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One whiff and people get miffed downtown
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 John C. Kuehner
Plain Dealer Reporter
Every time Jennifer Maurer comes to Cleveland she holds her nose.
Something stinks along Interstate 77 -- a strong smell that rises from the industrial end of the Flats.
"It's so potent, you almost feel like you're tasting it," said the 35-year-old Akron woman, who teaches music in the Cleveland schools and smells the odor while driving into downtown
She called the city's smell police.
Maurer is one of many people who have complained to air pollution inspectors about a strong, solvent-like odor since early February.
Inspectors from the Cleveland Division of Air Quality tracked the odor to General Environmental Management LLC, which treats liquid industrial and hazardous wastes. In March, the city asked the company to correct the problem.
General Environmental added an odor-neutralizing mist system over the summer to comply with a violation notice from the city, company president Eric Lofquist said. The plant has put together a nuisance abatement plan.
"We're doing everything we can to cooperate," Lofquist said. "We're open to any further suggestions the city may have."
But the odor problem persists.
The city has referred the case to the Ohio attorney general's office because it's an ongoing problem.
In most cases, problems are solved after the company has been notified. But about a dozen times a year cases are referred to the state to resolve.
The city's goal is to reach an agreement with General Environmental so everyone understands what needs to be done to address the issue, Cleveland Health Commissioner Matt Carroll said.
The agreement would include timelines to finish work and be agreed to in court so it's enforceable by a judge.
Through July, Cleveland's 24-hour air pollution complaint hot line had received 64 complaints about General Environmental, more than any other business in the last five years.
The Plain Dealer examined more than 1,200 complaints to the hot line dating to January 2000.
More than half of the complaints were prompted by foul odors.
They ranged from a neighbor complaining about the smell from Phoenix coffee roastery in downtown Cleveland to dust and fumes rising from construction sites. Complaints also included noxious fumes from auto body repair shops; concerns about asbestos; and worries about possible releases of noxious chemicals from industrial plants.
The city started the complaint hot line in 1993. Callers leave a message on a tape recorder, and one of the agency's six inspectors follows up on the information.
"It's a useful tool for us," said Rich Nemeth, the commissioner of the Air Quality Division. "People out there can see things that we don't know about unless someone tells us."
Many problems raised by complaints are corrected, he said.
But with General Environmental, the city has received complaints from many areas in the city -- Cuyahoga Community College's campus downtown, a fire station in the Flats and the Orange Avenue post office -- and from many Tremont residents.
General Environmental is about two miles south of downtown Cleveland on a site that was used as the Standard Oil No. 1 Refinery from 1870 until 1966.
Lofquist said he and his employees do not notice an odor. And none of the truck drivers who make deliveries to the plant has complained about an odor
"If you work here and it's not a problem, how can it be a problem in Tremont or Slavic Village?" Lofquist said.
He said the company has paid for research and found the problem goes well beyond his plant's boundaries.
But as Cleveland strives to lure people to live downtown, a strong industrial odor is not the kind of welcome mat the city wants greeting people. It could repel people.
That's what happened to Tremont resident Laurie Reydman, who called the hot line in March complaining of "a God-awful smell in the Tremont neighborhood that started about three months ago."
She moved to Tremont seven years ago and said she could live with the soot and rotten egg-sulfur smells.
But this one was different. She described it as a "throw-uppy kind of smell."
She couldn't take it anymore and moved in April to Cleveland's Edgewater neighborhood.
"I left happily," she said. "Every time I smell it, I say, Thank God I'm not living there anymore.' "
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
[email protected], 216-999-5325
