[Peace-discuss] Fw: [cchcc-l] 5th & Hill VICTORY! City Council approves transparency amendment!

[Jenifer Cartwright]

--- On Thu, 7/12/12, Champaign County Health Care Consumers <cchcc at healthcareconsumers.org> wrote:

From: Champaign County Health Care Consumers <cchcc at healthcareconsumers.org>
Subject: [cchcc-l] 5th & Hill VICTORY! City Council approves transparency amendment!
To: cchcc-l at lists.shout.net
Date: Thursday, July 12, 2012, 4:16 PM


Dear Friends,

On Tuesday, July 10, the 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign achieved
a victory when the Champaign City Council voted to create a transparency
amendment for the City's Groundwater Restriction Ordinance.

You can read about the passage of the transparency amendment in The
News-Gazette at:

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/environment/2012-07-12/champaign-notification-rules-soil-cleanup-get-stricter.html

BACKGROUND: GROUNDWATER ORDINANCE
Some of you may remember that the 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign
worked very hard to convince the City Council that the City's Groundwater
Restriction Ordinance should be repealed. The Groundwater Restriction
Ordinance allows any polluter in the City of Champaign to pollute our
groundwater, a precious natural resource, without being forced to clean it
up. That means that anyone who lives close to a polluted property could
have their health and property value diminished when polluters use the
City's ordinance to leave their toxic contamination in the groundwater.

The City Council ultimately decided to NOT repeal the ordinance, saying
that there are five businesses in the City of Champaign that would be
negatively affected if the ordinance were repealed. Alternatively, the City
offered to create a transparency amendment and attach it to the Ordinance
to increase the visibility of its use.

For the next few weeks, members of the 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights
Campaign worked with City Staff to craft an ordinance that upholds our
community's basic right to know; provides for a complaint process that
residents can follow; and outlines penalties for businesses who fail to
properly notify the neighborhood where they plan to leave contamination
behind.

THE TRANSPARENCY AMENDMENT
With the passage of the transparency amendment to the Groundwater
Restriction Ordinance, polluters will be required to notify (via different
means) the neighborhood about the toxic contamination and the plan to
invoke the groundwater ordinance. Residents will be notified by newspaper,
the posting of signs, and for those properties within 500 feet of the
polluted property, a notification letter will be sent via mail.

RIGHT TO KNOW
Champaign County Health Care Consumers has always held dear the notion
that for meaningful and concrete changes to occur, consumers must be made
aware of what is going on. This transparency amendment provides residents
of Champaign with the knowledge of what is going on in their own backyard
and provides them with meaningful ways to keep these polluters accountable
for the damage they do to our groundwater.

News Gazette article on the passage of the transparency amendment:

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/environment/2012-07-12/champaign-notification-rules-soil-cleanup-get-stricter.html

As always, thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

Champaign County Health Care Consumers

--

Check out the 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/5thandHillNRC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Champaign County Health Care Consumers
44 E. Main Street  Suite 208
Champaign, IL 61820

Phone: (217) 352-6533
Fax:   (217) 352-9745
E-mail: cchcc at healthcareconsumers.org
Web:    www.healthcareconsumers.org

Check out CCHCC on Facebook at www.facebook.com/healthcareconsumers!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Support health care justice - donate to CCHCC today! Visit our website to make a tax-deductible contribution today.
http://www.healthcareconsumers.org/index.php?action=Donation
_______________________________________________
To manage your subscription to the CCHCC email list, please click the link below.
cchcc-l mailing list
cchcc-l at lists.shout.net
http://lists.shout.net/mailman/listinfo/cchcc-l
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20120716/cef14197/attachment.html>