A new state-of-the-art apartment complex called Via Verde boasts a series of terraced rooftop lawns and gardens, an outdoor amphitheater and stunning views of the Manhattan skyline. The building -- as its Spanish name suggests -- is also dedicated to the “green way,” meaning it meets the highest standards of environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient construction.
But unlike some other eco-conscious apartment buildings in New York City like the Solaire in Battery Park City, or the Tribeca Green in lower Manhattan, Via Verde is located in the South Bronx. And unlike these other luxury condos, it is built with middle-class New Yorkers in mind: Many of the 202 apartments in Via Verde are intended for families for four that earn less $56,700 a year. “We hope that [the Via Verde] proposal will serve as a prototype for future affordable housing developments built nationally and internationally,” said Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan.
Via Verde is not alone. A smattering of low-cost environmentally friendly projects housing projects are being built across the country, according to a recent article in the Next American City. In Duluth, Minnesota, for example, a project for 70 formerly addicted or homeless people will be convenient to public transportation and boast such features as a high-efficiency steam heating and hot water system, energy-efficient lighting and controls, ceiling fans and landscaping that requires no irrigation.
If Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his way, there will be more buildings using such technologies in New York City’s future. On April 22, as part of a plan to make New York more sustainable, the mayor called for a series of new projects and initiatives aimed at reducing harmful emissions and energy usage.
But accomplishing such changes in the city could be a major challenge, with high demand, a scarcity of land combining to create a critical shortage of low- and middle-income housing - let alone apartments that are energy efficient , environmentally friendly and still available to less affluent New Yorkers.
But some experts believe that New York City cannot afford to neglect the environment in its push to provide more moderately priced housing. They argue that constructing buildings that use less water and energy and contain fewer toxic substances is not just an innovative idea but also a necessity.
The city is expecting demand for electricity to outpace current capacity by 2012, and a major portion of that demand comes from buildings. New York City buildings emit 79 percent of the global warming gases in the city, which in turn, accounts for 1 percent of emissions nationwide, according to a recent study from the mayor’s office. New York City alone emits as much as these gases than all of Portugal or Ireland.
And unless something is done, the pollution is bound to increase. More than a million people are expected to move into the city by the year 2030, according to the Department of City Planning.
This will “pose challenges that – if left unmet – could be paralyzing,” Bloomberg said in a recent speech.
Through a variety of techniques, such as energy saving appliances, improved ventilation, recycling rainwater, green buildings use less energy than conventional homes, emit less of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, and often provide safer and more pleasant environments for residents who are not subject to harmful chemicals and compounds.
But one of the biggest obstacles is cost.
Estimates on the up-front costs of building green and the time it takes to recoup that investment vary. The city’s Department of Design and Construction has figured that green buildings cost 2 to 3 percent more to construct, and the U.S. Green Building Council, a coalition of building industry leaders, estimates that, on average, it can increase initial costs by between 2 and 7 percent.
Proponents point out that these costs can be recovered in lower operating costs over the life of the building – particularly reduced energy and water bills. And those expenses pose an increasing burden for many homeowners and rents.
The cost of energy in US cities increased on average 11 percent last year, accordingto the US Conference of Mayors._New York City is considering an increase of 11.5 percent in water rates, which would add an estimated $72 to the average water and sewer bill for a single-family home in the city._
Despite this, many developers are reluctant to put more money into upfront construction costs.
To help developers and builders defer the costs of building green, the state and city have offered a series of tax incentives and financing.
The state began offering the first tax credit for developers of green buildings in the country in 2000. It has distributed the total $25 million allocated to the program among seven projects. The New York State Energy Research and Development Agency also offers a variety of help with different aspects of green building.
Some money is also coming from the non-profit sector.
The Enterprise > Community Partners has invested $130 million dollars to finance the development of 1,800 homes in the city over the last two years.
Yet many say this is still not enough, and so government has begun to require, not just encourage, environmentally friendly construction.
The state mandates that the buildings housing many state government agencies improve their energy efficiency by between 10 and 35 percent, and that they purchase up to 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources, such as wind or solar.
And the city enacted Local Law 86 at the beginning of this year, which requires that most new, non-residential developments using at least $10 million of city financing reduce their energy costs by between 20 and 35 percent, among other environmental requirements. The law is estimated to affect $12 billion in construction.
On Earth Day, Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented list of 127 proposals, called PlaNYC, aimed at making a “greener, greater New York.” Dozens of the ideas involve making new construction more environmentally friendly – and even helping New Yorkers upgrade their existing homes to be more energy efficient.
The city's Department of Environmental Protection has already allocated $34 million dollars toward a water conservation effort that aims at a 5 percent reduction in water use. The program would provide rebates to replace toilets, urinals and washing machines with more efficient models starting in 2008.
In an effort to make green building more affordable, the new building code - which is expected to be adopted this summer - will provide rebates for many environmentally friendly features such as improved ventilation and white roofs, which reflect heat rather than absorbing it and so reduce energy needed for air conditioning. In a similar vein, the city plans to offer a property tax abatement for solar installations.
To indicate that the features normally associated with green construction are not limited to the affluent, some of the 55,000 units fundedunder the mayor’s plan to create or preserve 165,000 homes by 2013 were built to meet sustainability standards.
And from now on, the Bloomberg administration says, all of the new apartments and houses will adhere to more stringent standards.
Still, it will take some radical new approaches to ensure that New York can be environmentally sustainable and affordable.
While the Via Verde apartment complex in the Bronx has been hailed as eco-conscious model for features like the ability to rainwater, spaces to grow vegetables and fruit, solar panels, and even a Christmas tree farm, it began with a substantial commitment from the city: the land, which was valued at more than $4.5 million, was donated free of charge.
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New York City is at a pivotal point in its recycling program, and fresh initiatives, lofty goals and new personnel could finally lead to a trifecta of reduced costs, more jobs and a minimized impact on the environment.
That is if all goes well - which has not always been the case with recycling in New York.
The city's 8.2 million residents disgorge a daily mountain of 12,500 tons of residential trash, and the recycling rate for all that detritus is stalled at around 16 percent. This year's target bumps the residential rate up to 25 percent. And by 2015, the city aims for a 70 percent reduction in its total waste stream, residential, commercial and otherwise.
The 70 percent is a stretch, but I'm optimistic: The city has appointed recycling coordinators for each of the five boroughs and has adopted a 20-year Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan. David Hurd, director of the newly created Office of Recycling Outreach and Education, is brimming with energy and ideas, and his staff, in the Council on the Environment for New York City, will have a close working relationship with the mayor's office. And the city recently has launched announced a pilot program for recycling in selected public places, including some parks.
All this stands in contrast to the great leap backward that the city took in 2002 when it vastly scaled back its recycling program. The cutback occurred at the very time that recycling, mandatory in New York City since July 1989, had morphed into a way of life as well as a civic duty. For many of us, separating all that paper and plastic, metal and glass had become a part of household routine.
I knew that if New York backpedaled on recycling, even temporarily, we would lose momentum. And we did.
Just ask someone with first-hand knowledge: "Recycling has dropped," Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association Local 831 IBT, said at a recent public forum on Community Recycling. "What we noticed is that when it first started, there was a system out there. And people adjusted to the system."
And then they "de-adjusted." Who could blame them, given all the confusion: Pickups took place only every other week. For a while, the city stopped recycling plastics and glass. Then recycling of plastics resumed, but not glass. Finally recycling of plastics resumed too.
Who could keep track?
"It really took the heart out of the people of New York City," Nespoli said. "We're losing on recycling."
At the forum, Staten Island City Councilmember Michael E. McMahon, chairman of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, concurred with Nespoli's assessment: "We're kind of in a slump on recycling," McMahon said. "The numbers are down. They're not where they should be."
Not only can we do better, we have to: Projections call for New York's population to swell by 1 million by 2020, to more than 9 million. So the problem of dumping recyclables can only get worse, to the detriment of the environment and our quality of life.
Garbage affects the municipal pocketbook, too. Done right, recycling can be much less expensive than hauling the same stuff out as trash. Using recyclables in manufacturing is less energy-intensive than using raw materials. Less energy use translates into less production of greenhouse gases, ultimately reducing the city's contribution to global warming. Recycling also has the potential to create new jobs as industry innovates, finding novel ways to use recyclables.
This is why I strongly support the 70 percent total waste diversion rate that the Solid Waste Management Plan recommends. In plain language, this means that by 2015, there would be a 70 percent reduction in the amount of garbage that the city pays to ship to landfills.
