“This Is Slow Murder”: I love my city. I love my neighborhood. It may be killing me.

[hauntedheadnc]

“This Is Slow Murder”: I love my city. I love my neighborhood. It may be killing me.
By Aymann Ismail for slate.com

I always thought it was a little cruel to call New Jersey the Garden State. We’re famous for our pollution. The state has more Superfund sites than another other, 114, and I grew up near four of them in Newark, a particular nexus for toxic filth. The tap water is often poisonous. Our industrial zone has several waste management and processing plants. Soon, just under 2 miles from my front door here, another plant may rise, where “biosolids”—or treated waste, aka poop—would be funneled in, heated to 1,500 degrees, and sold as concrete thickener. What the plant, from Aries Clean Technologies, will leave behind in our neighborhood is now the subject of fierce debate.

I live in the Ironbound, the neighborhood where the plant is expected to be built. We are already sandwiched between a handful of different polluters. Covanta Essex, a trash-to-energy incinerator, sits on the north side. We’ve got Newark Liberty International Airport to the south. We’ve got the Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal to the east, which is serviced by dozens of diesel trucks a day, and then we have the cars spewing fumes as they sit in traffic on U.S. Route 1-9, Interstate 78, and the New Jersey Turnpike, which converge in our area. Exposure to the pollution here, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, has been “linked to increased rates of asthma, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and neurological problems in children.”

Cynthia Mellon, chair of Newark’s Environmental Commission, told me environmental justice advocates have been calling to recognize that communities of color here have been heavily overburdened by pollution in the city since the ’80s: “For us, the key word is cumulative impact. Because when you have so many kinds of pollution gathered together in one place, it creates a very overburdened, toxic, and dangerous situation.”

[jtown,man]

Environmental "justice" folks are usually full of shit. In most American cities the difference in air quality, for example, between once section of town to the other is negligible. Also, if you compare it to China or India, our WORST areas are like pure wilderness-type air.

Anyways, we had this dude came to speak in one of my classes talking about environmental racism in Little Village in Chicago. He was talking about all the trucking etc. that take place in the mostly Hispanic neighborhood...he never mentioned that those areas were zoned industrial before one single Hispanic person moved in, when it was like 99% white.

But why let facts get in the way of blaming racism for every single thing on Earth?

^ i mean, your one anecdote doesn't contest that highways were largely built through poor and black neighborhoods, nor that up until the 80s those communities suffered disproportionately from lead poisoning due to leaded fuel, nor that they still bear the worst of the air and noise pollution. there are plenty of studies demonstrating the adverse effects to health—particularly in children. some (most?) of it actually is racism. and classism. and addiction to consumerism. not sure why it's such a surprise that our plutocracy relegates poor people and minorities to less healthy, less desirable areas.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Environmental "justice" folks are usually full of shit. In most American cities the difference in air quality, for example, between once section of town to the other is negligible. Also, if you compare it to China or India, our WORST areas are like pure wilderness-type air.

Anyways, we had this dude came to speak in one of my classes talking about environmental racism in Little Village in Chicago. He was talking about all the trucking etc. that take place in the mostly Hispanic neighborhood...he never mentioned that those areas were zoned industrial before one single Hispanic person moved in, when it was like 99% white.

But why let facts get in the way of blaming racism for every single thing on Earth?

Yup. It’s utter nonsense.

I’d love to have these people spend one week in Delhi, India or Lahore, Pakistan to see what really shitty air feels like.

I have.

Most of these people doing the complaining aren’t very open minded people. They haven’t really experienced much of the world. Protest in search of a cause. Wanna support some real pain? Go help out and support the Palestinians. Now that is REAL suffering.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by IWant2BeInSTL

^ i mean, your one anecdote doesn't contest that highways were largely built through poor and black neighborhoods, nor that up until the 80s those communities suffered disproportionately from lead poisoning due to leaded fuel, nor that they still bear the worst of the air and noise pollution. there are plenty of studies demonstrating the adverse effects to health—particularly in children. some (most?) of it actually is racism. and classism. and addiction to consumerism. not sure why it's such a surprise that our plutocracy relegates poor people and minorities to less healthy, less desirable areas.

Well, Chicago’s Dan Ryan expressway cut through the south side and back then (and to some degree still today) one side was a black neighborhood and on one side was a white neighborhood. So they both had to breathe highway fumes.

The Kennedy on the north side cut through mostly white neighborhoods. They have to breathe fumes. O’Hare expansion required eminent domain taking white people’s homes, and mostly white communities around them are still dealing with the noise effects of being near a huge airport.

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Environmental "justice" folks are usually full of shit. In most American cities the difference in air quality, for example, between once section of town to the other is negligible. Also, if you compare it to China or India, our WORST areas are like pure wilderness-type air.

