Over the past three years, the Toledo refinery management and Citizens Advisory Panel have been engaged with the Ohio Citizen Action (OCA) organization to regarding operations at the refinery.  The OCA is a statewide environmental activist organization that attempts to enter into “Good Neighbor’ agreements with companies to address the organization’s concerns.  Since the closing of OCA’s Toledo field office in the fall of 2003, interactions with the Toledo community and industries have been handled by OCA’s southern Ohio office in Cincinnati.

In mid 2002 the OCA introduced its “Good Neighbor” campaign to the Sunoco Community Advisory Panel.  By the beginning of 2003, that campaign had started in earnest. Sunoco engaged a third-party facilitator to work with the company, the CAP and the OCA to establish the Neighbor Task Force, comprising residents and businesses within a 3-4 miles radius of the refinery, to focus on specific refinery issues, including any concerns that the OCA might raise.  Initially a Task Force participant, OCA withdrew in March 2003.
 
One of the first critical items of business for the Task Force was discussion of a Community Health Consultation initiated by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry, a division of the Centers for Disease Control (see 2004 HES Report for further discussion).  The ATSDR conducted community air monitoring at various locations surrounding the Toledo Refinery over a three-month period but found “no apparent public health hazard” caused by the refinery.  The OCA did not accept the ATSDR findings but gave no reasons for its concern (click here to link to ATSDR Health Consultations page).

Since early 2003, the OCA has targeted several community organizing efforts against the Toledo Refinery, including a community health survey that was referenced in a subsequent class action lawsuit, publication of a study charging that the refinery suffered 21 unreported “accidents” over a six-month period,  issuance of a video, and rallies outside the refinery.  These activities formed the basis for statewide letter-writing and petition campaigns.   The OCA also conducted community air monitoring through the National Bucket Brigade Coalition, but those results have not been made available.  Throughout this period, Sunoco continued working with the CAP and Neighbor Task Force and invited the OCA to join with other community organizations by returning to the Neighbor Task Force.

Because the OCA health survey had been cited in a class action lawsuit against the company, Sunoco contended, and the courts agreed, that the company should have access to survey information pertaining to the allegations raised in the lawsuit.  The OCA vehemently disagreed and began soliciting support from members and from other environmental organizations to force Sunoco to drop its request for survey data.  Sunoco proposed a solution, which the OCA and the courts accepted, that would provide critical information to Sunoco while protecting the privacy of respondents who were not parties to the lawsuit.  Class certification was denied in late 2005.

In June 2005, Sunoco announced that it had reached a global agreement with the US EPA to implement various pollution control projects at its refineries.  Based on its review of the agreement language, the OCA has discontinued its organizing activities against the Toledo Refinery but has not re-joined the Neighbor Task Force.