Along with this, we need to make sure that the city moves ahead with its pledge to work with private firms to develop a state-of-the-art transportation and processing infrastructure that will create a trash-into-treasure partnership: Together, we must find better ways to collect recyclables and recast them as salable commodities.
The city also must quickly move forward with its private partner, Sims Hugo Neu, to develop the promised recycling processing plant at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The waterfront location will let the city transport more recyclables by barge, cutting down on the number of trucks that pollute city air.
But for all this to work, the city will have to do a far better job of reaching out to residents to better educate them about recycling. In the late 1990s, as McMahon pointed out, such high-profile New Yorkers as the Yankees' Joe Torre made pro-recycling public service announcements. When is the last time you heard a celebrity - or anyone - make a let's-recycle pitch? We need smart, well-designed new promotions. We’re encouraged that Hurd, the new director of recycling outreach, is looking for ways to make this happen.
The city also needs to follow through on its commitments to expand the types of materials it recycles, such as electronics. And the Composting Facility Siting Task Force must quickly move to identify appropriate locations and technologies to make composting a reality here.
There are special challenges in New York City, given its density, diversity and sheer size, but it can no longer argue that composting is not a viable option for a big city. San Francisco composts, and so does Toronto.
Toronto, in fact, thinks outside the box when it comes to recycling, to excellent effect. In 2006, the city, with a population of 2.6 million, recycled or composted about 43 percent of the waste it managed.
The program is not inexpensive, Geoff Rathbone, acting general manager of Toronto's Solid Waste Management Services, told our forum. But Toronto offsets some of the costs by requiring industries whose products create the trash to share in the cost of recycling. That includes manufacturers of fast food, soft drinks, cat litter, newspapers and numerous others.
Toronto also makes composting "as easy and yuck-free," as Rathbone put it, as possible. Fruit and veggie peelings, used diapers, microwave popcorn bags, chicken bones, pet waste - it all goes in the same green bin.
Toronto and other cities have made great strides forward in the matter of recycling. There is no reason New York can't do the same. Or better. As the city embarks on its new 20-year plan, announced by the mayor on Sunday, residents should support it by doing their part. Recycling tips are at here.
New York may be the greatest city in the world, but recycling is one all-too-obvious way in which we can make it even greater. Let's do it.
Betsy Gotbaum is the city's public advocate
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Willow Lake, Queens |
New York City arose in a marshy landscape amid a great tidal estuary. In 1800, there were 100 square miles of tidal wetlands in New York-New Jersey Harbor, an estuarine complex where more than half a dozen river systems meet the sea. If you're anywhere along the coast of New York City, there's a good chance you are standing on what was once wetlands.
Over the centuries, the city's marshy edges and freshwater swamps-considered no more than pestilent wastelands-were filled in and buried beneath the city's grid to make space for shipping, airports, landfills and new neighborhoods. Today, just a small fraction of the city's original wetlands, both tidal and freshwater, remain. Our last wetlands, even those preserved by the city, state, and federal governments, are under increasing threat from development, pollution, and rising sea levels due to global warming.
But renewed efforts are underway to save these vanishing ecosystems. A task force that inventoried the wetlands on city-owned land is expected to recommend transferring hundreds of acres of wetlands to the parks department. City Councilmember James Gennaro has intrduced legislation requiring the city to establish a comprehensive policy for protecting and managing the city's wetlands.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's far-reaching plaNYC 2030 for a greener city, released on Sunday, includes a recommendation to assess the vulnerability of existing wetlands and identify additional policies to protect them, something environmental advocates say is long overdue. Recognizing the importance of wetlands in controlling flooding and pollution, the mayor also proposed expanding the city's bluebelt natural stormwater drainage system.
There is no single definition for what constitutes a wetland. A wetland can be anything from a classic salt marsh to a small pool that fills only in the spring or a damp wood with tree and shrub species that like moist soil. Part of the difficulty of protecting wetlands is that many do not fit the criteria - which may include wetness, soil characteristics and vegetation, as well as size - for protection under state or federal regulations. "The vast majority of wetlands have not been officially delineated," said Bill Tai, director of the city parks department's Natural Resources Group. "But people just know a duck when they see a duck."
The city's wetlands, official or not, provide essential habitat for its surprising diversity of wildlife. "People always think of New York City as the financial capital of the world. But it is also one of the richest ecosystems in the world," said Robert Pirani, director of environmental programs at the nonprofit Regional Plan Association and a co-chair of the city's Wetlands Transfer Task Force. The marshy islands and shore of western Staten Island, for example, support large breeding colonies of herons and other waterbirds. The Hudson River's striped bass fishery depends on wetlands in the harbor. Both tidal and freshwater wetlands all over the city harbor rare remnant populations of the plants and animals that once flourished in the region.
"All the small bits of wetland that are left are really precious," Pirani said. "That's what sustains the fisheries in the harbors and the great migration of waterfowl and other birds that passes through the city."
Wetlands are valuable for many other reasons. They capture rainwater and filter out pollutants, moderating flooding and assuring that clean water goes into rivers and harbors. Tidal wetlands help buffer the coast from storms. Moist landscapes also cool the overheated city. And not least, they offer breathing space, outdoor recreation and educational opportunities to inhabitants of the concrete jungle.
In the coming decades, functioning wetlands will be essential to meeting the city's needs for clean water, open space and coastal recreation. But the city must act now, environmentalists, planners and other experts believe, to save the city's last wetlands from the myriad threats that confront them.
Although significant wetlands are preserved within the city parks system as well as on state and federal lands, many coastal and freshwater wetlands throughout the city are still in private hands or on land under the jurisdiction of other agencies, and remain at great risk of development or degradation.
The Department of Parks and Recreation has a major role in protecting the city's wetlands. Of its 11,000 acres of natural areas, about 4,500 are wetlands, according to Tai. The department's Forever Wild Preserves include many significant wetlands, from the salt marshes at Idlewild Park Preserve in Queens to the kettle ponds of Blue Heron Park Preserve on Staten Island. Tai said, "People are always amazed that there are not one or two but 50 of these natural areas in the city, where you can almost forget you're in the city."
Since the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, federal and state regulations have slowed the filling and draining of wetlands, but there remain many huge loopholes. A 2001 Supreme Court decision weakened the federal protection of isolated wetlands, and New York State does not regulate wetlands smaller than 12.4 acres.
Last spring, Gennaro, chair of the City Council Environmental Protection committee, spearheaded the passage of a law establishing the Wetlands Transfer Task Force to inventory all wetlands on city property and determine which should be moved to the parks department, affording them greater protection. Recently, he introduced legislation to require the city "to conserve, protect, enhance, restore and expand the wetlands of New York City and to standardize the city's approach regarding wetlands management," for wetlands on both public and private property.
Conservation groups in the city continue to work toward preserving key wetlands on private property still at risk of development. In its report, An Islanded Nature, published with the New York City Audubon Society, the Trust for Public Land, which helped to save hundreds of wet acres on Staten Island in recent years, has highlighted wetland habitats on the borough's western shore in need of protection.
New York State's Open Space Conservation Plan lists several dozen city wetlands as priorities for acquisition, but, as always, there is not enough funding to purchase all of them.
Even protected wetlands face grave threats. Wastewater discharges from sewage treatment plants and overflows of raw sewage (known as combined sewage overflows or CSOs) carry pollutants, including high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus that upset the nutrient balance of salt marsh ecosystems. The development of uplands and other areas surrounding wetlands increases soil erosion and contaminated runoff and diverts the flow of water that is a wetland's lifeblood. "If you pave over the soil that feeds the wetlands, the wetland is dead," said Paul Mankiewicz, an ecological engineer who heads the nonprofit Gaia Institute.
The city's remaining tidal wetlands are particularly vulnerable to sea level rise from global warming.
In Jamaica Bay, part of Gateway National Recreation Area, ecologically significant salt marshes have been mysteriously shrinking by about 40 acres a year. One of three major wetland complexes left in the New York-New Jersey Harbor, Jamaica Bay is a major stopover for birds migrating on the Atlantic Flyway and one of the best bird-watching areas in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a prime spot for fishing, boating, swimming and learning about nature. But if current trends continue, the bay's salt marsh islands will disappear within the next few decades
A task force, comprised of scientists, citizens and government agency representatives, has been working to understand the problems and propose solutions to the bay's problems. In March, the city Department of Environmental Protection released for comment its draft Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan, which sets forth potential strategies, including land use changes, ecological restoration, and water quality improvement, for protecting and managing the bay's invaluable natural and recreational resources.
