It's not uncommon for government officials to cut
off contact with the media. Those engaged in what is
euphemistically called "public service" tend to have
egos so large, they come equipped with their own
restroom facilities. Speak ill of them, and they'll
refuse to talk. It's the dainty government version of
trying to kick your ass.
So
it came as no surprise when the Ohio EPA said it would
no longer speak to Scene. Because we had not
"accurately or fairly" represented the agency in recent
articles and because of our "refusal to print the
facts," wrote spokeswoman Kara Allison, the agency "will
no longer be providing media interviews to the staff of
Cleveland Scene."
This is a time-honored public relations maneuver,
previously employed to great effect by such master pols
as Mike White and Nixon. If you have a tarnished image,
what better way to rebuild it than by ensuring your side
of a story won't appear in the paper? It's akin to a
debate coach telling his team: "If we just shut up, this
baby's a lock to win."
We
media lowlifes are familiar with such complaints. It's
easy to separate the whiners from those with legit
beefs. The latter will cite specific instances where
they thought you sucked and back it up with supporting
evidence. The whiners toss around words like "accuracy,"
"fairness," and "just print the facts," but can't point
out exactly where you erred. They just know that, if one
doesn't buy into their bloated self-regard, one must be
wrong.
Scene offered the EPA an opportunity to
specify our sins, but Allison and Carol Hester, chief of
the alleged communications office, did not return phone
calls and letters. Probably a good thing. Since the EPA
is so inept at protecting the environment, it should
logically have an incompetent PR department to match.
This is, after all, the agency that knew about
toxic groundwater in Middlefield seven years ago, but
failed to act. Now the city is home to abnormal rates of
leukemia and rare cancer, says the county health
commissioner.
It's the agency that knew about contamination
near Marion school grounds in 1989, but didn't act until
1997 -- "after the families of the leukemia patients
started talking in the hospitals and they made the
association that the leukemia was related to River
Valley High School," says Teresa Mills, director of the
Buckeye Environmental Network.
It's the agency that, in 1990, started
investigating the Columbus Steel Drum site, where the
contamination ranking is high enough to make it a
Superfund site. "It sits within 1,000 feet from a well
field in which a community draws its water," says Mills.
"But as far as I can tell, nothing has been done."
It's the agency that launched Mills's
environmental career, when she discovered that a plant
in her Columbus neighborhood was churning out 565 times
the level of dioxin allowed by federal law. The
information was in EPA files, but neighbors were never
notified, and the company was never cited.
And
it's the agency whose former director, Donald
Schregardus, was nominated by President Bush to be the
U.S. EPA's top enforcement officer. His appointment was
sabotaged when the feds issued a report saying that,
because Ohio so sucked at enforcing air-pollution
programs, the feds would take them over if the Ohio EPA
didn't improve.
In
November, Allison told Scene that her agency
doesn't have the power or funding to truly enforce
environmental laws, and that cleanup plans must come
with a company's blessing -- and a willingness to pay
for them. It's like the Cleveland Police saying, "We'd
like to nab that serial rapist, but he just won't agree
to be arrested."
Of
course, the EPA has loads of power. It just won't use
it, preferring to massage its ego and tend to its thin
skin. And it will do so in silence. When you're in the
business of ineptitude and neglect, leaving
leukemia-stricken kids in your wake, what more is there
to say?
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