Anyways, we had this dude came to speak in one of my classes talking about environmental racism in Little Village in Chicago. He was talking about all the trucking etc. that take place in the mostly Hispanic neighborhood...he never mentioned that those areas were zoned industrial before one single Hispanic person moved in, when it was like 99% white.

But why let facts get in the way of blaming racism for every single thing on Earth?

you couldn't pay me to live next to a refinery, and the proof is in the rates of cancer of communities nearby. same goes for highways - the particulates from tire wear are arguably worse than what comes out of the tailpipe. i recently watched something about a technology that attempts to capture these particles as they wear away, but my biggest takeaway was the volume of particles from just one bus after one day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVb8_M-0Nlw


what does india or china have to do with anything? yeah it's horrendous in some cities but that doesn't mean it isn't still pretty bad in some areas in the US.

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Yup. It’s utter nonsense.

I’d love to have these people spend one week in Delhi, India or Lahore, Pakistan to see what really shitty air feels like.

I have.

Most of these people doing the complaining aren’t very open minded people. They haven’t really experienced much of the world. Protest in search of a cause. Wanna support some real pain? Go help out and support the Palestinians. Now that is REAL suffering.

I think you should start a petition to move General Iron or another chronic polluter to your neighborhood.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Environmental "justice" folks are usually full of shit. In most American cities the difference in air quality, for example, between once section of town to the other is negligible. Also, if you compare it to China or India, our WORST areas are like pure wilderness-type air.

Anyways, we had this dude came to speak in one of my classes talking about environmental racism in Little Village in Chicago. He was talking about all the trucking etc. that take place in the mostly Hispanic neighborhood...he never mentioned that those areas were zoned industrial before one single Hispanic person moved in, when it was like 99% white.

But why let facts get in the way of blaming racism for every single thing on Earth?

You're not wrong, but you're glossing over a major piece of the story. That being that European immigrants and their children were able to springboard to greener pastures whereas the largely Hispanic residents today have not been provided the same opportunity to do so. There are a myriad of reasons for that.

The factors that led to heavy polluters in that part of town wasn't inherently racist. Classism and bigotry play a role, since those living there would have been considered "less than" at the time, but the industry has to go somewhere. However. it does becomes systemically racist when population living there become "trapped" in these less than desirable living conditions which have lifelong impacts on their health and wellbeing.

I don't blame the guy for calling attention to that. We should absolutely continue to improve the living conditions for everyone in the city rather than trying to minimize people's struggles because someone else has it worse. A rising tide lifts all boats.

[llamaorama]

Clean air and water are rights, not a privilege. The lack of concern and the way our legal norms regarding things like nuisances work and the weakness of the EPA speaks to a kind of classism where it's okay if poor people are exposed to things that harm them because they don't matter or deserve it.

but the industry has to go somewhere.

It can go a lot of places. Ever seen a MODERN chemical plant or steel mill, like in the South? These tend to be located on huge tracts of land in rural areas adjacent to highways and railroads. And they've been designed from the ground up with pollution control in mind, though I don't know how on top of that your typical Alabama or Texas government official is.

Dying brick-and-smokestack industrial zones in New Jersey or elsewhere in the rust belt are obsolete and don't need to come back, they need to be torn down and the land remediated.

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Environmental "justice" folks are usually full of shit. In most American cities the difference in air quality, for example, between once section of town to the other is negligible. Also, if you compare it to China or India, our WORST areas are like pure wilderness-type air.

I have always found the, "But hey look over there, it's so much worse!" stance to be an odd one. 1) why stay on a path that would get us to that point? 2) isn't any bad still too much?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I’d love to have these people spend one week in Delhi, India or Lahore, Pakistan to see what really shitty air feels like.

The US is not a poor/ developing country with nearly non-existent environmental standards so it's apples to oranges. Because Bakersfield is 'cleaner' than Delhi doesn't make Bakersfield's situation any less serious. Here in Houston, plants and refineries blow up pretty regularly spewing all kinds of shit into the air.

[dubu]

Originally Posted by JManc

The US is not a poor/ developing country with nearly non-existent environmental standards so it's apples to oranges. Because Bakersfield is 'cleaner' than Delhi doesn't make Bakersfield's situation any less serious. Here in Houston, plants and refineries blow up pretty regularly spewing all kinds of shit into the air.

yet, costal cities get ruined by pollution and ocean salt in the air. florida has the whole state covered in the mist. thats the worst area because the fast north wind and all the ocean and mist. the pollution is bad too, not a good combination for cities.

[Eightball]

nvrmind

[bobdreamz]

Anybody who has ever travelled through northeastern New Jersey on I-95 near Newark will smell all of the pollution caused by chemical plants. They should just give out Gas masks to anyone travelling through there.