Blue Heron Park, Staten Island |
About 60 percent of the city's stormwater flows into sewers together with sewage and industrial wastewater, all of which is processed at the sewage treatment plants along the coast. The wastewater treatment system is already strained. So, when a large storm hits, such as the recent nor'easter, these combined sewage overflows end up in rivers and bays, increasing bacteria counts and pollutants that harm marine life and make the water unsafe for swimming. The overflows also carry trash washed from streets into the city's water bodies.
While such overflow poses a threat to the city's tidal marshes, wetlands upstream can help provide a solution to the problem.
Like great sponges, marshes and swamps soak up rainwater and release it slowly, preventing the flooding of land, roads and buildings downstream and filtering out many contaminants. In urban areas, wetlands are especially valuable for flood control because the city's hard surfaces send greater volumes of stormwater more quickly through the streets and sewers. Wetlands are considered particularly valuable in keeping the most highly contaminated "first flush" of runoff out of the waterways.
There is a growing interest in using wetlands, along with innovative environmentally friendly techniques like green roofs and porous pavements, to control flooding at the source and reduce the sewage overflows that could become increasingly frequent with the more severe storm surges predicted for the future.
The city Department of Environmental Protection is creating a natural stormwater control and filtering system called the Bluebelt in southeastern Staten Island. In 15 watersheds covering about a third of the island, the system preserves and enhances the natural drainage corridors of marshes, ponds and streams and integrates them with conventional storm sewers. According to the environment department's web site, the bluebelt costs tens of millions of dollars less than building conventional storm sewers for the same area. The program also helps to preserve the city's last freshwater wetlands and open space for Staten Island's growing population.
The Gaia Institute, which specializes in integrating natural systems and human communities, is experimenting with building new wetlands to capture and manage stormwater. In El Jardin del Paraiso, a community garden on the Lower East Side, the institute joined with the parks and environment departments to engineer a small wetland to capture rainwater. It is now working with the company Sims Hugo Neu to create a meadow and wetland system to hold and recycle rainwater at its metal recycling facility on the Bronx River.
Engineers at the Department of Environmental Preservation question whether the restoration and creation of wetlands and other natural infrastructure can make a measurable difference to the sewage overflow problem in densely developed areas of the city. But the department has publicly committed itself to coming up with pilot projects that look at the use of wetlands for stormwater management.
The Wetlands Transfer Task Force looked at 2,000 wetland parcels on city owned land. About a thousand of these were already under the jurisdiction of the parks department. As for the rest, Pirani said that the panel will recommend that several hundred acres be transferred either to parks or the Department of Environmental Protection for its Bluebelt program.
These include a number of wetlands around Jamaica Bay, as well as areas elsewhere in the city that have value as wildlife habitat, for stormwater management or are in a part of the city with few other green spaces.
The release of the task force's final report has been delayed, however, pending a study by the Economic Development Corporation on economic issues around the wetland that led to the group's creation in the first place - Arlington Marsh on the northwestern shore of Staten Island.
The marsh is adjacent to the Howland Hook Marine Terminal, a large container port leased from the city by the Port Authority. The site in question, one of the last remnants of the salt marshes that once encircled Staten Island, has a rich variety of flora and fauna within a very small area. The city wants the land for possible future expansion of the port. The task force members representing planning and environmental groups say that the wetland should become a park because there are other sites for the terminal but only one marsh.
The panel also found that the issues affecting wetlands go beyond whether or not particular parcels should be protected as parks. A whole range of policies involving almost all city agencies could work to the benefit - or detriment - of wetlands. In addition, any strategy to protect these areas must also consider funding. Such an overall management strategy is essential, Pirani said, because "in a place as urbanized as New York City, if you ignore wetlands, they won't be there forever."
Anne Schwartz is the author of "Rescuing Wetlands Close to Home: Ten Stories of New England Landowners," published in September 2006 by the Trust for Public Land.
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The Gotham Gazette Reading NYC Book Club recently met to discuss the environmental justice movement and the book Noxious New York, by Julie Sze. Joining us was Cecil Corbin-Mark, of West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), an established environmental justice group and a subject of the book.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: What is environmental justice?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: The environmental justice movement is a social justice movement that has arisen here in the United States and has spread globally. It was born, I believe, out of the environmental movement, out of the anti-toxics movement, and, most importantly, out of the civil rights movement.
From each of those movements, the environmental justice movement has borrowed particular frames or lenses. From the civil rights movement, it has gotten its racial analysis of how our society delivers burdens and benefits based on racial lines. From the anti-toxics movement, it takes the frame of empowering communities in the discussion around environmental policies. From the environmental movement, obviously, it gets the bread and butter issues of land, water, and air quality.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: What is the anti-toxics movement?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: It grew here in the United States starting in the late 1970s and early1980s. The most famous struggle was the Love Canal situation around Buffalo. It focused on providing a way for the local communities, primarily in Caucasian communities, to respond to the siting of toxic facilities that would affect them. It gave them a voice, a way to say that their communities were not places for these types of facilities.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: Can you tell us about the organization you work with?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: Sure. We are in our 19th year of operation, and were started in 1988 in response to community struggles around the siting of the north river sewage treatment plant, as well as a diesel bus depot and a garbage transfer station. The organization started as an ad-hoc, community driven, community run organization. In 1994, we opened our doors as a staffed organization. We had filed a lawsuit against the city over the operation of the sewage treatment plant, and there was a settlement.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: What are the most pressing environmental justice issues facing the city today?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: I like to say to people that there are not environmental justice issues per se. Environmental justice is a lens through which to look at all environmental issues. So the issues are the same: water quality, air quality, and sanitation.
Garbage
One of the big issues is the solid waste management plan for the coming decades. New York City produces 26,000 tons of garbage each day, 13,000 of it from the residential side, and about the same from commercial garbage.
How does that play out from an environmental justice perspective? A lot of the facilities that handle commercial waste have been located in low income communities and communities of color. You would find the facilities that handled the bulk of the garbage in the African American communities of Jamaica, the Latino communities of Sunset Park or Williamsburg, the Latino and African American communities of the South Bronx. That garbage would come primarily from the island of Manhattan. But there were no garbage facilities in Manhattan, so you would have that garbage carted to the South Bronx.
Air Pollution
In terms of air pollution, you would also find disparate burdens for communities like my Harlem community in northern Manhattan. Northern Manhattan plays host to six of the seven bus depots in Manhattan. One was expanded, while a bus depot downtown was closed to make way for the Hudson River Park.
The burdened neighborhoods are not hosting facilities that are serving only their own neighborhoods. For example, in the case of the bus depots, the depots in northern Manhattan have bus lines that run routes through Manhattan and the Bronx. So that's a benefit to the broader society. But when those buses go home at night, they are repaired and fitted, in some instances, to venting mufflers so that the exhaust doesn't build up inside the depot. That sends the diesel fumes and particulates into the surrounding neighborhoods. Many of these bus depots are located next to homes, schools, or recreational facilities.
The flip side of this is that some neighborhoods get particular types of benefits, like the Hudson River Park. The bearing of these burdens should be balanced with the benefits. But these benefits are not being spread evenly across the city.
MARTHA SOFFER: Why not just ban diesel fuel?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: There have been many strides to do something like this. The city passed a law, Local Law 77, to ban construction equipment from using the worst polluting types of fuel. They now have to use ultra-low sulfur diesel, etc. As a result of our struggle, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and NYC Transit have switched to the ultra-low sulfur diesel and put particle traps on their buses. The city has worked to convert taxi fleets, and the diesel issue is also being tackled at the state issue.
But we are not there yet. Our ferries, for instance, contribute a lot of pollution. There are new technologies that would deal with that, and we should move toward that. Councilman John Liu has legislation around school buses, and we have a project coming up that would retrofit school buses to keep diesel pollution from seeping into the cabin. Right now it's actually worse for children to be inside the school bus than to be outside. Liu's legislation assures us that the best technologies are mandated for school buses. So we're moving in the right direction, it's just taking us a long time to get to a place we should be.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: In the book Julie Sze writes that Giuliani "stands out as a villain in this story, for the belittling of environmental concerns of local neighborhoods, especially those comprising low income residents and people of color." How do you think Bloomberg compares?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: Much more favorably. This mayor has a greater environmental sensitivity, for sure. A number of forces have propelled him, as mayor, to this, because I don't think he necessarily started out that way.
