LEAVITTSBURG Community group plans health study

The hydrogen sulfide levels recorded have not exceeded what's deemed harmful by state officials.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
LEAVITTSBURG -- A community group formed to address a stench coming from a Warren landfill plans to conduct a health study.
About 30 people attended a meeting in Johnson Community Center Tuesday of Our Lives Count. The group formed a few months ago because of concerns about the odor, identified as hydrogen sulfide, emanating from Warren Recycling Inc., a landfill on Martin Luther King Avenue S.W.
Effects of gas
Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs.
According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's Web site, high levels of the gas may cause death. Lower, longer-term exposure may cause eye irritation, fatigue and other symptoms, according to the site. The hydrogen sulfide levels recorded since the odor was identified last year have not exceeded what's deemed harmful by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Industrial Commission, officials have said.
That's not good enough for Debbie Roth, leader of the group.
"Any hydrogen sulfide at all is not acceptable," she said.
She referred to readings from five monitors installed in different locations in Warren Township. One reading referred to "sporadic hydrogen sulfide levels."
Warren Recycling paid MS Consultants Inc. of Youngstown to install the five monitors, including one each at Labrae High School and Leavitt Elementary School.
Health study
Roth also referred to a letter from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to school and township officials, saying that a health assessment study would be conducted. The letter doesn't indicate when the study will start.
"We've decided to conduct our own study," she said. "We're going to go door to door" to determine what, if any, health symptoms people in the area are experiencing.
Group members also are concerned that alarms on the monitors sounded while school was in session, but students weren't evacuated from the building. Group members picketed outside the high school the last day of school last month, demonstrating their irritation.
An MS Consultants official has said that the causes were identified as lack of oxygen because of plugged intake tubes, not high levels of hydrogen sulfide. Our Lives Count's next meeting is July 16.
dick@vindy.com