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June 28, 2002
Contact: Linda Holterhoff: 513-352-4382 (Office) - 513-607-2196 (Cell)
Keep Cincinnati Beautiful And Clear Corps Work To Contain Lead. Planting program will help contain lead in vacant lots. CINCINNATI - Neighbors, volunteers, CLEAR Corps and Keep Cincinnati Beautiful are teaming up to plant euonymus, a type of low-growing groundcover, on a vacant lot on Whiteman Street in the West End neighborhood. Planting will take place on Saturday, June 29, from 9:00 a.m. to noon and is meant to help contain soil contaminated with lead.Volunteers are from Procter & Gamble, CLEAR Corps and neighbors. This vacant lot is adjacent to the house that was cleared of almost 1,000 illegally dumped tires and $30,000 worth of cocaine on the Great American Cleanup, April 27, 2002.
“By planting this low-growing ground cover, we’re covering the lot so it does not need to be mowed, which helps to prevent tracking the leaded dust into homes,” said Linda Holterhoff, Executive Director of Keep Cincinnati Beautiful. “The ground cover is attractive, will help to deter littering
and reduces maintenance costs since the lots won’t be mowed.”
According to the Southwest Regional Resource Center for Lead Poisoning, lead poisoning is the number one environmental disease that threatens children, affecting all body systems but causing the most devastating effects to the developing brain. Lead exposure comes from leaded dust, peeling lead-based paint or spilled leaded gasoline from years past. It can be tracked from contaminated sidewalks, yards, or vacant lots into houses then ingested through hand-to-mouth activity. Even in homes built just two years ago in Over-the-Rhine, the City of Cincinnati’s Office of Environmental Management has detected levels of lead - contamination tracked in from the outdoors.
CLEAR Corps is a part of Ameri-Corps and deals with lead abatement.
Keep Cincinnati Beautiful is a not-for-profit organization promoting litter prevention, recycling, and community improvement and beautification through citizen action, education and strategic partnerships in the Greater Cincinnati area. To contact Keep Cincinnati Beautiful, call (513) 352-4380 or visit our website at www.keepcincinnatibeautiful.org.
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NOTE: This event will provide ample opportunity for photo and video. Whiteman Street runs off of Central Avenue, three blocks north of Findlay in the West End.