In the Giuliani administration, there was very little communication between African American, Asian, and Latino communities – and most communities in general – and City Hall. Giuliani's performance on environmental issues was particularly bad as it related to community involvement in planning for environmental issues. He had a real disdain for that, and his administration had a real closed door, top-down approach. It was a very tough time for our communities.
I remember one story as an example: While Giuliani was in office, Hudson River Park was coming into being. The city and the state were spending significant amounts of money on the creation of the park. As I said, a diesel bus depot was closed to make room for the park, and the buses were sent uptown to an expanded depot. We tried to engage the Giuliani administration in extending the waterfront park. We were very severely rebuffed. On the area we were proposing using to create a park, they put out a Request for Proposals to build hotels, which if you know anything about a hotel, you know would cut off access.
Look at that contrast. Here on the southern part of the Hudson River, $300 million to $500 million were being spent in taxpayer money to create this kind of amenity, take away a particular type of polluting facility, and send that facility uptown. Then, you won't even think about working with the community to create waterfront access on 125th street?
Giuliani's attempt to privatize the hauling of garbage out of the city was another failure. He created a commodity out of garbage which sent the city's waste disposal policies topsy-turvy, making it much more expensive in the process.
Central to Giuliani's legacy with regards to garbage was the closing of the Fresh Kills landfill. But let's set that, and the impact on the Staten Island communities, aside, even though they were very real. We had a system that worked really well, and Giuliani ended it. He put garbage out there for market forces – the corporate titans – to go after. He is known for pushing the mafia out of the garbage business. But he put us into another stranglehold, and prices soared.
Those were tough times.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: So Bloomberg has a new plan. Does that spread the burden more equally?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: It does. It's not perfect, but it takes us in the right direction. He recognizes, for instance, that northern Manhattan has a disproportionate amount of polluting facilities. We have the sewage treatment plant, the bus depots, the garbage marine transfer station. In the new plan, that garbage transfer station will remain closed. That will take a lot of polluting diesel trucks off our streets. I think the plan recognized that there were inequities in the way we handle our garbage, and tried to do something about them.
We can minimize the type of waste we produce, and make sure that electronic waste gets taken away. As we think about waste in the 21st century, we have to find new and innovative ways to reduce the amount of waste we are producing. We have to reduce the burden on neighborhoods that suffer disproportionately from asthma and other problems. 30 percent of kids in East Harlem are asthmatic.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: You also mentioned costs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but garbage costs a lot more because we closed Fresh Kills and now we have to pay another state to take it.
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: Well that was a Giuliani administration policy. We still have a system based on trucks. This is very complex, and we'll probably never get to the utopia that some of us would like.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: But does the Bloomberg plan get us closer?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: I think it does. It seeks to get us to the point where we are reopening garbage marine transfer stations, which will have us shipping garbage, which is more efficient and cost-effective way of shipping garbage by boat. The plan does this while addressing imbalances, and taking truck traffic off the road, which will help confront asthma.
JONATHAN MANDELL: Can you talk more about Fresh Kills? From a devil's advocate position, it seems to knock down your argument. It was the focus of our garbage policy for 40 years, and it's not a community of color. Were they suffering disproportionately from asthma? How does that reconcile with your arguments about environmental racism, even though that's not the phrase you used?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: When you think about the politics of how Fresh Kills got closed, there was a provision of relief for a community that was predominantly Caucasian, a community that had a lot of power under the Giuliani administration.
It certainly is an anomaly that Staten Island had to suffer for so long. But the environmental justice movement doesn't say that there is no burden on Caucasian communities; we're just trying to point out that there's a disparity, and our decision-making allows that to continue. Further, many of us agreed with the people at Fresh Kills and started working together on forming a comprehensive plan.
In another way, the way Fresh Kills was closed was consistent with our assertions, because the community was able to exert influence and close the landfill, even though the way it was closed was problematic from a big picture perspective.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: A lot of the action in the environmental justice movement involves either closing facilities down, or keeping facilities from opening. One of the things discussed in the book is the distinction between NIMBYism, and environmental justice. NIMBYism, which stands for not in my backyard, is generally used to describe community opposition to a facility with the hopes of pushing the burden onto someone else and has negative connotations.
It seems that someone who wanted to keep something out of their backyard, so to speak, could wrap themselves in the mantle of environmental justice. Does that happen, and how do you tell the difference?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: Well, you tell the difference by looking at what is going on in a geographic location. If a particular community is up in arms about a facility, and they don't have the health profile of, say, northern Manhattan, if that community doesn't have the number of facilities that the South Bronx has, then I would say that it's not a valid claim of environmental justice.
This happened on the Upper East Side with the solid waste management plan. Many people there banded together to fight Bloomberg because he wanted to reopen a transfer station on the East River at 90th Street. I would attend these hearings, and they would trot out a particular housing development, even though they didn’t live near the transfer station. They were invoking the term "environmental racism," and cloaking themselves in the term environmental justice. It's very clear to me that that's NIMBYism.
In northern Manhattan, opposition to new facilities is not about NIMBYism, it's about my backyard is full.
The use of land in a place like New York City is, for all intents and purposes, where it's at. As they say in the real estate world: location, location, location.
This is very contested terrain. The use of land in a place like New York City is, for all intents and purposes, where it's at. As they say in the real estate world: location, location, location. Some communities have the opportunities to play all cards, including some that shouldn't be in their hands.
GOTHAM GAZETTE: Sze mentions that Williamsburg has one of the city's highest concentrations of noxious developments. Well, Williamsburg is now one of the centerpieces of Bloomberg's plan to turn 'dead' waterfront areas into upper middle class housing developments. How might Williamsburg's fortunes change?
CECIL CORBIN-MARK: They're changing as we speak. The low-income communities are being gentrified out. The landscape is being changed. The Bloomberg administration has been in motion. It's going to take some time, but the administration has set in motion a particular set of forces that we have not come to terms with, as a city, state or nation. That is, how do we improve the physical built environmental of communities without displacing people?
New York City is constantly transforming and changing face. So in Williamsburg there is the movement out of certain noxious facilities.
This whole piece of how we plan for sustainable neighborhoods is missing. One of the things we do is create new zoning tracts and regulations, spurring certain types of development. But sustainable development isn't just about how we spur that economic development. It is also about the social sector and protecting the environment. I think that the Bloomberg administration has an effort afoot with its 2030 project, even if I'm not necessarily giving them As and Bs. It's still the economic sector that is driving the redevelopment, without a connected and interwoven concern for the environment and social sectors. If we know anything after episodes like 9/11 and Katrina, we know that everything is connected. So we have to figure out how to create more connected systems.
If we don't figure out how to deal with displacement of the people who have struggled to make communities out of places that were not even on the map, then we are doing them a constant disservice. We're just going to push people, and problems, somewhere else.
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It is common in Europe, as well as Cincinnati, Ohio and Manassas, Virginia. Cities from Austin to San Diego are about to launch the technology. But in New York City, there are only a few places where you can get Internet access from the same electrical outlet where you plug in your blender.
“Broadband over power lines” is what techies call it. It represents an intriguing juxtaposition of old and new technology. It is not only high-speed, but broadband over power lines may well be less expensive than DSL or cable Internet services.
But this widespread technology has not made any inroads in New York City. According to evidence presented at a recent hearing of the City Council’s Committee on Technology in Government, residents of several Trump buildings and a condominium building on the Upper West Side are the only people currently making use of this alternative for obtaining Internet access.
An initial reason for the lack of enthusiasm for broadband over power lines, which is especially applicable to densely populated cities, was a tendency for the Internet signals to interfere with other communications streams. This could have negative effects on amateur radio operators, as well as first responders. To alleviate these concerns, the Federal Communications Commission established a first set of regulations for broadband over power lines in 2004 and a revised set of regulations in August 2006 .
Although the technological concerns are legitimate, by now they have been addressed. The more enduring reason for the slow penetration of this technology, in New York and elsewhere, is that utility companies do not want to get into the business of providing Internet access. This was already apparent in 2004 and was still true after the Committee on Technology in Government hearing a few months ago.
Broadband over power lines holds great promise for consumers in rural areas, because phone and cable companies usually do not find it economical to provide high speed Internet access to these areas. But metropolitan areas like New York have no trouble attracting these companies. If utilities could also be enticed to enter this market as well, hopefully prices would become more competitive.
