Possible Ohio City Crematory

Ohio City's Bodnar Funeral Home applied for a zoning variance on December 22nd to build a crematory at 3929 Lorain Avenue. Ward 14 Councilman Joe Santiago is in support of the building addition and expansion of the funeral home’s on-site services. An Ohio City resident told me representatives spoke with only one block club prior to the zoning appeal which occurred three days before Christmas.

I live 9 blocks east and 2 blocks south of this facility, but that's not close enough that I had to legally be notified about the zoning appeal. The crematory would be located within feet of homes and within blocks of many schools: St. Ignatius, Urban Community School, Orchard Elementary and Paul L. Dunbar Elementary.

In addition to homes and schools, the Gather ‘Round Farm is right next door. According to several reports, crematoria release toxic chemicals into the neighborhoods in which they are located and several health professionals oppose locating them in residential areas. I can’t imagine they would recommend growing vegetables and eating eggs from within feet of those toxic emissions. See below for links to reports.

According to the Board of Zoning Appeal’s applicant guide, the board will take into account “whether the essential character of the neighborhood would be substantially altered or adjoining properties would suffer a substantial detriment as a result of the variance”. I think a crematory operating on a main street in one of Cleveland’s few thriving neighborhoods, could be detrimental to the essential character of the neighborhood.

I am not sure if the appeal was approved, but if it was, I believe the community has 30 days to protest an approved zoning variance. I will check into this and post an update.

According to the All Ohio Cremation and Burial Society which curiously shares the same Lorain Avenue address as the Bodnar Funeral Home:

. . . we do not currently own the crematory facility, we are in the process of planning and obtaining the necessary permits and authorizations for a bran new state of the art facility.

So, it seems as if they are sure enough of zoning approval that they have already started advertising their crematory.

As far as I can tell, most urban funeral homes outsource their cremations. Cremation Service Inc. is a crematory that operates in the Flats at 1612 Leonard Street in a mostly industrial area. Does anyone in the blogosphere know if this facility produces any odors?

Crematory Links

Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.'s chief medical health officer, says the provincial government should consider regulating emissions from crematoriums because of possible health risks.
Vancouver Sun

Crematoria may put babies at risk

Mercury Emissions from Crematoria

By coincidence, a positive application of crematoria emissions found its way into my news aggregator.

Bygone Skills for Our Collective Future

"What is elegance? Soap and water!"                                                                                  -Cecil Beaton  

The Transition Discussion Group met December 22nd to learn how to make soap and to discuss Chapters 3 and 4 in the Transition Handbook. A recurring sentiment is that many of us have been indoctrinated with a fear of making things ourselves—even simple items like soap. The skills we are learning were once common, basic knowledge, but corporations have constructed a world in which many of us feel disempowered to do-it-ourselves; we feel most comfortable purchasing products and services.

We made soap with tallow made from rendered beef suet. As a vegetarian I wasn’t too keen on making soap from meat products, but after hearing the demonstrator’s reasoning behind their choice I felt that it really was the more resilient decision. They chose to use tallow because it is more local and less expensive than making soap with imported vegetable oils. 

Making soap took a couple of hours (it takes a couple of weeks before you can lather up with it), but the ingredients and process are simple. Besides tallow or a vegetable oil, the other ingredients in soap are distilled water and sodium hydroxide. In the past, potassium hydroxide was used instead of sodium hydroxide. Potassium hydroxide was traditionally made by pouring water through hard wood ashes and then boiling the solution to make lye water. Potassium hydroxide results in a softer soap.The soap-making process is outlined on several websites and there are some books at the public library.

Our discussion focused primarily on resilience and its three components: modularity, diversity and tightness of feedback loops. We examined possibilities for resilience in three different communities: Cleveland as a whole, a neighborhood street and a household. 

The breakout groups examined behaviors and skills that add to resilience and those that do not. For example, using compact fluorescent light bulbs provides many benefits including efficiency and lower emissions. However, in order to use them, you still have to rely on the national power grid. The power grid is not diverse, not modular and has loose feedback loops. 

The recent water main break was a reminder of my own dependence on the City Water Department. I have no diversity--no resilience--when it comes to my water source, which is yet another reason to have a couple of rain barrels in my yard. 

We generated ideas for our next two meetings based on resiliency. In a couple of weeks, we’ll be talking about facilitating a community-wide skill sharing network as well as learning how to make rain barrels and creating a simple gray water system in the home. The following meeting, we’ll be learning about non-violent communication and discussing chapters 5 and 6 in the book.

