BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Fernald Community Reuse Organization (CRO), charged with spurring job creation for workers displaced from the former uranium processing plant, has a problem: How can it create jobs and development in an area that doesn't want to grow?
The answer, according to some members, is they can't.
"There is big talk out there and people are saying, "We don't want any more dirty industry,' " said Lisa Crawford, who also is president of Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health. "We can't force this on them."
So the CRO, which is financed by the U.S. Department of Energy, may end up spending its money outside of the "tri-township" area that surrounds Fernald. If residents of Ross, Crosby and Morgan townships aren't interested in a revolving loan fund, consulting services and other programs aimed at helping new businesses, then they may be implemented elsewhere in Greater Cincinnati.
"It would be absolutely nuts for us to set up some sort of entity to foster local development if there's no interest here in developing," CRO consultant Curt Paddock told the panel at its August meeting. Yet, as union leaders pointed out, something must be done to create employment for the roughly 2,000 workers who will be displaced as the Fernald cleanup winds down and ends by 2008.
The CRO already is accepting applications for its Project ADEPT -- Accelerated Development of Entrepreneurs Program Technique -- to pay for consultants who help small business owners figure out ways to expand and upgrade.
The CRO received $250,000 from the Department of Energy to formulate its action plan this year. Mr. Paddock said it will likely seek $5 million next year to begin implementing new programs.
But first, it will take its ideas to the public at a meeting planned for October.
The group has identified five possibilities:
A revolving loan fund for firms willing to clean up and develop on "brownfields" -- old, underused industrial areas plagued by environmental contamination.
A business incubator program that provides inexpensive retail space, shared-access office equipment, technical resources and counseling for entrepreneurs.
A development corporation to conduct long-term economic planning within a given community, after the CRO has completed its mission and disbanded.
Development of 23 clean acres of the Fernald site into an industrial park or commercial shopping center.
Long-term continuation of Project ADEPT.