The continuing attention to broadband over power lines comes as city official prepare to convene the first ever meeting of a newly established Broadband Advisory Committee, which is charged by law to "review the ways and methods of using municipal resources to accelerate the build-out of current, emerging and any newly developed broadband technologies and other advanced telecommunications and information services, such as cable, digital subscriber line (DSL), broadband over power lines (BPL), any other wire-based methods, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and any other wireless technologies, within the city of New York."
Gotham Gazette reported almost two years ago that the state of broadband access in New York City (and most of the United States) represents a market failure, in which prices are markedly higher than in other countries. When markets fail, smart governments carefully intervene. Perhaps a little dose of big government will spur the entrepreneurial zeal necessary to make broadband Internet accessible to more New Yorkers.
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Buying a better refrigerator not only saves money; it helps save the world.
That could be the motto of a movement to make household appliances more energy-efficient. The governments of both New York State and New York City have been playing a prominent role in this push -- both by their purchasing power, and through litigation.
Virtually nobody disputes the wide impact of energy use…
• on national security, because of a reliance on foreign sources of oil
• on health, because of emissions from many energy sources
• on the economy, because high energy prices are a burden on families and businesses, and the reliability of electricity systems are integral to the economic health of entire regions.
For the environment as well, there is less and less argument that emissions from energy sources causes pollution and global warming.
Appliances in the typical American home account for about 20 percent of its energy use.
And refrigerators are the single appliance that uses the most energy in most households.
One way to reduce energy use is by making appliances more efficient. An efficient refrigerator is one, of course, that keeps the food cool using less electricity. The ways this can be achieved are through such technology as improved insulation, a more effective defrosting mechanism, which reduces frost build-up, and so forth.
The federal government has set a series of energy-efficiency standards for refrigerators and other appliances. If a product meets stricter, voluntary standards, the manufacturer can affix an Energy Star label on it.
But many believe the standards set by the federal government do not go far enough. The Department of Energy's recent proposal for home furnaces, for example, has been criticized as especially weak.
And the City of New York is at the forefront of pushing for higher standards.
"Appliance and equipment efficiency standards are one of the most critical means to save energy and to improve overall air quality and public health," says Michael Cardoza who, as the head of the New York City Corporation Counsel, is the city's top lawyer. "New York City residents and businesses pay some of the highest energy prices in the country, and the cost improvements of more efficient appliances will be a benefit to all New Yorkers."
The city government is the number one energy user in New York, consuming 10 percent of all city electricity. It is also a large purchaser of appliances. The city government makes a point of purchasing energy efficient products, creating an incentive for suppliers to produce them. City Hall passed what is considered a model law last year requiring that all energy-using products purchased by a municipal agency have the Energy Star label.
Since 2003, city officials have been supporting efforts to strengthen energy efficiency standards for appliances in New York State and across the nation as a whole.
In its most recent victory last month, the Bloomberg administration was one of 15 plaintiffs in a successful lawsuit spearheaded by the New York State's Attorney General against the federal Department of Energy to force it to update efficiency standards for appliances; in some cases, the department had not updated standards for up to 14 years. The new standards -- which cover appliances like air conditioners, dishwashers, clothes dryers, and ovens -- will all be developed within five years.
The energy savings from these higher standards, according to an estimate by the Natural Resource Defense Council, will equal that of 12 million households – enough, in other words, to supply the power of four New York Cities for an entire year.
Advocates argue that the states, rather than the federal government, have led the way to appliance standards. States may regulate energy efficiency standards for appliances not regulated by the Department of Energy, but, if a federal standard does exist and a state wishes to require a stricter standard, it must petition the Energy Department.
Absent regulations, products that exceed the required standards are being manufactured, but incentives to purchase them don't exist in certain circumstances. As an example, Katherine Kennedy, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, points to the "tenant/landlord divide".
"While tenants have to pay the high energy costs, they are not the ones who invest in energy saving appliances," she says. "The landlords do, and they have no incentive to reduce energy use because they don't pay the bills." Two-thirds of households in the city are rentals. And many renters do not actually own their major appliances.
New York State offers a loan assistance program that offers a reduced interest rate for investments in energy efficiency improvements like the purchase of new appliances with the Energy Star label. The program is available for households, landlords, and businesses.
The Appliance Standards Awareness Project recommends 15 appliances that states should set new standards for, such as hot tubs and walk-in freezers.
For those householders who are shopping for new appliances, the Natural Resources Defense Council offers a guide for what to look for when shopping. Simply by replacing old appliances, consumers can save over $100 a year with new refrigerators and with new clothes washers, depending on the age of the old appliance. Additional energy can be saved by purchasing appliances with the Energy Star label.
The Consortium for Energy Efficiency offers a list of appliances for the home that it has identified as super efficient -- from clothes washers to dishwashers.
The Rocky Mountain Institute, a research and consulting non profit, recommends further actions a household can take to improve the efficiency of their appliances. One can move the refrigerator away from heat sources, seal leaks and improve insulation to keep a home warm or cool, and plug computers and entertainment systems into a power strip that can be turned off (many electronics still consume energy when turned off).
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When Paul Stein pushed for thick windows and fancy air filters for his new office in lower Manhattan soon after 9/11, it was mainly because he was worried about lingering contaminants from the collapse of the Twin Towers.
But these measures have also wound up protecting him against a different kind of pollution -- pollution that Stein, who works on safety issues for his union, says his office at 90 Church Street is "surrounded by": pollution from construction. It is a problem that goes far beyond lower Manhattan.
From the proposed Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn to the water filtration plant in the northern Bronx, critics almost always complain not just about the project itself, but about the inconvenience, pollution, noise and dangerous accidents they will face during its construction.
The construction downtown is unique in that the contaminants from Ground Zero are still an issue. In late September, the Environmental Protection Agency finally approved a plan to demolish the Deutsche Bank Building adjacent to the site, after a long debate over how best to ensure that the asbestos and other dangerous chemicals in the building are not released into the air; the building will come down over the next year. Similar issues must be resolved for other buildings that are either known or suspected to be contaminated. The huge scale of the development downtown also ensures that there will be more pollution than in a project of conventional size.
But, in varying degrees, the same problems face construction sites throughout the city. And, increasingly, those involved are finding solutions in the movement being called green construction -- a nationwide effort to build in a way that is sensitive to the environment. Within the last several weeks both the City Council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have been bringing more focus to policies that will encourage the city to build greener.
The enthusiasm for green buildings among developers, public officials, and environmental activists is palpable. While the word generically refers to buildings that are environmentally friendly, it has also become shorthand for a set of standards put out by the United States Green Building Council called the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, system. LEED puts priority on using energy efficiency, employing innovative construction materials, and recycling.
The plans to make Ground Zero a model of environmentally friendly construction are ambitious. All of the buildings on the site of the World Trade Center will meet a high level of LEED Standards, say Governor George Pataki and Larry Silverstein, the developer in charge of much of the construction there. Before these green buildings can exist, though, they must be built. And construction is a dirty process.
While green building standards are primarily focused on the final product, there is also increasing interest in making construction itself less harmful to the environment.
This can be seen in lower Manhattan, where between 5,000 and 10,000 trucks are expected to travel each month for the next four years or so, participating in $10 billion worth of construction projects in and around Ground Zero. Each project will cause noise, pollution, and traffic. But various efforts are being made to minimize these problems, mirroring what some describe as a fundamental change in the construction industry.
Less Truck Traffic
Environmental advocates are discussing strategies to reduce the overall amount of truck traffic coming to lower Manhattan.
One calls for better coordination between construction projects. Common areas could be established where trucks would drop off concrete and materials for more than one project, instead of having each project arrange its own deliveries. Another plan would establish a radio dispatcher to coordinate trucks coming downtown.
The Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center – a government agency formed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki in November 2004 – would be in charge of this if it were to happen. The center says it is considering such plans, but a spokesma describes them as "just ideas" at this point. If such coordination works downtown it could serve as a model for other areas handling multiple development projects, says Tom Stabile, the editor of New York Construction News, a trade magazine.
But Michael Deane of Turner Construction says that such coordination will be difficult to replicate in other areas because it would require competitors to cooperate in unusual ways.
"It would have to be an altruistic thing," he said.
Buying Locally
A more likely way to reduce the environmental impact of trucks, Deane says, is for construction companies to make efforts to get their materials from nearby suppliers. While this doesn't necessarily reduce the impact on the area of construction itself, it can make the overall process much cleaner.
