by Joe Hirsch
news@huntspointexpress.com
Promising a new state initiative aimed at skyrocketing asthma rates in the South Bronx, Governor David Paterson met with Hunts Point residents and children from the Bronx Charter School for the Arts in a pre-Thanksgiving press conference at The Point Community Development Corporation.
Flanked by local elected representatives and high-ranking state officials, the governor also pledged an end to “dumping” hazardous or unpleasant facilities in poor communities.
Forty Hunts Point school children from the Bronx School of the Arts joined the adults in the Point’s theater on Nov. 25 to hear the governor say that a new effort to curb asthma had already begun. He told them state enforcement officers are slapping trucks caught idling for more than a few minutes with heavy fines.
Diesel fumes are a key reason that asthma rates in the Bronx continue to run triple those of the rest of the city.
“Sad as it is, this is the epicenter,” Paterson said of the asthma epidemic in the Bronx, before adding that three members of his immediate family have the disease. He contended that there needs to be a “multi-pronged effort in our neighborhoods” to bring down asthma rates.
The governor promised to give additional resources to health care providers who agree to add an educational component to their services as of January 1.
In addition, he said, the state will spend $177,500 to fund an asthma treatment center in the South Bronx.
Department of Environmental Conservation agents have already been deployed to hot spots around the Bronx to pull over trucks that are caught idling for five minutes or more. Drivers face $700 fines for a first offense, and $1300 for subsequent offenses.
A similar initiative targeting idling truckers has been in effect in East Harlem.
“You can actually chart the path of the trucks, and you see the asthma rates higher among the young people in the communities,” Paterson said of studies of idling-related pollution in that neighborhood.
The state’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation, Alexander (Pete) Grannis, said as many as 20% of truckers keep their engines running unnecessarily, contributing mightily to the problem.
Grannis said the message his agency is sending is: “Clean up your act, or there will be consequences.” He added, “The air we breathe should not make us sick.”
State Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines told the gathering that he’d practiced medicine in the Bronx for 20 years, and that he’d “actually treated Bronx asthma, and I became practically afraid of what it was doing to the community.”
“You can’t look at a map like this and not think there are environmental factors that are causing this,” Daines went on, pointing on a map to an enormous splotch of red charting the highest incidence of asthma. The red mark completely covered Hunts Point and other parts of the South Bronx.
Congressman Jose Serrano said a recently concluded study showed that diesel emissions were shown to have a direct impact on asthma rates. He said local businesses have been encouraged to implement alternative fueling strategies for their trucks that will create less pollution.
City Councilwoman Maria Carmen del Arroyo referred to the controversial Hunts Point fertilizer plant NYOFCo as “an incredible monster in our backyard, not too far from here that the Department of Environmental Conservation has got to deal with.” She said the plant, which turns sewage into pellets used for fertilizer, is one of the major culprits causing asthma in the neighborhood.
Paterson said that “service dumping,” in which unpopular or damaging industries are centered in less affluent neighborhoods with limited political influence, is a practice that must stop.
“Our inappropriate placement of hazardous waste facilities in neighborhoods that can’t fight back is going to have to stop,” the Governor said.
After the officials finished discussing policies and statistics, and city reporters had tried to change the topic of the discussion to Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat, the fifth graders from the School for the Arts began peppering the governor with questions about the environment and health issues. The youngsters participate in a school group called Changemakers that focuses on important social issues throughout the school year.
“What can we do to help stop pollution?” asked Yailene Gonzalez.
The Governor responded that the United States depends too much on oil, and that changing to alternative energy sources will help clean the air.