From: AVBalloons@aol.com
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 01:30:44 EDT
Subject: Re: balloons & the enviroment
To: AeraDeco@aol.com, singvalentine@hotmail.com, balloondeco@balloonhq.com

Just a bit of info I wanted to pass along to the Ohio Balloon Artists and the 
List:

I wrote a fairly detailed reply to the Fact Sheet, and e-mailed it to the 
department. A copy of the reply I received is at the end of this message.  

This gentleman is obviously interested in making the PROPER facts known about 
this issue. I'll send him the materials I have (Which came from the Balloon 
Council years ago) After that, I'll leave it to you Ohio people to make your 
case. (OHIO QBN - who's your Public Relations Person?) I would urge EVERY 
balloon artist in Ohio to work on this - send a letter or whatever you need 
to do. If you read their sheet, they are TELLING you that you will be fined 
for doing a balloon release. That, alone, needs to be addressed. It looks 
like there are other issues to confront, too. Speaking as a CBA from 
California, I can tell you that you don't want to deal with what we had to 
deal with here. 

Good Luck - and please don't drop this!

Adrienne Vincent - Phoenix, CBA

<<Dear Ms. Vincent,

I am in receipt of an email that you sent to Ohio EPA through our Web page 
feedback form.  Unfortunately, several of the sentences in your message 
appeared to have been cut off prematurely.  I am assuming that this is due to 
some limitation in our Web page message system (which is currently under 
revision).  

Despite the deletion of some portions of your message, your objections to our 
fact sheet on balloon launches were clear.  I am glad that you took the time 
to submit your comments for several reasons.  

First, I was unaware that the document was still posted on our Web page.  A 
decision was made several months ago to "retire" it from our list of 
available fact sheets.  Apparently, although retired in hard-copy form, we 
failed to remove the electronic version from our Web page.  I apologize, and 
can assure you that we will remove the electronic version ASAP.  

Secondly, this fact sheet was written in conjunction with the Ohio Department 
of Natural Resources.  Although we chose to retire it, it is possible that 
they still plan on making the document available for distribution.  If you 
will send me the information referred to in your email, I will be sure to 
forward it to them so that they can take it into consideration as they revise 
or retire the document, as appropriate.   

You can send the information to:

Ohio EPA
DSIWM
Attn: Andrew Booker
P.O. Box 1049
Columbus OH  43216-1049

Or fax it to me at (614) 728-5315.

Please feel free to email or call me directly if you have any questions or 
additional comments.

Sincerely,


Andrew Booker
Ohio EPA
Division of Solid and Infectious Waste Management
(614) 728-5355
andrew.booker@epa.state.oh.us>>