In a forgotten corner of Cincinnati lives a community of about 1,500 people. Their apartments all look the same. They share narrow streets and cramped parking lots.

Most didn’t choose to live there. Nearly all want to get out. Such is the nature of public housing.

The buildings are old, built nearly 80 years ago. Heavy iron fences inexplicably separate the green spaces creating a confusing labyrinth. Residents speculate the fences were put in to make it easier for the police to chase people down.

But another worry is weighing down residents this year. It's not the living conditions. It’s the neighbors.

Directly across the street, six industrial facilities combined to pump tons of toxic emissions, as defined by the EPA, into the air each year.

This tight cluster of poverty is wedged against an equally tight cluster of industry that accounts for 38 percent of all the toxic air emissions released in Cincinnati. Since 2015, the EPA has accused three of these facilities of violating the Clean Air Act.

On top of that, this summer there was a chemical leak.

Malika Graham’s 7-year-old uses a nebulizer, a complex inhaler that plugs into the wall and pushes a fog of medicine out of a mouthpiece. Her 16-year-old child also has asthma. The family has lived in the apartments for six years.

“We can’t breathe,” Graham said.

All four of Starlena Young’s children have asthma. That’s four inhalers in her purse, and regular doctor’s check-ups that go with them. There’s no proof air pollution caused breathing problems for her kids, ages 10, 8, 7 and 4. But Young is convinced it is not helping.

“I feel like everyone has been corrupted by the chemicals,” Young said. “People out here are actually going crazy from the smell. It’s been like this for years.”

This is Winton Terrace, one of the oldest housing projects in the city.

In addition to the problems housing projects face, Winton Terrace also has the distinction of sitting in the zip code which had more toxic air emissions released within it in 2016 than any other zip code in Cincinnati.

How did this happen?

More than 3,400 people live in the 1,200 public housing units that make up Winton Terrace and neighboring Findlater Gardens. The two projects, built in 1940 and 1958 respectively, account for a third of all people living in properties owned by the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority.

Across Este Avenue, within a 1,000 yards of the lower portion of Winton Terrace, sit six facilities with Environment Protection Agency permits to release toxic emissions into the air. Emery Oleochemicals, BASF, Marathon, Procter and Gamble and Sun Chemical operate the plants, and Sun Chemical has two facilities in the area.

The industry was there first, and it is likely polluting less now than it was when Winton Terrace was built. Emery and P&G have been operating on the banks of the Mill Creek since soon after the Civil War. By 1880, more than 100 factories were operating along the creek, according to Mill Creek researcher Michael Wojtkiewicz.

The EPA was established in 1970, 30 years after Winton Terrace was built.

The construction of Winton Terrace was part of a national wave of “slum clearance” initiatives that started when federal funds for low-rent housing complexes were offered in the 1930s. The Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority has owned the project since the beginning.

Former resident council president Monecea Collins sums it up: “It wasn’t built for us.”

She’s right. In 1940, fewer people owned cars. People ate, worked and lived differently. But what Collins is really referring to is the fact that for the first decade of its existence Winton was a whites-only project. It wasn’t integrated until the 1950s when Findlater Gardens were built directly to the north.

Recent census data show Winton Hills, the neighborhood in which the projects sit, is about 85 percent black.

Collins is a formerly homeless mother of four. She moved to Winton Terrace from a homeless shelter. When a spot opened in Winton Terrace, she knew it wasn’t the best place to live, but took it anyway because she feared turning it down would send her back to the bottom of the list.

She said the air is just another stressor on a long list of things plaguing residents: maintenance issues, water quality, crime, violence, poverty.

“The kids are inhaling this stuff every day,” Collins said. “Whatever it is that’s in these people – they are angry, they’re mad, they’re upset. I feel like these people are just here to die.”

At the time of construction, it seemed the proximity to industry was viewed as a positive for Winton Terrace. Being close to the Mill Creek meant being close to jobs. The other driving factor was simply that land was available.

Whatever the appeal the site once had, it's now gone.

In an essay he wrote at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in 2012, Winton Terrace resident Javier Hummons reflected on his neighborhood. He said the fences make you “confused at the thought of what was meant to be contained on the other side, man or beast?”

“Misery and hopelessness thrive, diminishing any thought of overcoming the current mind state this environment creates,” he wrote. “Hope and spirit are lost by the minute.”