This is already happening for two major reasons. First, it makes economic sense, because carrying heavy materials long distances costs money. Second, the LEED rating system gives points to builders who use local materials.
Action by the city government is turning LEED incentives into requirements. The city's new green building law, which will take effect on January 1, requires city-run construction projects worth more than $2 million to comply with the LEED standards (projects over $12 million are also required to meet energy efficiency standards). About $12 billion in construction is likely to be affected over the next ten years, according to the City Council.
Adam Friedman of the New York Industrial Retention Network sees more than an opportunity for cleaner air. The New York Industrial Retention Network is working with the City Council to connect construction firms with manufacturers in the city that make so-called green products like low toxic carpeting, solar panels, and high efficiency light bulbs.
Recycling Construction Materials
Construction produces a greater percentage of the garbage that ends up in the country's landfills than any other activity. For every square foot of building space created, 2.5 pounds of waste are produced, says Randy Croxton, the architect in charge of the environmental guidelines for Ground Zero. By this calculation, the original Twin Towers created 12,500 tons of waste. "You're dealing with one of society's largest issues in terms of waste stream," said Croxton.
Market and government forces encourage recycling in much the same way that they encourage the use of local products, because LEED places a priority on doing so. Some states – such as Massachusetts and California – are also passing laws saying their landfills will soon no longer accept construction waste, creating more incentives to find ways to recycle it.
City officials here are also looking to get involved. Both the mayor's office and the City Council are looking to remain aggressive on their environmental policies. Councilmember James Gennaro has introduced a bill that would require the city to form a comprehensive sustainability plan, and the council's committee on environmental protection held hearings on it last week. The administration is backing the effort. Bloomberg recently set up an office of long-term planning and sustainability, which will develop a long-term development plan for the entire city and then "integrate sustainability goals and practices into every aspect of that plan."
Cleaner Diesel Fuel
Much of the attention on green construction is focused on the fuel needed to run the machinery and vehicles involved. Trucks, bulldozers, and backhoes all run on diesel fuel, which has been linked to asthma and other health problems. Fitting these vehicles with filters, and running them with fuel that has low levels of sulfur, can drastically reduce the amount of pollution they cause.
The Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center has established a set of environmental guidelines, which include limiting the amount of time a truck can stand with its motor running, and requiring on-site construction vehicles to use ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel.
"The largest fleet of retrofitted diesel construction machinery in the US is now in lower Manhattan. And it's really serving as a model for other places," said Andy Darrell of Environmental Defense, which advocates nationwide for the use of cleaner diesel fuel.
City Hall and Albany have also both passed legislation requiring both trucks and construction equipment to use such fuel while working downtown. But the laws currently only apply to construction vehicles working on the site – not the trucks that deliver materials.
Critics say this undermines the laws' stated intention of addressing the post 9/11 rebuilding process in lower Manhattan.
"The peak construction years are the next four years," said Julie Menin, chair of Community Board One. "We don't want to wait."
Developer Larry Silverstein, who suffers from asthma himself, is trying to step up during that time. The trucks he used to build Seven World Trade Center used ultra-low sulfur fuel. Silverstein announced in early September that trucks for his construction projects – which include all four towers planned for Ground Zero – would also use this fuel.
Praising the move, Community Board One recently passed a resolution calling on the public agencies and other private developers working downtown to make similar commitments. The construction command center signed its support onto the resolution.
The push for cleaner diesel fuel is taking place nationwide. Federal law has been passed that will soon require trucks to use low sulfur diesel fuel, and place even tighter restrictions on newly manufactured trucks. Like the city and the state, Washington's law will phase in over time, giving trucking companies time to adjust their fleets.
There are, however, barriers to getting such protections in place immediately. It may be tough to make sure that the trucks are actually using the fuel, according to Charles Maikish, the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center's executive director. Further, ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel may simply not be available yet in the quantities need. "I don't think we're going to see everyone switch all at once, because of a supply issue," said Maikish.
But increased demand is already beginning to change the diesel fuel market, say construction companies.
"When manufacturers and suppliers perceive a demand for products they'll create them," said Deane of Turner Construction.
Some workers and residents downtown do not see construction in and around Ground Zero as an opportunity to set a new environmental standard, however. Instead they worry about the potential to compound the environmental disaster of 9/11.
For the past five years, two buildings have sat within a block of Ground Zero, cloaked in black netting, filled with many of the same dangerous contaminants that sickened thousands of rescue workers and, critics say, unknown numbers of nearby residents and office workers.
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency approved a plan to decontaminate and dismantle one, the Deutsche Bank Building just south of the site. A large crane is perched on the building, prepared to start what the head of the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center describes as a yearlong "surgical deconstruction process". The approval process has been contentious, with critics questioning the quality – and criminality – of the firm contracted to clean the building, and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently expressing concern that the building might collapse.
Local activists say the public review of the Deutsche Bank demolition plan has improved it, although they are still unhappy about the lack of a plan to mobilize the community in case of an accident in which contaminants are released. They are also concerned that the destruction of the other building – Fiterman Hall, just north of Ground Zero –will not be subject to similar scrutiny. Further, it is unclear how many other buildings may still be contaminated, or whether future demolitions could lead to the spread of such contaminants.
For Stein, the man working at 90 Church, this atmosphere has led to a feeling of distrust that leaves him wary of the nearby construction. He worries about the cumulative effect of construction pollution, since many projects will likely be built simultaneously over the next five to six years. Even if it is green, so much construction is bound to be dirty.
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I don’t have asthma, but my sister Marta does, and so do at least 20 other people I know, most of whom take medication to control it. We all live in East Harlem, which has the highest rates of asthma in New York City – and the children in New York City were nearly twice as likely to have asthma in 2000 as kids in the United States as a whole, according to a report by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Asthma is actually the most common chronic disease of childhood throughout the United States, and is the country’s number one cause of school absences each year. But kids in New York City have an especially difficult time with the condition, which causes a person’s airways or windpipes to narrow, resulting in difficult breathing, including wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing. Over the last 20 years, the number of people in New York City diagnosed with asthma has increased and so has the severity of the illness, according to Dr. Beverley J. Sheares, associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Columbia University.
It is the kids living in low-income neighborhoods, like mine, that make the numbers so high. Hunts Point-Mott Haven and the High Bridge-Morrisania sections of the Bronx, East Harlem in Manhattan and Bedford Stuyvesant-Crown Heights in Brooklyn all have some of the most severe rates of asthma in the city. New York City children age 4 and younger who lived in low-income neighborhoods like these in the year 2000 were more than four times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than those in wealthier areas. In my neighborhood, East Harlem, 435 children age 14 and younger were hospitalized for asthma in one year. (My sister Marta once stayed in the hospital for a whole week because of her asthma). Compare that to the wealthy Upper East Side, where only 40 children in that age range got hospitalized, less than one-tenth of the number in the neighborhood right next door.
Experts are a bit uncertain why asthma is so prevalent in low income areas, but many attribute it to pollution. “Communities like East Harlem are burdened with polluting facilities, like a multi-storied diesel bus depot operated by the New York City Transit Authority, a sanitation truck depot, and a sewage treatment plant on Ward’s Island,” said Yolande Cadore, organizing director of the environmental justice group West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. ( WE ACT), in an email. “These communities bear the burden of high asthmas rates, lung and heart disease, obesity and diabetes.”
In the past five years, there has been some decrease in hospitalizations for asthma in New York. Dr. Sheares says this is at least partly due to groups that work in communities to keep asthma at bay. Harlem Children’s Zone Asthma Initiative is one of these groups. It has significantly reduced the need for emergency room visits for children with asthma involved in the program, and the program nearly eliminated their overnight hospital stays, the New York Times reported last year.
Harlem Children’s Zone focuses on working directly with children and their families. Its doctors and nurses visit the homes of children with asthma regularly, and lawyers help families deal with the housing problems common in low-income areas that are believed to contribute to asthma attacks, including mold, dust mites, and rodent infestation.
WE ACT takes a broader approach to alleviating asthma: They fight to keep pollution out of poor neighborhoods. Cadore says that city planners often build sewage treatment plants and bus depots in poor neighborhoods of color because they assume the community will not protest as much as a rich, white community might. Cadore said this is because historically minority communities have been less politically active, less likely to vote, and have had less money to sue.
