Pollution burdens nearly half of New York and communities of color most harmed – report

Nearly half of all New Yorkers live in areas with “disproportionate” burdens from pollution, a city report has found. Most affected are communities of color, which are also more vulnerable to impacts from climate change, according to a citywide assessment released on Friday.

“We’ve had the orange sky last year, we’re going to have more recurrent extreme weather events that are going to impact the most vulnerable in our communities,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UpRose, an environmental justice group based in Brooklyn.

The report, published by the mayor’s office of environmental justice, is the city’s first comprehensive survey of environmental inequalities.

It noted that Black New Yorkers are twice as likely to die from heat stress as white New Yorkers and found that the predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods of Harlem and the South Bronx are among the most affected by high-heat days, with the latter registering temperatures 8F (4.5C) hotter than the wealthier and tree-covered areas of the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side. Areas most vulnerable to stormwater flooding include majority Black and Hispanic communities in south-east and central Queens, as well as the south-east Bronx.

Researchers attributed many of the disparities to racially discriminatory real estate practices, or redlining. Around two-thirds of people who live in historically redlined areas – a population that is disproportionately Black and Hispanic or Latino – live in zones the city identifies as environmental justice (EJ) areas. These areas were identified based on the state’s disadvantaged communities (DAC) criteria, which uses race and income data.

“Understanding what was placed in communities over time, and how do we rectify those injustices, that’s what we’re trying to identify with this [report]”, said Costa Constantinides, a member of the environmental justice advisory board involved in the report and a former city councilmember from Queens.

The assessment found that highways, industrial power plants and waste-processing facilities are disproportionately concentrated near communities of color. As of 2021, 13 of the city’s 19 gas-powered “peaker” plant facilities were located in an EJ area, including the South Bronx, Astoria, Queens and Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, EJ communities are less likely to access parks and a quarter of New Yorkers living in poverty struggle to afford public transit fares.

“It [the report] ensures that environmental justice is on the city’s agenda,” said Peggy Shepard, executive director of We Act for Environmental Justice and who was involved in the report. “The next stage is developing a comprehensive, city-wide plan to address the environmental justice issues identified in the report, and engaging with those most impacted to develop effective and equitable solutions.”