More:The time Cincinnati tried to protect the poor from pollution but gave up

'I have to shut my windows because I can't breathe'

“I wake up out of my sleep at three or four o’clock in the morning because I have to shut my windows because I can’t breathe,” Anese Milsap, a 13-year Winton Terrace resident, said.

Like many of her neighbors, Milsap does not have air conditioning. She said she’s visited family in Chicago and California and she’s always shocked by how her health improves when she’s away.

“There is something going on and they’re not letting us know. I think that’s wrong,” Milsap said. “We’re their neighbors. You should let us know. A lot of people think because we’re in Winton Terrace, we don’t need to know. That’s bullcrap. We’re human just like anybody else.”

Winton Hills ranks among the worst in Cincinnati for asthma and lower respiratory hospital admission rates, according to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center research.

In an asthma study, researchers said the severity of asthma varies across neighborhoods in Cincinnati.

“Deep, preventable disparities exist in the frequency of acute asthma exacerbations, with morbidity clustering with disadvantaged populations and communities,” the study said.

Winton Hills ranked 14th out of 91 neighborhoods in Hamilton County for asthma hospitalizations.

Each of the facilities near Winton Terrace is permitted to emit certain quantities of toxic air emissions. What is generally not considered is what happens when those facilities pile up next to each other.

The government considers each of these facilities individually. The permits do not take into account the cumulative effects of nearby facilities or the possibility of chemicals mixing in the air.

The emissions figures published by the EPA are self-reported by the companies. These statistics are often derived from how much of a product is made or how much a chemical is used versus actual measured output.

Even with some emissions permitted by law, three of the facilities sitting next to Winton Terrace have run afoul of the EPA in recent years though no necessarily for violating emission limits.

The Marathon refinery was in violation of the Clean Air Act from July 2015 to June 2016 partly due to hazardous air pollutants, according to the EPA. In 2016, BASF and Marathon were each fined more than $100,000 under the Clean Air Act.

In 2015, the Ohio EPA said the Sun Chemical Corporation Color Intermediates facility was in violation of the Clean Air Act for problems at its site.

The violations can range from paperwork issues to sensors within the plant malfunctioning. Not all violations result in fines.

However, these federal constraints on enforcement don’t mean factories can be a nuisance surrounding residents. In fact, all air permits have a nuisance clause. But legally, a "nuisance" is hard to define and companies are rarely prosecuted.

Dina Pierce, media coordinator with the Ohio EPA, said federal standards are meant to be "protective of human health."

“I worry about, in the long run, cancer and breathing issues,” said Nia Cook, a seven-year resident of Winton Terrace. She said her 8-year-old daughter often walks into her house with her shirt pulled put over her nose.

“She’s a nature girl. She’s a treehugger. She’s always out running around, picking flowers, messing with bugs,” Cook said. “If she says it smells and she won’t go out, you know it’s something.”

Pierce said the presence of odors does not necessarily mean there is a health risk.

But the smells persist, as does the anxiety of residents.

The Southwest Regional Air Quality Agency acts as the local arm of the Ohio EPA and does respond when people call.

Between Sept. 2015 and June 2018, the agency received 30 complaints in the 45232 zip code. Two-thirds described similar “fatty” or “industrial” smells.

However, in eight cases, inspectors couldn’t smell what the residents were smelling and therefore the cases were closed immediately. In the few cases where the smell was tracked to specific activity in a specific facility, no notices of violation were issued.

Brad Miller, the interim director of the Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency, said if an odor is traced back to the company, the first step is working with that company to reduce the odors. He said odor complaints have reduced in the past decade due to this work.

Last year, one area resident complained about a lingering smell around his home. “The smell is really bad at times and enough that my wife wants to move away from this area," he wrote. "Please help me stay in my neighborhood.”

When the inspector brought it up at a meeting with some of the area companies, the companies said, there were “no issues at the facilities that would lead to increased odors.” At that, the case was closed.

“We cannot go outside,” wrote another man who lives on Winton Ridge Lane. “I guess since we live in a poor area, they figure no one will complain and they can do what they want. I suspect the chemical company on Este is to blame.”

Sometimes, the inspector and the companies blamed the intense smells on the weather, saying “temperature inversions” can create a bubble that traps air in the Mill Creek Valley.

