Diagnostic Essay

Zach Lewis
ENG 111 Sec. 28
Diagnostic Essay
January 27, 2009
Working for a Purpose

Fresh out of leaving Bexley High School in the spring of 2003, I was actively seeking work. Unfortunately, I had minimal work experience, no solid references, and few employable skills. Scanning the classified section of the Columbus Alive paper, I noticed an ad for a “Community Organizer” position with a local non-profit, Ohio Citizen Action. Having absolutely no clue what a “Community Organizer” position was, and lured by the promising $700 weekly earning potential, I actively pursued the advertisement. I was scheduled for an interview almost immediately. At the interview, I was educated about the organization’s history, motives, and ideals. Ohio Citizen Action was a non-profit, whose main focus was running what they called “Good Neighbor Campaigns”. These campaigns addressed primarily local and state issues, with a focus on air pollution and campaign finance reform. All of their fundraising was done door-to-door, and over the phone. At first, I was not too thrilled to find out I would be pestering people in the middle of their dinner asking, for donations. Not having many other job options on the table, I agreed to start the next day.
The first week consisted mostly of training, essentially a trial period to see if you were cut out for the job. Not everyone has the “chutzpah” to raise money door-to-door. I was paired up with a veteran employee, and basically followed them on their route for the day, observing their strategies at raising money. After several days of observation, and knocking on several doors myself, I was ready to go out on my own. Over these few days I had been thoroughly educated on the issue we were currently campaigning for, and it sparked an interest and passion inside of me that created lots of enthusiasm towards my new job.
In 1983, the City of Columbus, Ohio had ratified a plan to open a power plant that produced electricity using trash as the fuel. This included all kinds of trash, plastic, heavy metals, anything. Many people in the city were enthused about this plan, as local landfills were filling up, and this plant would drastically decrease the price of electricity locally. The plant was constructed not far outside the city, in a lower-income area. The plant operated for years, with complaints about the facilities cleanliness growing exponentially year by year. Eventually, citizens within close proximity to the plant were diagnosed with cases of cancer and chemical inhalation. This attracted scrutiny by the EPA, who came to investigate the facility in 1994. After the EPA completed testing the facility and surrounding areas, it was identified to be the nation’s largest producer of the highly toxic chemical, dioxin. The plant was promptly shut down, and a cleanup of the damage the facility caused begun. The taxpayers of Franklin County would be paying to repair the damage this facility had caused until the year 2017.
When I began working for Ohio Citizen Action in 2003, the facility had been sitting dormant since its closing in 1994. This angered many people in the community, as they were paying for the damage the facility had caused, but receiving no financial benefit from its existence in their city. Enter Jeff Troth, the owner of Universal Purifying Technology (UPT). Jeff had a proposal to re-open the plant, but this time as a tire-melting plant. Jeff’s tire-melting technology was virtually untested, having only been tested in North Korea. The North Koreans promptly shut the facility down. Jeff presented his proposal to the community and local Solid Waste Authority (SWACO), lacking the schematics and technical data proving he could successfully “melt” tires in a clean manner, not causing toxic air emissions.
After learning of this master plan to re-open the facility, we were reluctant to discover SWACO, the Mayor, and the Ohio EPA were relatively unconcerned with UPT’s lack of factual information about their process. It seemed as if they were much more focused on the financial benefit to the county, and essentially gave UPT the go ahead, while attempting to keep this as quiet as possible within the community. With a little more research, we also learned the Ohio EPA’s yearly budget was determined per-pound of pollution that was released in Ohio the year before. This means the more pollution released into the air, the larger operating budget the organization has, and its employees are much less likely to see a pay decrease or pink slip. It deeply disturbed me to learn the agency I paid my tax dollars too, that was supposed to protect my community from environmental atrocities, essentially had no financial incentive to decrease toxic air emissions.
It was time to blow the whistle. This is one of the things I loved most about working for this organization. We brought issues to light in the public, which may have otherwise gone completely unnoticed. The government agencies involved rarely disclosed much information about these plans to the public or the local media. We promptly began canvassing the community door- to-door, informed the public about the proposed facility, and collected signatures and donations to support our cause. We started a letter writing campaign to the Director of SWACO, so citizens could express disapproval of the plan. By the end of the year, we had compiled 3,878 letters from concerned citizen, which we delivered all at once to SWACO. We organized several community meetings, and question and answer sessions with SWACO and the EPA. We formulated a list of over 100 questions regarding the unknown elements of this untested technology. Neither the EPA or UPT could answer more than half of these questions, proving their understanding of the potentially hazardous plan was minimal, but they had given the go ahead regardless.
By early January, after collecting countless signatures, donations, and letters, organizing many town meetings and consulting an array of experts, SWACO unanimously voted to turn down UPT’s proposal. I had never before worked a job were my countless hours of effort had turned into anything besides a paycheck. My work had directly affected everyone in the community in a positive way. Words cannot describe the feeling of satisfaction I this gave me. Had we not blown the whistle, and informed the public about this situation, it very well could have gone completely unnoticed, and potentially been a disaster similar to the previous trash-burning power plant. After the campaign, the significance of the quote, “Think Globally, Act Locally”, set in for me. It is important to consider that everything we do affects the people around us and the world as a whole. We are most effective addressing these issues within our community, where we can rally support and speak our opinions in a public forum. (I believe this is the intention of the way our democratic system was devised).
Spending several years working other jobs, I have never found one I enjoyed as much as Ohio Citizen Action. Sure, the work there was tough, and we faced an awful lot of rejection on a daily basis, but the satisfaction of informing one citizen as to what was going on around the corner from them, and what they can do about it, was amazing. This job extended beyond the work hours. I took it home with me. My heart was with the cause, and I felt excited to go to work every morning, because somehow, in some way, I was making a difference in our community. I aspire to one day have again have a job with as much purpose.