Policy, Advocacy, and Research
Green Equity
The South Bronx hosts numerous polluting facilities that are point sources for pollution that damages community health and worsens climate change. The South Bronx also has very high unemployment and poverty rates. Forty-five percent of residents live at or below the national poverty line. Only 40% of adults have a high school diploma, and the unemployment rate (24%) is New York City's highest. In order to reverse these trends, Sustainable South Bronx advocates for community-based economic development and land use planning that improves public health and the environment. Our advocacy is grounded in community planning, environmental science, public health research, and cost-benefit analysis. SSBx brings a unique perspective to equity advocacy because we use our experience in job training, project implementation, and business development to inform our policy work.
Solid Waste
The Solid Waste program at SSBx aims to address the problems associated with the unjust clustering of polluting facilities that receive waste in all its forms, including rotting garbage, construction and demolition debris, fill material, waste water, and sewage sludge. SSBx tackles these problems through a combination of advocacy activities aimed at winning increased community accountability for polluters, more protective government policies, and implementing environmentally sound and community friendly alternatives to current practices.
Truck-based transfer stations and garbage equity
The South Bronx handles approximately 47% of New York City's putrescible waste and 30% of its construction and demolition waste. Hunts Point itself has 15 open air waste transfer stations located within a one-mile radius. As part of the Organization of Waterfront Neighborhoods (OWN), a coalition representing the neighborhoods overburdened by the City’s solid waste management practices, SSBx forcefully advocates to re-distribute NYC's garbage equitably throughout all parts of NYC, and to make garbage export less noxious, by eliminating long haul diesel trucks and replacing them with barge and rail export options. Through OWN’s efforts, the City’s new long term Solid Waste Management Plan was passed. The Plan is celebrated as a great step toward the equitable handling of waste in the City; however its legacy has yet to be determined. Our advocacy continues to ensure all goals of the plan are achieved:
As new handling capacity comes on line via the marine transfer stations, we see an equal reduction in the land based transfer stations of over burdened communities
Unused handling capacity in overburdened communities is eliminated.
Local legislation is enacted to protect any community board from having to bear a disproportionately high percentage of waste transfer stations in future
SSBx also works to get the best protections available for stations located in the South Bronx, and to establish benefit projects that serve to mitigate negative environmental impacts.
Zero Waste Campaign
If city-wide garbage equity is important for shorter-term reduction of impacts from waste, the mid-term elimination of the root cause is Zero Waste. If New York City plans and invests appropriately, by 2025 it could have virtually no waste in need of export and it could create jobs and save money in the process. SSBx was also a part of a city-wide coalition that helped to create the report Reaching for Zero: A Citizen's Guide for Zero Waste http://www.consumersunion.org/other/zero-waste/
One example:
SSBx, in partnership with Green Worker Cooperatives, Pratt Instituted Center for Community and Environmental Development, Sustainable Enterprise, and the Hugo Neu Corporation, jointly conceptualized a center for recycling; recycling-based manufacturing; and reuse industries, as an eco-industrial job creator in Hunts Point. The Bronx Eco-Industrial Park, essentially a collection of businesses in which the waste and by-products of one business would be the raw material for another one, would reduce the generation and export of waste from The Bronx, assist in shutting down existing truck-based construction & demolition waste transfer stations in the South Bronx and provide 200-300 quality jobs to South Bronx residents.
New York Organic Fertilizer Company (NYOFCo)
NYOFCo is a private facility that processes New York City's sewage sludge into fertilizer pellets used in agricultural land application, a process not approved by the State of New York. NYOFCo has the sole contract to handle the “waste” product of New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s waste water treatment process, which after the enactment of the Federal Clean Water Act could no longer be dumped into our water bodies. SSBx works to hold NYOFCo accountable for the offensive odors it emits into the community over a 2-mile radius and to secure protections to limit the release of toxic chemicals and pathogens that its stacks emit.