Smells can build up in this dead air, but so do the emissions each facility is allowed to produce.

BASF, Emery and Marathon told The Enquirer they comply with EPA regulations and are dedicated to the safety of the community. The other companies with facilities in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

What can be done

The Ohio EPA has not done so-called “air modeling” of the Winton Terrace area, officials said. This modeling would use computers to try to predict how all the facilities in the area interact together and with the weather.

The Enquirer asked the Ohio EPA if it is the stance of the agency that there is not enough evidence in the Winton Terrace area to warrant attempts at broader enforcement, increased monitoring or an air nuisance case.

The Ohio EPA said: “The facilities named have air pollution permits that are written with enforceable emission limits that make sure federal air quality standards are maintained and that are protective of human health."

Officals said notices of violation are issued when violations occur.

The Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency continues to take complaints, log reports and issue violations, but it does not seem that a major air nuisance case is likely.

“Nuisance cases are much harder to prove,” the agency's interim director Miller said. “Ideally, we don’t want to go to that step. It’s a last resort.”

The agency takes complaints over the phone at 513-946-7777 and online at southwestohioair.org.

The Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency also offers air monitoring “cans” to citizens. These can collect the air and can then be collected and analyzed.

BASF and Emery hold a “community advisory panel,” which allows residents and other stakeholders to voice their concerns and get questions answered. The panel has been convened several times a year for the past 25 years.

The Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority began attending those meetings this year after The Enquirer began its investigation.

On the housing side, CHMA has no plans to demolish Winton Terrace. The property will be converted to a new Housing and Urban Development’s program, but no timeline has been set. The idea is to shift the public housing model toward a more Section 8-like structure.

Housing advocate Brian Garry calls it the “privatization of public housing.” He says the program has the potential to raise rents and lower standards in the system.

The bottom line: people will be living in Winton Terrace for the foreseeable future. Hamilton County has a shortage of about 40,000 units of affordable housing, and public housing is consistently full in the city.

David Altman, an environmental lawyer based in Cincinnati, also said county health departments has an untapped power to force facilities to clean up, but Hamilton County's department has never seriously attempted to regulate air pollution.

Altman added: “You can report your brains out, but it's up to the Ohio EPA to do enforcement. There’s nobody looking at these people over the years and putting it all in context.”

He said people also give up on reporting after they make complaints and nothing is done. People can also just get used to the smells, he said.

Emergencies on top of ongoing fears

In June, anhydrous ammonia leaked from the Emery Oleochemical facility. Residents were told to “shelter in place.” Those within 1,000 feet of Emery Oleochemicals were told to stay inside and, if they had air conditioning, to turn it off.

The chemical can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, breathing difficulty, wheezing, chest pain, pulmonary edema, pink frothy sputum, burns, blisters, frostbite and, in high enough concentrations, death.

Some of the 400 Winton Terrace residents within the 1,000-foot circle got alerts on their cell phones, others heard through the media, some didn’t know at all.

Collins was still resident council president at the time. She felt compelled to ignore the order and take to the streets and warn residents to get inside. She called the St. Bernard Fire Department, the Cincinnati Fire Department, police and anyone else she could think of to get information, but it was news outlets that seemed to have the most up-to-date information, though at times it was conflicting.

She attends a community advisory panel several times a year with BASF and Emery Oleochemicals, but passing along what she learns there is hard when resident council meetings are poorly attended.

At the June 12 meeting after the ammonia leak, about 20 people showed up.

Collins has still taken it upon herself to do something, even if the Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency, the Ohio EPA, CHMA or the city can’t or won’t.

Collins began work immediately to try to get her residents better prepared. She plans to have a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteer hold meetings in the neighborhood. CERT is a national disaster preparedness group. Plans for that are continuing.

Since the leak, Collins had to move to Findlater Gardens due to a mice infestation affecting her old residence in Winton Terrace, she said. That meant she couldn't be resident council president anymore.

She said no one has stepped up to take her place, and she continues to do many of the things she used to for residents, like delivering food to children and walking the streets to meet with residents. She wants to start an independent resident association.

Despite those efforts, she has no intention of staying in the neighborhood.

“I’m trying to get out,” she said. “I’m trying to get everyone out.”