The Press
• Cardinal Stritch • Clay • Eastwood • Genoa • Gibsonburg • Lake • Northwood • Oak Harbor • Waite • Woodmore
P Since 1972
The
Basketball Preview
Sex at Sixty? See PrimeTimes A supplement to The Press Newspapers December 4, 2017
Jacob Plantz Cover photo: Genoa junior guard by Russ Lytle) p ((Press file photo
RESS January 22, 2018
FREE
Serving More Than h 33 33,000 000 H Homes & B Businesses i iin 4 C Counties ti
Cardinals ranked 7th See Sports M
Pay rates set for EMS staff By Larry Limpf News Editor news@presspublications.com
Continued on page 2
Q uote
of The Week
There are no silver bullets with this... Kevin King See page 6
Hours: Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 10am-4pm
Addressing concerns James O’Bryant, deputy chief of the Toledo Police Department, was a recent guest speaker at the East Toledo Club. O’Bryant, a 32-year veteran with the department, spoke on crime and gangs. The meeting was held at the East Toledo Senior Center. (Press photo by Ken Grosjean)
Lake Erie
EPA questions partial impairment By Kelly J. Kaczala News Editor kkaczala@presspublications.com The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admitted it was wrong last year to approve a decision by the Ohio EPA to designate only limited shoreline areas of western Lake Erie as “impaired.” The Clean Water Act requires Ohio, every two years, to evaluate the water quality of all waters within its jurisdiction and submit a list to U.S. EPA that identifies each body of water that is impaired by pollution. The U.S. EPA then approves the list if it meets specific requirements, including the requirement to assemble and evaluate all existing and readily available water quality related data and information regarding water quality problems within a state’s jurisdiction. On Oct. 2016, Ohio EPA submitted its list to U.S. EPA without assembling all readily available information regarding phosphorus pollution that drives the growth of Harmful Algal Blooms in the open waters of western Lake Erie, or evaluating whether Harmful Algal Blooms are impairing those waters, as required by the
“
It’s just plain nonsense to think that the western basin of Lake Erie is not impaired completely every summer.
“
A resolution establishing pay rates for personnel that will be staffing Lake Township’s newly organized emergency medical service unit has been approved by the township trustees. The trustees Tuesday set the pay scale at $11.75 per hour for part-time emergency medical technicians, $12 for EMT-1 and $15 for paramedics. At a previous meeting, the trustees approved the hiring of Kevin Sanders, a lieutenant and paramedic with the fire department, as the township’s EMS coordinator. A contract between the township and LifeStar for the service ends in March and township officials plan to have paramedics in place before the agreement expires, Mark Hummer, township administrator and police chief, said. He said the pay scale puts the township “in the ball park” for attracting “good quality people.” Voters in the township on Nov. 7 approved a 1-mill property tax levy that will generate about $230,204 annually for the 24/7 service. A 0.8-mill levy already on the tax duplicate also helps fund the service. Under the township agreement with LifeStar, the company provides two paramedics for each shift and the township provides an emergency vehicle, equipment and houses the on-duty personnel at the administration building on Cummings Road. Fire Chief Bruce Moritz said last week he expects the EMS unit to be staffed primarily by part-time personnel with the exception of Sanders. In his annual report to the trustees, Moritz said fire caused an estimated $318,500 in damage last year in the township. Medic 50, the ambulance used by the LifeStar paramedics, responded last year to 945 rescue runs, 112 accidents, 90 lift assists and 9 mutual aid calls.
Clean Water Act. The U.S. EPA approved of the state’s decision on May 19, 2017. Now the U.S. EPA admits it was wrong to accept Ohio’s list. In a Jan. 12 letter to Craig Butler, director of the Ohio EPA, David R. Ross, assistant administrator of the U.S. EPA, stated that the federal agency had “reevaluated”
the state’s list and determined it was “not fully consistent with the requirements of the Clean Water Act and EPA’s regulations.” EPA withdrawal The state did not demonstrate it had satisfied “its statutory and regulatory obligations to assemble and evaluate all existing and readily available data and information regarding nutrients in the open waters of Lake Erie within the state’s boundaries,” stated Ross. “Therefore, by this letter, the U.S. EPA is withdrawing the May 19, 2017 approval specifically with respect to the open waters of Lake Erie. EPA requests that the state assemble and evaluate all existing and readily available data and information regarding nutrients in the open waters of Lake Erie, consistent with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements, by April 9, 2018, and submit to the U.S. EPA the results of that evaluation for U.S. EPA’s consideration.” After the U.S. EPA approved the state’s list last year, environmental groups filed a lawsuit challenging the federal agency’s Continued on page 2