Hunts Point's Waste Water Treatment Plant aka Water Pollution Control Plant Occupying 39 acres along Hunts Point's waterfront, the sewage treatment plant is undergoing an expansion by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. SSBx, through its participation in the Hunts Point Monitoring Committee, is helping to monitor the expansion as well as the overall operation of the plant. SSBx ensures community priorities are met by advocating for changes in operating procedures and odor mitigations that take into account the impact of the current facility as well as acknowledge the irreplaceable resources taken by the expansion.
Energy
Power Plants and Alternatives
The South Bronx is a constant target for the sitting of new, polluting power generation facilities. In 2001, the New York Power Authority fast-tracked two 79.9 mw power plants into the Port Morris community which began violating their permits shortly after beginning operations. SSBx was an active opponent to these power plants and through our participation in Communities United for Responsible Energy (CURE) has won city-wide and local mitigations from NYPA.
In the recent past there was a proposal to build a 1075 megawatt plant at the Oak Point site in Hunts Point. SSBx helped to develop an alternative vision for the site (see Bronx Eco-Industrial Park above). In addition, SSBx advocates for alternatives to conventional power generation with projects aimed at energy conservation and efficiency to reduce the need for new energy generation. SSBx, along with other community based organizations, maintains an active role in Governor Paterson’s 15% reduction in forecasted energy use by 2015 initiative. This collaborative effort has identified peak power generators located in Environmental Justice communities as targets for replacement with energy efficiency measures. By working to make NYC homes and office buildings more energy efficient we can decrease our electricity demand and take the dirtiest energy generators off line.
For more information, contact Jaime Stein, Environmental Policy Analyst, jstein@ssbx.org
Storm Water Background
Every year, over 27 billion gallons of combined storm water and waste water flow into our City’s waterways. In the South Bronx, community groups including SSBx have re-claimed the waterfront through the creation of parks and greenways such as the South Bronx Greenway. These waterfront access points are used for boating, fishing, and swimming. Regardless of the unhealthy waters -- they are not safe enough for “primary” recreation of swimming and substance fishing – local residents swim and subsistence fish in the waterways. Researchershave concluded that “green” vegetated solutions such as greenroofs and street trees can be more cost-effective than end-of-the-pipe infrastructure, such as concrete tanks, that store the water temporarily underground. This vegetated infrastructure also can create many jobs for installation and maintenance.
Action
In 2006, SSBx co-founded the Storm Water Infrastructure Matters campaign, dedicated to ensuring swimmable waters around New York City through natural, sustainable storm water management practices in our neighborhoods. SSBx is a steering committee member of the SWIM campaign.* Our advocacy with SWIM has led to the passage of a LL5, which requires the City to create a Sustainable Stormwater Management Plan in order to streamline the implementation of cost-effective green infrastructure, and to implement natural solutions where the need is greatest. LL5 requires that the City SSBx also submitted comments re: the bill encouraging the development of community-based economic development that would build off of existing community organizations to keep green jobs in NYC.
We also advocated for the passage of a green roof tax abatement with the SWIM campaign, resulting in a $4.50/square foot tax abatement for green roofs in New York City.
Air Quality
The many polluting facilities and traffic that exist throughout the South Bronx contribute to over 1 in 4 children in the South Bronx having asthma. SSBx addresses air quality problems through working to increase the stringency of future permitting as well as enforcement of existing permits, such as the New York Organic Fertilizer Company. Moreover, projects such as Greening for Breathing, BEST, and BEST for Buildings are designed to empowering low income residents to improve environmental quality.
Health Impact Assessment
Sustainable South Bronx is concerned over the ability to incorporate health into environmental planning and review processes. While we have avidly opposed projects with negative health consequences since our inception, we are seeking new and innovative ways to more effectively encourage the holistic incorporation of health into urban planning. For this reason, we are working with interns from the Columbia Earth Institute to research the potential for health impact assessments to function as a useful tool for impacting the development processes, including the Environmental Impact Statement, permitting, and large-scale planning.
We thank the Health Impact Partners for their support of this research.
