel ballroom filled with entrepreneurs, angel investors and government bureaucrats hungry for opportunities in the evolving field of turning household trash into energy, Ivan Henderson delivers some sobering advice: Waste to energy is not an easy ride.’It’s been a bumpy road,’ the soft-spoken commissioner for Cleveland Public Power told an audience at the Waste Conversion Congress in Philadelphia earlier this month.
Cleveland’s efforts to bring a promising, if unproven, technology to provide a local source of power and manage its waste stream has faced a few hiccups: local opposition, federal criticism and the firing of a top consultant.
… Citizen groups believe Cleveland Public Power’s gasification talk is a smokescreen for another incinerator project.
‘They don’t want to call it an incinerator because they know the public opposition to incineration,’ said Sandy Buchanan, executive director of Ohio Citizen Action. ”
— Tiffany Stecker, Midwest Energy News
link to article
 Garbage is unloaded at Cleveland's Ridge Road waste transfer station, where recyclables are processed and trash is prepared for shipment to landfills. Mayor Frank Jackson would like to find a way to use some of that refuse as an alternative energy source for city-owned Cleveland Public Power. CLEVELAND — ” For years, Cleveland has flirted with a little-known technology for converting garbage into electric power, attracted by the idea of a green alternative to dispatching 230,000 tons of trash to Ohio landfills yearly and relying on coal-fired plants to supply Cleveland Public Power’s customers.
The promise of the technology called ‘gasification‘ might sound too good to be true; environmentalists have argued that it is.
But the possibility that Cleveland will build a ‘waste-to-energy’ plant at its Ridge Road garbage-transfer station seems to have survived several years of public scrutiny, the crusade of environmental groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s declaration that such a project runs the risk of becoming a new major source of pollution for Cuyahoga County.
And though Mayor Frank Jackson’s administrators told City Council members in April that they are ready to ‘hit the reset button’ on the plan — opening the door to new suggestions on how to manage the waste stream or generate energy — city spokespeople say the mayor still believes in the potential of gasification and isn’t done vetting the technology just yet. ”
— Leila Atassi, The Plain Dealer
link to article
 CLEVELAND — “Last month Cleveland City Council gave the administration and Cleveland Public Power $200,000 for a new trash consultant, and said it would investigate all trash processing options — kinda.
After spending a few million in a stalled attempt to build the first U.S. high-tech gasification plant to turn garbage into cool stuff like decorative bricks and that would give CPP 7 percent of its electricity, the city fired the developer. Critics say a new request to 255 waste management companies asking how best to deal with all our trash is the same as the original: It limits options to things like gasification that would turn the trash into fuel.
‘If they’re going to do this they need to start over and set goals,’ says Chris Trepal, director of the Earth Day Coalition. She and other enviro types scheduled national recycling experts to talk to council’s sustainability committee about greener trash disposal but after they flew in, the meeting was canceled with no explanation.”
— Maude L. Campbell, Cleveland Scene Magazine
link to article
 Keynote speaker Bob Gedert, Director of Resource Recovery in Austin, Texas. CLEVELAND — Two of the country’s leading experts on developing outstanding programs for recycling, composting, and resource recovery of materials brought valuable information to Cleveland for the “You and the Environmental Symposium” on June 2, 2012. Bob Gedert, Director of Resource Recovery in Austin, Texas, and Neil Seldman, President of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Washington, D.C., provided concrete examples and blueprints for how non-profit groups, private businesses, and city governments can make major strides in reaching a goal of “zero waste.”
“Fifty percent of household waste can be recycled, and another forty percent composted, using technology that is available today,” Gedert explained. His department in Austin has issued a comprehensive plan to reach the goal of 90% reduction of waste by 2030.
“The best zero waste plans are community-invested,” Gedert said. Prior to adopting their plan, Austin city officials held 100 community meetings to find out what kinds of programs the citizens wanted. Gedert has worked in Ohio, Indiana, California and Texas to implement recycling programs and says he always includes a community organizing component, with recycling block captains who encourage their neighbors to learn to recycle. A survey in Austin showed that the lowest-income communities have the highest recycling rates. “Well-managed recycling always costs less than trash management,’ Gedert said.
Seldman described the business opportunities that can be created to reuse materials we now think of as “waste.” “There are companies who would be glad to locate their businesses in Cleveland to handle and reprocess materials like high quality paper, mattresses, and other items,” Seldman commented. “This is the way to create good-paying jobs that won’t be outsourced.” Continue reading Clevelanders learn from “zero waste” experts at June 2nd Symposium
 CLEVELAND — “To capitalize on the renewed interest in recycling and composting generated by the public meetings earlier this year, environmental groups are now pressing the city to develop a more comprehensive plan. Ohio Citizen Action, Earthday Coalition and other groups have organized the Cleveland Composting and Recycling Forum on Saturday, June 2nd at the downtown YMCA.
‘Clevelanders have said loud and clear that they want stronger recycling programs,’ commented Chris Trepal, Executive Director of Earth Day Coalition, in a news release. ‘The urban gardening and local food community in Cleveland creates hundreds of opportunities for the productive use of compost.’
‘We’re hoping to bring in good ideas from other cities,’ adds Sandy Buchanan, Executive Director of Ohio Citizen Action, who says that the local and national speakers attending the event will provide a litany of successful models.”
— Lee Chilcote, Freshwater Cleveland
link to article
|
Letters supporting the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act 9,241 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and made personal phone calls urging state legislators to support the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act as of June 10, 2013.
Resources on proposed Cleveland incinerator
|