Riverbank State Park, located in West Harlem between 137th and 145th Streets along the Hudson River, was built on top of the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant, which processes 170 million gallons of sewage each day. It handles the sewage of the entire western half of Manhattan and Riverdale in the northwest Bronx.
At one point, the plant was going to be built on 72nd Street. But developers saw the spot as a potential high-income area (it is where the Trump condos are now, so someone figured right), so the plant was built in Harlem.
The location was a bad choice for a sewage plant. Since it was up on a hill, the city had to spend additional money to install pumps to carry the sewage up from underground. When it opened in 1986, the putrid smell was overpowering. “The first summer it opened no one could open their windows or stand to breathe the air for extended periods of time,” said Cadore.
And the plant’s smoke stacks spewed diesel exhaust, which can trigger asthma attacks. Since West Harlem already suffered from high asthma rates, the plant was most likely harming those residents, said Cadore.
Peggy Shepard, who would eventually become the executive director of WE ACT, organized community residents to speak out. After they chained themselves across the street from the plant, the city installed proper odor and air pollution controls and built the park. Now locals can enjoy the park without the horrid smell that once came from the sewage plant.
As a means of fighting asthma, Cadore urges us to organize to protect our community against pollution. “It’s a right, not a privilege, to breathe clean air,” she said.
Additional reporting by Gamal Jones. Natalie Olivero, 17, and Gamal Jones, 20, are writers for New Youth Connections. Â
Though it will not take effect until next July, the city’s new noise code seems to have few champions. Passed last December, the first revision to the code in 30 years was Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to silence everything from dog barking to Mr. Softee trucks. But businesses, noise awareness groups and others find fault with the new law. They are especially doubtful it will be able to do much about the noise emitted by nightclubs, bars, and car alarms.
Meanwhile, both the noise in New York, and New Yorkers’ intolerance of it, seem to have increased. According to a poll of community leaders conducted by Baruch College's eTownPanel and released in July by the nonprofit Citizens for NYC, street noise is seen as the biggest infringement on the quality of life in New York City, rising from number three on last year's poll. And noise is the number one complaint phoned into the 311 hotline. In a recent month, there were 24,191 noise complaints, which was some 200 more than the same month two years earlier, which was around the time Bloomberg announced his anti-noise legislation.
By many measures, noise has become New Yorkers’ biggest concern.
In late 2002, the mayor announced a citywide quality of life program in conjunction with the New York Police Department called Operation Silent Night, which targeted 24 zones throughout the five boroughs that were plagued by “chronic and disruptive” noise. As of August 2005, almost three years after its inception, the program made an example of nearly 20,000 noise violators with both misdemeanor and felony arrests.
Yet it would be difficult to find anybody who says that the problem is improving.
“You can’t rely on the government to solve a problem of respect,” said Peter Kostmayer of Citizens for NYC. “People need to understand that this is a problem they have more individual control over.”
Kostmayer believes noise pollution is a concern that needs to be tackled at the personal and community level. To stimulate that interest, Citizens for NYC will soon be awarding grants to neighborhood groups with innovative approaches that help solve the problem without legislation or police activity.
Glenn McAnanama, however, of the community organization Upper Green Side has a different interpretation of why the problem persists, despite the laws and initiatives in place.
“The people responsible for the noise production do not live in the areas where they produce the noise,” McAnanama said. “There is little social pressure that the community can apply to perpetrators, especially those in automobiles.
“For instance, every Saturday morning, when the garbage truck comes to pick up the trash, it creates a back-up all the way down the block and frustrated drivers express that by honking their horns.”
McAnanama believes that’s where governmental policy and enforcement can have a great impact. If traffic agents temporarily closed blocks of traffic while the truck made its pick-ups or had the pick-up dates coincide with the alternate parking side days, there would not be any anger-inducing gridlock.
Despite their differences over the government’s role, both activists agree that car alarms are the most prevalent and intrusive of the noise pollutants.
In fact, one New York City-based group is working to ban car alarms all together, asserting that the audible anti-theft device is nothing but a neighborhood nuisance.
“The right way to stop alarm noise would be to ban noisy alarms, and the mayor hasn’t done this,” said Aaron Friedman, head of Silent Majority, referring to Bloomberg’s 2004 veto of council-approved legislation that would have banned the sale of certain kinds of audible car alarms. Bloomberg received flack at the time for holding on to the hope that car thieves are deterred by noisy alarms.
According to a 1997 analysis of insurance-claims data from 73 million vehicles, which was reprinted in a recent report by Transportation Alternatives, cars with alarms “show no overall reduction in theft losses,” when compared to cars without them or with silent alarms. The report, titled Alarmingly Useless, also figured the average New York City resident pays a car alarm “Noise Tax” of about $100 a year, based on lost productivity, decreased property value, diminished quality of life, and health costs.
Diseases exacerbated by noise include from cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal illnesses, and psychological problems, according to well-established research that goes back to former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry, who is better-known for issuing the first warnings from the US Surgeon General about tobacco.
A German study conducted last year found that a person does not have to be annoyed by noise to be damaged by it -- cardiovascular disease was more closely related to the level of the sound than with the reaction to it.
Currently, nightclubs can be cited if police officers simply determine “unreasonable noise.” But after discussions with the New York Nightlife Association, the City Council agreed to change the language of the new noise code and create a specific technical definition of “unreasonable noise.”
When the law takes effect next summer, officers will actually be using noise meters to measure sound levels 15 feet outside bars and clubs. If the establishment is 10 decibels or more above ambient sound in the daytime and seven decibels or more above ambient sound at night it will be issued a fine.
Despite the agreed-upon compromise, some owners feel they are being forced into a catch-22 situation by another quality of life measure, the smoking ban.
Bars and nightclubs face the loss of their operating license if state inspectors catch patrons lighting up inside, so they must force smokers onto the street. But this creates tension with neighborhood residents, who continually call the 311 hotline and complain about the late night noise from the smokers below their windows.
Robert Bookman, a lawyer for the New York Nightlife Association, said the law only addresses sound systems, not people. He described a scenario where a noisy outdoor restaurant can get by without a violation, but the bar next door is liable.
The New York Nightlife Association offered to pay off-duty police officers to patrol the streets and help keep the peace by preventing quality of life violations. So far the New York Police Department has refused the offer and the City Council has blocked a proposal supporting the effort.
“Everyone is entitled to peace and quiet,” Peter Kostmayer said. “The question is whether it’s unnecessary. We live in a big city where a certain amount of noise is inevitable. But there are many more residential neighborhoods in Queens and Staten Island, where noise is not even an issue.”
Aaron Friedman of Silent Majority, however, said that notion reminds him of what someone living in New York a hundred years ago might have heard: “It’s like saying people need to realize that they are living in one of the biggest cities in the world, and that there are going to be a lot of tenement fires and cholera epidemics.”
And Glenn McAnanama of Upper Green Side said certain rights are being trampled when noise pollution is regarded as a necessary evil.
“People have a right to shape how the world around them is used,” he said. “If they want fewer cars coming into their area, they have a right to demand that people be encouraged and given the right incentives to take mass transit instead. If people want a dedicated lane that emergency vehicles can use to prevent blaring sirens, then they have a right to ask their public officials to do that.”
Several supplements to the noise code are already in the works. Councilmember Alan Gerson of lower Manhattan introduced five new bills, dealing with noise levels from circulation devices, portable generators, motorcycles with straight pipes, and construction work. He also plans to take up the issue of patio and courtyard restaurants.
The volume may be rising, but many believe that New York does not have to be the subject of so much auditory pollution. “It is completely within our control,” McAnanama said, “to reduce noise.”
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At each of the City Council's stated meetings, council members introduce bills, most of which will never become laws (for the process by which bills become laws, click here). As a regular feature, Gotham Gazette discusses some of the legislation proposed at each meeting.
The New York City Council introduced 15 bills at its most recent meeting on August 16, 2006, many of which focused on energy conservation or noise.
Due in part to the controversy over the Astoria blackout earlier in July, three bills have been introduced to strengthen the city's attempts to conserve energy.
Councilmember James Gennaro from Queens introduced two bills that would require the mayor 's office to be more proactive on energy conservation.
Intro 410 would require the mayor to create a contingency plan to respond to high levels of energy uses. Modeled on the city's drought contingency plan, the bill would require the mayor to design a graduated response to various levels of energy usage.
