Toxic Tour Through Mott Haven, Port Morris ‘Truly Eye-Opening’
Bronx Times
By: Christina Jones
About 60,000 people call Mott Haven and Port Morris home, the overwhelming majority of whom are Black, Puerto Rican and/or immigrants from Mexico and various parts of the African continent — less than 3% of all residents are white. Mott Haven and Port Morris make up a rich, vibrant, beau ideal of sorts of culture, creativity and activism, and proudly so. Yet, we are still met with limiting narratives and stigma as a consequence of being the poorest congressional district in the country.
Folks in the South Bronx have long been subject to immense racial, social and environmental injustice. One of the primary ways in which systemic oppression manifests itself in the South Bronx is through the disproportionate concentration of polluting facilities adjacent to residents’ homes and the disproportionate presence of peak power plants (‘peaker plants’), waste transfer stations, expressways, last-mile warehouses and other toxin-emitting infrastructures situated right in the community. Moreover, residents of the South Bronx also have some of the most limited access to green space per capita of all New York City residents.
