Jefferson County health board juggles notice of violation and more
Trending
STEUBENVILLE -- The Jefferson County General Health District's Board of Health juggled a wide range of topics, including a notice of violation issued to Norfolk Southern, nuisance complaints, a diaper bank proposal and director updates Tuesday.
Marc Maragos, environmental health director, provided an update on a notice of violation issued to Norfolk Southern regarding remnant garbage from a November train derailment near Toronto that was buried and was found to have resurfaced during an investigation by the health department last month.
Maragos provided board members with copies of the notice, which identified violations by Norfolk Southern of Ohio Revised Code 3734.03 on open dumping and Ohio Administrative Code Rule 3745-27-05.
Norfolk Southern provided the department with a solid waste cleanup plan of action, Maragos said, and the health department has visited the site on numerous occasions during cleanup and been in contact with the company contracted to clean the site. Norfolk Southern's plan of action includes the initial cleanup phase, which Maragos said is complete, and a bank stabilization phase to prevent erosion that will begin in the fall, with the entire operation concluding by the end of 2023.
Health commissioner Andrew Henry said, "(Norfolk Southern) learned that they need to communicate with us through all this. ... They realized how serious our community was about getting that trash picked up."
Also, the board discussed two public nuisance complaint issues, the first being Johnny's Tire and Auto Service, which, Henry said, asked for more time to remove tires, after showing receipts of almost 500 tires being removed out of an estimated total of 50,000 spread among three buildings, according to Carla Gampolo, environmental staff.
The second complaint target was 101 township Road 199, Bloomingdale, owned by Donald Barrow. The board approved a decision to give Barrow until the end of the year to clean the property after Barrow said he wants the property, which he said was plagued with refuse when he bought it, to be cleaned.
In other business, Kylie Smogonovich, nursing staff, gave the health board a presentation regarding a community diaper bank staff members are in the preliminary stages of forming.
"I was seeing diaper need in families that we're currently serving in our programs," Smogonovich said, "and I started researching how we could service these families with diapers."
Smogonovich said she decided to investigate how to start the health department's own diaper bank, spurred on by a need that includes 93 percent of Jefferson County families reporting they would benefit from diaper assistance and, in general, children averaging five diapers used per day within the first three years of life.
The diapers will be obtained through monetary and diaper donations, Smogonovich said, with the hope of establishing diaper donation boxes throughout the community. Also, the nursing staff has ideas for various collaborative charitable events during the coming year, similar to the Tower Building diaper drive staff hosted that raised just over 1,200 diapers.
There is an estimated annual cost of $5,800 to service 175 children with a monthly diaper supplement, Smogonovich said. Once the staff has gained three months worth of diapers, they will begin accepting applications to the health department's Women, Infants and Children program-enrolled families, review the applications and focus on those with most need and then begin distribution in 2024.
Before the presentation, nursing director Hannah Piko said in her report that nursing staff finished distributing sun hats and sunscreen at public pools, distributed school supplies at three back-to-school bashes and offered information on adult-recommended vaccines at the CHANGE Inc. health fair in Steubenville High School.
Also, Piko said, the staff has begun scheduling flu clinics for the fall, began physicals and back-to-school immunizations and tests and distributed naloxone at various locations around the county. Finally, Piko said the nursing staff will begin visiting high schools with the juvenile taskforce in September to educate on cellphone use safety.
In his report, health commissioner Andrew Henry said Family Recovery Center in Steubenville will be hosting an event on Aug. 31 for Overdose Awareness Day. September is National Recovery Month, Henry added, and the health department's nursing staff will host an event for that observance in Rayland on Sept. 15. Henry said the Overdose Fatality Review for the first half of the year will be on Sept. 7, and there have been 13 overdose fatalities this year from January through July, which Henry said is an improvement from 2022.
Also, Henry said, health department representatives will participate in the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce County-Wide Career Fair on Sept. 20 in Wintersville "to show the students in the high school what we do in public health."
Dr. Jane Culp, medical director, said in her report that the health department has seen a decrease in Lyme disease cases, the clinical staff's biggest concern during the past six weeks. Culp said she continues to do paperwork for the state to have the county's case numbers confirmed on the state's end.
Culp spoke on the recent FDA approval of a respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. She said there are currently two vaccines, manufactured by GSK and Pfizer, and they are meant for patients older than 60. However, Culp added, it is a "soft recommendation," meaning patients who meet qualifications "may" receive the vaccine rather than "should" because of a limited amount of data and a non-unanimous vote by the FDA.
Stephanie Chester, WIC director, said in her report that WIC staff is continuing the distribution of farmers market coupons that "provide each participant, nine months and up, an additional $30 a month to spend on fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs at local farmers markets."
The board approved a list of diversity, equity and inclusion terms, determined by the administrative committee, as part of the health department's efforts for accreditation by the Public Health Accreditation Board. Henry said an accreditation readiness assessment will be submitted to the PHAB by Oct. 10.
Letters were read from SVRTA, expressing gratitude for a $2,500 stipend it had received for housing and maintaining one of the department's vehicles, and from Michael Vukelic, claiming he was not allowed to speak at the department's last meeting.
The health board's next meeting will be on Sept. 26 at 8:15 a.m. in the second-floor community room of the Jefferson County Towers Building. The meeting will be a week later than the board's usual meeting date because of staff members attending conferences, Henry said.