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Taking On Kipp

Grass-roots Group Digs In Against Neighborhood Factory

The Capital Times :: FRONT :: 1A

Saturday, March 26, 2005
By Pat Schneider The Capital Times

The talk in the schoolyard these days is often about Clean Air Madison and its battle against nearby Madison-Kipp Corp.

"I talk to parents at the school almost every day," said Masami Glines, a member of Clean Air Madison who works the Lowell school dismissal-bell crowd with literature in hand and a stroller in tow.

Glines, who moved to her husband's home in the neighborhood in 1995, said the campaign has helped her get to know more people. "It's been kind of a binding experience," she said.

Neighbors have claimed for years that pollution already emitted by Kipp's facilities at 2824 Atwood Ave. and 166 S. Fair Oaks Ave. makes them wheeze, sneeze and feel nauseated.

DNR officials say Kipp meets all applicable air quality standards to qualify for the permit. Clean Air Madison members claim the DNR erred in the way it calculated the path of emissions from Kipp over the neighborhood and didn't take into account very small particles that are the most dangerous.

An administrative hearing on Clean Air Madison's challenge to the permit is set for April 11. The group has also filed a notice of intent to bring suit in federal court.

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Emotional mission: Ask about Clean Air Madison's work and local activists tell of a time-consuming, emotional mission -- from organizing neighbors to the cause, to writing letters between household chores and researching pollutants on the Internet at midnight -- that can strain family ties.

Some neighborhood activists said they are so intimidated by the tone of Kipp's communications that they don't want to talk on the record.

"Kipp is playing hardball," said Kim Wright, an attorney retired from a career as a nonprofit administrator who has been drafted to assist Clean Air Madison with legal work on the permit challenge.

Wright points to a letter sent last month to Clean Air Madison's attorney, Frank Jablonski, that she says threatens to take the homes of the petitioners in the challenge to Kipp.

In the letter, Kipp's attorneys at DeWitt Ross and Stevens announce their plan to ask the administrative law judge in the case to order the petitioners to pay Kipp's legal fees because of frivolous claims they are making.

Members of Clean Air Madison are not, as their attorney tries to portray them, "pro bono" clients without resources, the letter asserts. Rather, the petitioners hold property valued in total at more than $1.1 million, the letter points out.

"I guess this is how it's done when people out-money you," Wright said, marveling at hiring a power legal firm for an administrative appeal.

In response, Kipp's law firm points to Administrative Law Judge Jeffrey Boldt's finding that there had been no "abuse of process" against Clean Air Madison.

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Changing neighborhood: Schenk-Atwood is a tidy neighborhood of older homes, tucked up against Lake Monona, where the average home value has climbed in two decades from $44,400 to $153,400 in 2004.

Wright scoffs at Kipp executives' claim that the neighbors challenging their permit just don't want to see a factory in the neighborhood. "All of us like the idea of a mixed-use neighborhood. That's why we live here. We just don't want to get sick," she said.

But there's no question that what once was a neighborhood of blue-collar workers a generation ago is now also home to a mix of professionals with assorted talents to lend in the battle against Kipp.

"Different people are good at different things," said Rachel Roang, one of three directors of Clean Air Madison.

Members and neighborhood residents include Jablonski, an attorney with Progressive Law Group; environmental engineer Steve Klafka, a former DNR employee; and other professionals with training in science, media and other useful areas of expertise.

"The rest organize things. It's really quite wonderful how things work," Roang said, adding that members take turns "being in charge -- we all need breaks."

The campaign is sophisticated for the work of a volunteer group.

Organizers have developed a Web site at www.cleanairmadison.org, where supporters can keep abreast of the group's activities, access legal documents or send a donation.

A January fund-raiser at Bunky's, a popular neighborhood restaurant, helped raise money for the group's legal expenses. Overall, neighbors have raised approximately $7,500, an amount supplemented by a $10,000 grant from Midwest Environmental Advocates, a Madison-based public interest law firm.

At a public education session March 13 at Cafe Zoma, a =neighborhood coffee shop, the "Clean Air Madison Song," to the tune of "Your Are My Sunshine," was introduced.

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Protecting Lowell: Clean Air Madison last month convinced the Madison School Board to support its request to the DNR to install an air quality monitor on the roof of Lowell Elementary School, 401 Maple Ave., where neighbors say air-intake vents put students at special risk from pollutants.

Just this week, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz joined school officials in asking for the air monitor, saying it would provide information that could be the basis of continuing efforts to resolve the dispute.

The neighbors' relationship with city officials has waxed and waned over more than a decade of recurring protests over noise, odor and pollution.

Former Mayor Sue Bauman appeared at rallies, but a planned study of health effects from Kipp emissions was aborted during her administration when initial data showed no suspicious clusters of illness.

Until this week, Cieslewicz had worked behind the scenes to get Kipp and its critics talking with each other. Now he has joined the School Board in seeking the school air monitor, although he expresses doubts about how useful the findings would be.

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Which route? Neighborhood residents are split on how best to influence Kipp, says Dan Melton, president of the Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara Neighborhood Association.

"I think a fair number of people who are active in our neighborhood feel that talking to Kipp is the route to go, rather than manning the barricades," Melton said.

"I view my job as trying to help guide the thing along and not let the two sides get too hardened," he said, adding that he respects his neighbors in Clean Air Madison.

"I think that what they are doing is necessary and that what I'm doing is necessary," Melton said.

Maria and Jim Powell, early organizers of Clean Air Madison, stepped back about a year ago.

"We were burned out," said Maria Powell, "but we also came to the realization that the issue is so much bigger than Kipp."

Powell said the struggles by neighbors to compile information about Kipp emissions that government regulators weren't even monitoring brought home the fact that pollution can't be fought at the grass-roots level alone.

"You have to work at the level where decisions are made," she said. "There are things the government needs to take care of that we don't have the tools to do at the grass roots."

Daniel Mortensen, whose property backs up to the Kipp plant, heard the Clean Air Madison pitch from Glines in the Lowell schoolyard last week.

"I'm not an ardent supporter of the movement," said Mortensen.

But adequate monitoring makes sense, he said. "If monitoring shows Kipp is not in compliance, then a lawsuit is warranted."

KIPP HEARING

What: Contested case hearing on Madison-Kipp Corp.'s operating permit from the Department of Natural Resources.

When: April 11, 9 a.m. (Hearings are sometimes postponed, call 266-3865 to verify.)

Where: Division of Hearings and Appeals, Department of Administration, 5005 University Ave.

E-mail: pschneider@madison.com