ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
The Challenge
The South Bronx is an epicenter of environmental injustice and environmental racism, a consequence of decades of discriminatory planning decisions and public policies that deemed it suitable to place polluting facility after polluting facility in the area, such as power plants, waste transfer stations, and last-mile warehouses. Further deteriorating our air quality are the highways and thoroughfares that encircle and slice our community, specifically the Major Deegan, Bruckner, Cross Bronx, and five Manhattan-Bronx bridges. At the same time, the area has among the lowest access to green space per capita in the entire city. Collectively, this has caused a range of illnesses, including asthma, infant mortality, poor maternal health, cognitive impairment, diabetes, heart disease, and dementia. Our hazardous environment has diminished our quality of life and our ability to thrive, creating a ripple effect across generations; poor health and poverty are a vicious and inextricably linked cycle.
Our Response
South Bronx Unite has been campaigning for clean air for our community since we formed. In September 2023, we are expanding that work by launching a comprehensive air quality monitoring project to strengthen that work (supported by a grant from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation). We are deploying a network of 25 air monitors across Mott Haven-Port Morris that will track the quality of the air we breathe at street level (not at rooftop elevations). The monitors will collect data on particle pollution (tiny pieces of solids or liquids that are in the air) as well as gases, all of which poison our air, diminish our quality of life, and cause illnesses ranging from asthma and cognitive impairment to diabetes and heart disease. We will track air quality over several years and share real-time data with our community at the same time that we use that data to push for policies for clean air. Data analysis and visualization will be provided by our partners at Columbia University. For more info: leslie@southbronxunite.org