Reducing Air Toxics in Cleveland
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Case Background
In June 2002, the Cleveland Air Toxics Working Group reached consensus on over a dozen projects that will reduce risks of air toxics posed to children, families, and adults in two of Cleveland’s urban neighborhoods. The agreement is the culmination of almost two years work by twenty-five dedicated Cleveland citizens, organizations, and businesses, and government agencies. “I think this will be a big pay-off for Cleveland,” Amy Simpson of Ohio Public Interest Research Group (Ohio PIRG) told the Cleveland Plain Dealer shortly after consensus was reached. “Several of the projects are innovative, cutting-edge and will help Cleveland businesses be cutting-edge, and that can only be good for Cleveland and its businesses.”
This project is a unique effort by the U.S. EPA to encourage voluntary actions for air toxics reduction above and beyond current regulatory requirements. In initiating this pilot project as part of the overall national Urban Air Toxics Strategy, the agency has achieved reductions that are measurable, sustainable over time, and replicable elsewhere in Cleveland and in cities across the U.S.
CBI Approach
In order to support the work of stakeholders, CBI conducted a convening report with the assistance of Dr. Sanda Kaufmann of Cleveland State University. CBI facilitated working group and subcommittee meetings, helping the group to decide on ground rules, invent options, prioritize preferred projects, and ultimately, to decide on projects to implement.
Dr. Kaufman provided important links to the local community, co-facilitated meetings, and helped link Cleveland State to the effort. Dr. Juliana Birkhoff of Resolve, in a unique role rarely provided by other projects’ funding, evaluated the project from start to finish, providing valuable on-going feedback to participants and CBI during the process.
Outcomes
The group initially helped initiate family sign-ups for the smoke-free home pledge, held a hazardous home collection day, implemented Tools for Schools in four Cleveland schools, and provided clean diesel circulator buses in two inner city neighborhoods. The new projects selected by the Working Group include $150,000 for retrofits for Cleveland School buses, over $100,000 for a county-wide air toxics inventory, and some $50,000 for Cleveland schools to help further reduce air toxics exposure for children in the area’s public and parochial schools. Stakeholders sought to link these projects to existing national programs to ensure that they could be implemented quickly and efficiently. Such national programs that Cleveland has advanced are Tools for Schools, Design for the Environment’s Pollution Prevention for Autobody Shops, and county toxics inventories.
The Cleveland project is one of many CBI has facilitated in order to create concrete, environmental benefits for communities. The concern of many who have observed consensus building over the last twenty years is that it may not actually translate into increased environmental quality. The Ohio Air Toxics project was focused specifically on actions to reduce air toxics, not simply to plan, study, or analyze such actions.
For more information on CBI’s experience with environmental projects, please contact Managing Director Patrick Field.
