A WIN FOR THIS SMALL COMMUNITY IN ASHLAND COUNTY For the past several week I have been working on a Friends of Water project in my Ohio Community. We believe in composting but a 24.5 acre, full fledged garbage site in a near by village was not in our plans for our small community. My neighbors came to me for help, within a couple days we organized, held our first public community forum within 2 days with 60 people in attendance on a Friday night, many people had no idea that we were in trouble. The small village council and zoning had already approved the site, the people felt that there was a lack of notification and identification of the project when it was approved among some other questionable moves. The zoning inspector was the seller of the property the compost facility wanted to purchase. With a few, no a lot of phone calls, some great research from my friend Elaine Baer, we gave them a fight that sent them running. When we presented 20 unresolved EPA violations to our local Health Commission, County Commissioners and Township Trustees, they had to listen to the people, that and the local news media. We had just received notice our request for EPA to send in Wetlands, then the Army Corp of Engineers agreed to do evaluations on the wetland areas, tracking the flow and influence the facility would have on the water quality. Last week some of our Polk community members joined me on a conference with with EPA District officials, the call lasted an hour and a half. We addressed many concerns on this call, the noise, leachate run off, odor and control, traffic, pests and rodents, real estate values, health concerns and more. Tonight we attended a village council meeting, the economic director that brought the project to the community read a letter from the Rosby Recycling Resources, this proposed new facility was to be known as Organicycle. She announced and that she regretted to that the project had been withdrawn. The community members in attendance at this meeting applauded their approval, they will sleep well tonight. What this means to our small community, Polk will continue a great place to live for generations to come. This big problem brought a small community closer together, we will continue to make sure we live in a Healthy and Happy Environment. Thank you Polk Community for a Healthy Environment, let us continue the bond that this company had threatened to destroy, may we be stronger for the journey. Elaine Tanner your Friends of Water Ohio Administrator https://facebook/groups/PC4HE/
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 02:18:34 +0000
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