Category Archives: Media Coverage
Asthma Alley – Documentary
In ASTHMA ALLEY, Cynthia Ruales finds hope in music when climate change, air pollution and worsening pollen seasons intertwine in ways that make it hard for her to breathe. Cynthia lives with her mother in an area of the South Bronx known as “asthma alley” where the rate of this chronic disease is 8 to 12 times higher than the national average. While Cynthia fears the drug and gang violence that define her neighborhood, she worries even more about the daily assault on her body caused by the highways, truck thoroughfares, and open-air industrial facilities that surround her. Although she discovers that she can increase her lung capacity by playing the saxophone and clarinet, she continues to suffer life-threatening asthma attacks. Her story sheds light on the complex relationship between fossil fuel combustion, climate change, more potent pollen seasons, and increased emergency room visits. Cynthia performs in a much-anticipated concert organized by community activists to raise awareness about record-high asthma rates in the South Bronx. The widespread distribution of this film is essential to amplify the voices of the environmental justice advocates who are behind the event featured in the film’s finale, and to respond to the fact that environmental harms are distributed along familiar lines of race and poverty.
The People’s Environmental Impact Statement
South Bronx Unite (together with several local businesses and community members) has partnered with Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health on an 18-month collaborative research project measuring air quality, traffic and noise in the Mott Haven-Port Morris area before and after FreshDirect adds its additional 1,000 diesel truck trips through the community every day. This study is unprecedented and critical to demonstrate the need to address the health crises in the South Bronx and enact mitigation measures to change health outcomes.
‘My Community Breathes Different Air’ – Video
Fresh Direct Bronx dilemma: Health or jobs? -Al Jazeera Americas
Environmental racism: Bronx activists decry Fresh Direct’s impact
2013 At-a-Glance
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Cancer hitch-hikes on South Bronx highways (Mott Haven Herald)
“Air pollution in the South Bronx may be more dangerous than previously believed. For more than a decade residents, politicians and advocates have pressed to curb air pollution in the region with a focus on the epidemic of asthma and other chronic pulmonary conditions. Now the International Agency on Cancer Research, a branch of the World Health Organization, is warning that outdoor air pollution causes cancer.” See full reporting from the Mott Haven Herald here.
National Resources Defense Council Asks “Will Fairness Prevail in the South Bronx?”
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) submitted an amicus brief in support of the South Bronx Unite lawsuit to block FreshDirect from relocating its trucking operation to a South Bronx neighborhood with asthma rates eight times the national average. Last week, NRDC posted the below excerpt on its blog – available in full here.
NRDC: “Will Fairness Prevail in the South Bronx?”
“This week, a South Bronx community might have a rare chance at environmental justice.
In 2012, the city approved a proposal to relocate online grocer Fresh Direct’s headquarters from Queens to the Harlem River Yard site in the Mott Haven community of the South Bronx.
Under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (“SEQRA“), anytime New York City or State agencies take an action that may have significant adverse environmental effects, they are required to conduct an environmental review before moving forward with the project. This review requires that the acting agencies evaluate all potential environmental impacts, identify all practicable mitigation measures for such impacts and, ultimately, select any alternative action that will minimize or avoid environmental harms to the maximum possible extent.
It’s a great system that requires everyone involved to take a hard look at any proposed action and think of ways to minimize related environmental harm to the community. The SEQRA process has improved (or even halted) countless projects that would have otherwise been much more environmentally damaging.
In this case, however, the quality of environmental review that the city and state conducted was uncharacteristically poor. In fact, the government made many of its determinations about the project’s environmental impacts on the basis of a 20-year-old environmental impact statement from an entirely different project.
But the neighborhood has changed significantly since 1993 and is more residential than when the original environmental evaluation was done. The current Fresh Direct project is also a departure from the development that was originally envisioned on the site 20 years ago, so much of the environmental review is based on a project that will never be, instead of the project that’s actually expected to be sited there.
NRDC, which isn’t a party to this dispute, weighed in with a “friend of the court” amicus brief, asking the court to rule that this environmental review was inadequate and undercuts the purpose of New York’s environmental review statute. At minimum, the government should update its old review to consider changes in the character of the neighborhood and the project, and to closely evaluate viable design alternatives that could mitigate the project’s impacts on the community.
As attorneys on both sides of this case argue it out in court today, let’s hope that everyone remembers SEQRA’s purpose and what’s really at stake here – public health and environmental protection, as well as fairness for a community that often seems to get the short end of the environmental stick.”
Statement on IDA’s Approval of Subsidies for FreshDirect
South
Bronx Unite (SBU), New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), and Good
Jobs New York (GJNY) Condemn New York City Industrial Development Agency’s (IDA’s)
Bronx Unite (SBU), New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), and Good
Jobs New York (GJNY) Condemn New York City Industrial Development Agency’s (IDA’s)
Approval of Subsidies to FreshDirect
New York, NY – July 23, 2013 – This morning the Board of the New York City Industrial Development Agency voted to approve the issuance of tens of millions of dollars in City subsidies to FreshDirect to help facilitate the company’s proposed relocation to the South Bronx. South Bronx Unite (SBU), New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), and Good Jobs New York (GJNY) issued the following statements in response:
“Hospitalization rates for asthma in the South Bronx are 21 times higher than those of more affluent parts of New York City,” said Libertad Guerra, professor, resident and South Bronx Unite petitioner. “IDA’s approval of this subsidy for FreshDirect makes the City directly complicit in exacerbating the devastating health crisis in the South Bronx, implicating every New York City taxpayer with them. We urge the entire city to boycott FreshDirect until it stops its plan for the South Bronx.”