Intro 411 would make the mayor responsible for creating an energy policy that the public is aware of. Under this bill, mayoral programs would encourage energy conservation and alternative modes of transportation. As an example, Gennaro's office suggested encouraging buildings that use a lot of power to install solar panels to create their own energy, rather than relying on power plants alone.
Councilmember Miguel Martinez, representing Washington Heights and Inwood, wants to encourage buildings to use more efficient cooling systems. Many buildings use relatively small coolers, instead of larger "chillers", which cool water and circulate it throughout the building, even though chillers are one and a half times as efficient as the smaller devices. The reason is that chillers require "personal supervision," meaning a full-time employee must be physically present at all times.
Martinez argues that this standard is outdated. Intro 418 would subject all new chillers to general supervision only, making their supervision no more expensive than the smaller, less efficient system.
Councilmember Alan Gerson of lower Manhattan has introduced several bills to supplement the city's noise code.
Intro 414 would require that agencies that issue permits for construction work on nights and weekends to submit a noise mitigation plan to the local community board and city council member.
Intro 415 would set caps on the levels of noise that construction work can make within one hundred feet of a school or court on days they are in session, or within one hundred feet of a hospital, even if a noise mitigation plan is in place. Intros 412 and 413 would cap the allowable levels of noise from circulation devices and portable generators, respectively.
Intro 416 would prohibit motorcycles with straight pipes from parking on the street. Motorcycles with straight pipes, which are illegal, do not have mufflers. The police department, and the departments of consumer affairs, environmental protection and transportation would have the power to enforce the ban.
"These are quality of life issues that we didn't feel were specifically enough addressed in the noise code," said Paul Pastor, Gerson's legislative director. "Unless you spell things out very often they don't get enforced."
He said that Gerson plans to introduce another bill further restricting noise from patio and courtyard restaurants in the council's next session on September 13.
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At a recent forum, Freddie Hamilton, a candidate for State Assembly in central Brooklyn, told the audience packed into an unventilated church basement, that she would not be answering any questions about the Atlantic Yards proposal. The disappointed crowd responded with boos.
The exchange illustrated how devisive the Atlantic Yards issue has become in the race for the Assembly seat being vacated by Roger Green, who is running for Congress.
The three Democrats. Freddie Hamilton, William Batson, and Hakeem Jeffries, all have different views on the controversial proposal for the district. The one Republican candidate, Henry Weinstein was unreachable for comment.
Atlantic Yards
The Frank Gehry design for Atlantic Yards calls for building 16 high-rise structures for offices and apartments as well as an arena for the Brooklyn Nets professional basketball team in downtown Brooklyn.
Freddie Hamilton, a staunch supporter of the project, was a signatory of a community benefits agreement between six community based organizations and the developer of the project, Forest City Ratner Companies. Hamilton believes that the project 'will ultimately provide the best outcomes for the district.'
William Batson, former aide to State Senator David Patterson, is an outspoken opponent of the 6.5-acre real estate development. 'This project has everything that's wrong with overdevelopment in it' .It's a three-card monte proposal that changes every time you look down' said Batson.
Hakeem Jeffries, a litigator for the CBS Corporation and third time candidate, refuses to denounce the $4.2 billion project, but criticizes the plan in its current form. 'The proposed project is too dense and would dramatically change the character of the tree-lined residential neighborhood that it borders,' he said.
Affordable Housing
All the candidates agree that the district needs more affordable housing. However, they differ over whether Atlantic Yards will help provide that.
New York State Assembly- District 57: ' William Batson ' Freddie Hamilton ' Hakeem Jeffries Other Races • New York State Assembly- District 21: Ethnic Politics in Changing Flushing
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Freddie Hamilton believes that it will. According to her, plans for the development include over 200 units for residents with annual incomes as low as $19,00 .
William Batson, who has worked with local residents to protest the pending development, calls Forest City Ratner's promise of new affordable housing a 'fraud.' 'We need real government action to address our housing crises, not the dubious promises of private developers,' said Batson during a recent speech.
If elected, Hakeem Jeffries hopes to address the housing situation by repealing the Urstadt law, which places the power to control rents in the hands of the state legislature rather than city government.
'Working families and senior citizens on fixed incomes are being pushed out of the only neighborhoods they've ever called home,' said Jeffries, who was born and raised in central Brooklyn and provides free legal advice to residents who are facing displacement.
Arson
The housing problem has been made worse by a rash of over 18 arsons in the past 14 months. Most of these crimes have not been solved. Many of the areas they affected are low-income neighborhoods where many residents do not have insurance. Along with losing a place to live; those lucky enough to survive the fires lose everything they own as well.
William Batson is focusing much of his campaign efforts on addressing the arson problem. Co-chair of the Fire Safety Committee on Community Board 8, Batson has been very vocal about his opposition to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's cuts in the number of fire marshals throughout the city, reducing the force by 25 percent in 2003. If elected, Batson has promised to work with city officials to improve response time for emergency services by ensuring all residents are never more than three minutes from a fire station.
Hakeem Jeffries wants to add more fire marshals to the district as well as establish arson prevention units to understand the cause of the problem better.
Schools and Youth Services
Freddie Hamilton has adopted the strengthening of childcare programs 'which she refers to as safety net services- as the defining issue of her campaign.
Freddie Hamilton, who believes the city should 'rethink' letting the mayor control the public school system, says that she will work to improve the training that teachers receive and to reduce class sizes.
Hakeem Jeffries, a father of two young boys, echoes similar concerns about the condition of Brooklyn public schools.
'Public schools are still failing some of our children; overcrowded classrooms, insufficient books,' said Jeffries ' We are at risk of dooming hundreds if not thousands of our young people to lives of disadvantage and despair.'
Candidate DebatesCitizens Union will present several Democratic candidate debates before the September 12 primary. Assembly District 74 Assembly District 13 Senate District 13 The two Queens debates are presented in partnership with Queens Civic Congress and cosponsored by: North East Jewish Community Council, NAACP-Corona East Elmhurst, Mid Queens Community Council, Queens Chronicle; NAACP-North-East Branch, and Flushing Jewish Community Council. For more information, go to Citizens Union. |
If elected, Jeffries says he will fight for the hundreds of millions of dollars that New York City public schools are supposed to receive through the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit on school funding.
William Batson, co-founder of the youth outreach group American Civil Rights Education Service, believes that one of the keys to improving the quality of education in the district is to expose the youth to Brooklyn's cultural landmarks and rich history.
Brooklyn Democratic Party
From Assemblyman Roger Green's guilty plea for petty larceny to former Brooklyn Democratic Party Leader Clarence Norman's felony corruption convictions, the Brooklyn political establishment has been under attack.
Despite that, though, incumbents usually win, and critics say one reason is that legislative districts are drawn to protect them.
Hakeem Jeffries knows this all too well. After he won 40 percent of the vote in his 2000 bid to unseat incumbent Roger Green, Jeffries home was drawn out of the district.
'I went to bed in the 57th and woke up somewhere else' said Jeffries. Now Jeffries supports the redistricting reform bill introduced by State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris. 'Democratic elections,' he said, 'are meant to protect the people not political positions.'
William Batson points to cronyism as a major problem preventing reform. Batson thinks that, under current redistricting laws, legislators are not encouraged to act in the best interests of their constituents. And he says the current system results in a lack of representation for some areas and over-representation for others. 'There are districts upstate that have multiple seats because they count the nearby prison population of convicted felons, who cannot vote as residents,' said Batson. 'Meanwhile we have Hempstead, Long Island, with a growing minority population that has been fighting for a seat for decades.'
Freddie Hamilton agrees that the current system needs reform and promises that she will work for a more impartial system. 'Redistricting should be done by a neutral party'. It has not worked when elected officials draw their own district,' said Hamilton.
Campaign Support
So far, Assemblymember Roger Green has not endorsed any of the candidates vying to replace him. But each Assembly hopeful has garnered support from various local organizations.
William Batson has recently secured the endorsement of the Sierra Club, a grassroots environmental organization, and City Councilmember Bill de Blasio. Batson has also received $35,491 of campaign contributions.
According to Freddie Hamilton, her campaign is being supported by several child advocacy groups, including Black Administrators for Child Welfare. As of the July filing deadline, Hamilton's financial contributions from her supporters total $22760.04.
Hakeem Jeffries has the endorsements of the Working Families Party, the Progressive Association for Political Action, the Lambda Association for Independent Democrats, the Communication Workers of America- District 1, and SEIU 32BJ. Jeffries has received financial contributions totaling $77,610.00.