You don't have to be Green to be green

The Green Song from Mario Vellandi on Vimeo.

Resilience in Community

I am part of a loosely affiliated group that meets to discuss and act on our community’s transition to life after cheap fossil fuels. The group had its first bi-monthly meeting last Monday.

Our discussions are guided by the book, "The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience", by Rob Hopkins. We chose this book because Hopkins focuses on actions we can take as a community to plan for (instead of being surprised by) an inevitable energy descent.

Last Monday we discussed theoretical frameworks for our activities as a group; Will adaptation, evolution or collapse occur when fossil fuels are scarce and climate change is affecting our ecosystem? We didn’t agree on what the future will bring, but we did concur that whatever happens, we’d like to be a part of a well-knit, capable and locally sustainable community.

The activities will be hands-on—individuals take turns sharing experience/experiments in resilient living. Last Monday we cut up locally scavenged apples and left them to stew during the discussion portion of the evening. After the discussion, we canned the applesauce. Ingredients: free apples, glass jars, lids and laughs. On December 22nd, we’ll be learning to make soap from lye and vegetable oils.

This group is in its forming stage, but I am truly excited about the list we generated of skills to learn and skills to teach.

What we’d like to learn from others

• Living sustainably without alienating others, being elitist or escapist and being aware of the dynamics of privilege
• Gardening
• Food preservation
• Fire-building
• How to make this group multi-generational, -lingual and -racial
• Knitting
• How to build rain barrels
• Getting off the power grid: Having a home that relies on closed loop systems
• Feel more empowered to make changes
• Cooking
• Yoga
• Making kombucha
• Straw bale houses
• Soap
• Drum circles
• Basic bike repair/maintenance and winter riding tips
• Low-maintenance lawn coverings
• Organize volunteers and hook them up with needy non-profits
• How to spread the word, connect with other communities
• Share mutually
• Recycle water
• Live without so much electricity, natural gas, coal and oil
• Make instruments from scavenged materials
• Eat wild plants
• Build simple structures with easy-to-come-by materials
• Turn dead animals into meat, fur, leather and other useful materials.
• Treat illnesses without modern medicine
• Local plants and wildlife, herbal medicine, holistic mental health
• Self-defense
• Survival in freezing and subzero temperatures for sustained periods of time
• French, Psychokinesis, Tabla drumming, kiai and bi-location
• Fermentation
• Earth-centered paganism

What we know and can teach others

• Fermenting vegetables
• Making kombucha
• Making wine
• Making soap
• Making moon pads
• Living in community
• Interacting with homeless people
• Cooking
• Baking bread
• Rendering tallow and lard
• Knitting
• Yoga
• Pilates
• Modern dance
• Zen meditation
• Website making
• Making apple cider
• Setting up rain barrels, harvesting rain water
• Making plant medicine and Identifying plants
• Growing mushrooms
• Bio-remediation of soil and water
• Fixing bikes
• Capoeira
• Facilitation
• Listening
• Singing
• Playing
• Tromboning
• Chanting
• Outreach
• Working with kids
• Conducting Anti-oppression workshops
• Raising chickens
• Repairing Volkswagons
• Making biodiesel
• Juggling
• Womyn's health
• Mentrual pads
• Salves
• Making massage oil and massage
• Nonviolent communication
• Impromptu theater/dance, rap
• Percussion
• Fitness
• Self-defense,
• Finding free stuff
• Souture thrift shopping
• Action as opposed to talk
• Various arts/crafts (collage, button-making)
• Moderating discussions
• Writing
• Mental health and alternatives to traditional psychiatric methods
• Fermenting veggies
• Changing motor oil
• Converting diesel cars to veggie oil
• Constructing cold frames
• Making mead
• Testicular & prostate self-exam
• Martial arts (tai shin doh)
• Basic womyn's self defense
• Hiking
• Painting houses
• Home repair
• Deck-building
• College radio and audio production
• Natural history
• Spiritual resilience
• Diabetes self-care
• Strategic planning for grassroots groups
• Grant-writing

In the Wry

Perhaps adolescent angst is an appropriate reaction as the human race comes of age on a finite planet. Like teenagers on punishment, we all need an allowance reduction and suspened driving priveleges. 

Take most people, they're crazy about cars.  They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer.  I don't even like old cars.  I mean they don't even interest me.  I'd rather have a goddam horse.  A horse is at least human, for God's sake.

  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, spoken by the character Holden Caulfield

This fall I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.  The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom.  He just keeps falling and falling.  The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with.  . .  They gave it up before they ever really even got started.

 ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 24, spoken by the character Mr. Antolini