Updated June 12
Testing results find the air quality in and around Spring Grove Village and Winton Terrace "meets air quality standards that are protective of human health," according to the Ohio EPA and the Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency.
SWOAQA says it "will continue to monitor air quality to follow up on complaint investigations." You can view monitoring results here.
Original Story Posted June 11:
People in the Spring Grove and Winton Terrace neighborhoods may get more answers Tuesday night about odors they worried were making them sick. The Ohio EPA is holding a public meeting to discuss air quality test results.
Hamilton County Commission President Denise Driehaus doesn't expect much differencefrom previous reports.
"My suspicion is that we will hear that the levels of toxicity were not high enough ... to have us do anything by way of air quality," she says. "The problem then is that something happened, we had a situation and we have to get to the root of it. We will try to determine what the next step is."
County and Cincinnati leaders will be in attendance along with officials from Ohio EPA and the Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services' Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency.
"If it is not an air quality issue per se that EPA would deal with," Driehaus theorizes, "then it's going to become an issue, probably, that the city is going to have to tackle by way of nuisance ordinances or something like that. Or maybe meetings with the community and business leaders in the area."
Councilman Greg Landsman's office is coordinating the meeting. It's scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at the Winton Hills Rec Center.
Monitoring in and around Spring Grove Village and Winton Terrace began in mid-Decemberfollowing media reports about bad odors and concerns that illnesses could be related to toxic emissions from industrial plants bordering the communities.
Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services did 24-hour monitoring and portable spot monitoring in those two neighborhoods, along with Winton Hills, Winton Terrace, Spring Grove Village, St. Bernard and Elmwood Place. Interim Director Brad Millerreported in February that 24-hour monitoring had occurred on 15 days and samples were collected in 20 locations.
Preliminary results did not indicate volatile organic compound (VOC) concentrations are out of compliance.