“Offering FreshDirect an enormous subsidy to build a diesel trucking facility in an area with the highest rate of asthma in the
nation is criminal. And to add an enormous warehouse, underground parking lot and fueling station in a South Bronx waterfront flood zone is a gross misuse of taxpayer money, particularly in the wake of Hurricane Sandy,” said Harry Bubbins, Director of Friends of Brook Park and South Bronx Unite lawsuit petitioner. “This is an out-the-door extravagance of an out of touch Mayor wasting our tax money. The IDA approval of this subsidy undermines all the efforts that went into Bloomberg’s multi-billion dollar plan to protect our coastline and better utilize open space to absorb storm surges. The site on which FreshDirect proposes to build is directly next to two power plants on our vulnerable coastline.”
nation is criminal. And to add an enormous warehouse, underground parking lot and fueling station in a South Bronx waterfront flood zone is a gross misuse of taxpayer money, particularly in the wake of Hurricane Sandy,” said Harry Bubbins, Director of Friends of Brook Park and South Bronx Unite lawsuit petitioner. “This is an out-the-door extravagance of an out of touch Mayor wasting our tax money. The IDA approval of this subsidy undermines all the efforts that went into Bloomberg’s multi-billion dollar plan to protect our coastline and better utilize open space to absorb storm surges. The site on which FreshDirect proposes to build is directly next to two power plants on our vulnerable coastline.”
Gavin Kearney, Environmental Justice Director at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, added, “Today the IDA voted to waste millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize a project that will bring 1,500 diesel truck trips every single day to the South Bronx—a community already suffering from high rates of asthma, cardiovascular disease and numerous other health problems created by diesel exposure. The health and quality-of-life impacts of this project will be severe. The vague promises of jobs and clean trucks made to justify this massive hand-out are just that—promises made to put an appealing public relations veneer on a rotten proposal. FreshDirect squeezed tens of millions of dollars out of the City without obligating itself to hire residents of the South Bronx or obligating itself to run clean trucks. While today’s vote is unfortunate, it is nowhere near the final word. Numerous government approvals remain and we continue to seek justice for South Bronx residents through the courts.”
Bettina Damiani, Project Director of Good Jobs New York, stated, “Today, FreshDirect was approved for one of the largest corporate
giveaways of city subsidies during the Bloomberg Administration. Despite its multi-million dollar price tag and rhetoric from officials, there are no job related recapture provisions from the IDA that requires FreshDirect to create any good jobs for Bronx residents. In what is possibly the last major action by the IDA board of this Mayoral administration, taxpayers and Bronxites are again expected to fork over subsidies for an unaccountable and environmentally
destructive subsidy deal in one of our poorest neighborhoods.”***************************
NYC COMPTROLLER LIU STATEMENT ON CITY’S
$127 MILLION FRESH DIRECT GIVEAWAY
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giveaways of city subsidies during the Bloomberg Administration. Despite its multi-million dollar price tag and rhetoric from officials, there are no job related recapture provisions from the IDA that requires FreshDirect to create any good jobs for Bronx residents. In what is possibly the last major action by the IDA board of this Mayoral administration, taxpayers and Bronxites are again expected to fork over subsidies for an unaccountable and environmentally
destructive subsidy deal in one of our poorest neighborhoods.”***************************
NYC COMPTROLLER LIU STATEMENT ON CITY’S
$127 MILLION FRESH DIRECT GIVEAWAY
Details Small-Biz Tax Cut to
Spur Economic Development
Spur Economic Development
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NEW YORK, N.Y. – City Comptroller John C. Liu today cast the lone “no” vote on the Industrial Development Agency’s $127 million subsidy for Fresh Direct, which received final authorization. He stated the following:
“This was a bad idea when it was first voted on a year ago, and it’s an even worse one today. New York City needs jobs, particularly in the Bronx, but this is a wasteful way to do business that picks taxpayers’ pockets in order to reward fat cats.
“During the Bloomberg Administration, the Economic Development Corporation has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare to companies that fail to deliver on their promise of jobs for New Yorkers, and we have no reason to believe this will be any different.
“Even if the EDC’s dubious projections turn out to be accurate, the Fresh Direct deal will go down as yet another Bloomberg big business boondoggle. Spending roughly $127 million to create 964 new jobs—$131,397 per job—just doesn’t make economic sense.
“Instead of these big corporate giveaways, our tax dollars would be better spent helping level the playing field for a truly vital engine of job growth in New York City, small businesses.”
At a press availability, Liu spoke about his proposals to end subsidies for big corporations and instead create $400 million in savings for small businesses. In particular, he called for:
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Eliminating the City’s General Corporation Tax for the 240,000 businesses with annual tax bills under $5,000
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Exempting businesses that make less than $250,000 in annual income from the City’s Unincorporated Business Tax
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Reducing fines on small businesses
Background
In April 2013, Comptroller Liu released The People’s Budget, which details his proposals to eliminate giveaways for big corporations and cut taxes and fines for small businesses by $400 million. More info is available here (particularly on pages 5 – 8 and 41 – 42):
In March, 2012, Comptroller Liu released an audit that found the EDC gave $318 million to companies that didn’t deliver the promised jobs:
In February 2012, Comptroller Liu’s Office voted against approving the Fresh Direct subsidy: