Press Release: Coalition for Healthy Ports call for action on scrapyard fire at Eastern Metal Recycling Terminal at Port Newark

Coalition for Healthy Ports

Ironbound Community Corporation      

New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance    

Clean Water Action    

South Ward Environmental Alliance

Immediate Release: Tuesday January 25, 2022

Contact:  Kim Gaddy, Clean Water Action and South Ward resident  973-914-2449

                 Maria Lopez-Nunez, Ironbound Community Corporation    201-978-6660    

                 Melissa Miles, New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance  347-553-3338

TODAY, Newark – The Coalition for Healthy Ports (CHP)* issued a call for action regarding the scrap yard fire at Eastern Metal Recycling Terminal at Port Newark, the second large fire at this site since September 2021.

 Current policies, regulations and emergency response procedures leave communities and workers vulnerable to unknown chemical exposures and other harms of this facility and others like it during routine operations, only made worse during crisis management.

Community notification procedures and air monitoring systems are inadequate, leaving residents clueless as to what to do to protect themselves and their families. The only information residents are getting is from news reports. Agencies will have limited information to assess the situation, pollution impacts, and/or consider remedies to put in place in the future. 

It is also alarmingly unclear who has jurisdiction for permits, operations, emergency response and enforcement at Port Newark – Port Authority of NY&NJ (PANYNJ), NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), Office of Emergency Management (OEM), Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for port, on-site and emergency responders just to name a few. The PANYNJ fire team deemed themselves ill equipped so the City of Newark Fire Department was called in to respond. Additionally, NJDEP’s oversight is currently limited, but we anticipate that the long awaited environment justice rules will include scrap yards – facilities that have long eluded regulatory controls and tools for community accountability.

The Coalition for Healthy Ports calls on the Governor and other responsible agencies to: 

  • take immediate action to protect residents and workers, properly and regularly inform them of developments related to the fire 
  • install emergency and permanent air/water monitors to assess pollution and health impacts
  • evaluate reasons for current fire and take immediate steps to prevent future fires
  • exercise enforcement powers where they may currently exist 
  • formally propose and adopt cumulative impact regulations as soon as possible, including scrap yards and other previously un/underregulated facilities of concern
  • resolve chronic jurisdictional issues and enforcement powers at the port 
  • hold a community meeting to both inform and receive public input on their concerns and demands for action

Below are quotes from impacted community leaders and Coalition for Healthy Ports members:

“ We often have to worry not just about fires but what is burning in those fires. No one should go to bed with nausea or headaches from the smells outside but our residents know the feeling all too well. This fire joins a long list of situations that remind us how close we are to potential catastrophe in our communities because of the concentration of toxic reactive chemicals. We need more than lip service, we need real protection. It is exhausting to keep asking for protection from our state but there are decades of historic injustice that must be addressed.” – Maria Lopez-Nuñez, Deputy Director, Organizing and Advocacy, Ironbound Community Corporation

“Longshoreman and Newark residents deserve to be protected from fires at Port Newark.  Our health must be a priority of Gov. Murphy and the PANYNJ. As a South Ward resident living in a Port community, we demand mandatory air monitoring and environmental enforcement at the Port today.” – Kim Gaddy, Executive Director, South Ward Environmental Alliance and New Jersey Environmental Justice Director, Clean Water Action

“Leadership at the Port of Newark has consistently denied their responsibility for air pollution beyond their fence line. This is a clear incidence of serious impacts as far away as New York City. We need fence line air monitoring and community accountability from the Port and its tenants.” – Melissa Miles, Executive Director,  New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance

“This fire is a reminder of the threats that port related waste facilities pose to community and worker health. In times of emergency, we must have clear lines of communication and a coordinated response to protect people. We call on state and local agencies together with the PANYNJ to ensure effective monitoring and enforcement to prevent future fires.” – Ana Baptista, P.h.D. Co-Director, Tishman Environment & Design Center, The New School University and Coalition for Healthy Ports Member

“The frequency of chemical fires occurring in New Jersey is on the rise – sounding the alarm for immediate action. The state must step up enforcement of existing laws and adopt long awaited cumulative impact protections including strict oversight of polluting facilities and scrap yards in already grossly overburdened communities and port region. Anything less than this is an environmental and public health injustice to residents and workers.” – Amy  Goldsmith, NJ State Director, Clean Water Action and Steering Committee Member, Coalition for Healthy Ports

“The New Jersey Governor’s Office, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and all relevant governmental agencies need to work together to address this alarming fire and to prevent this type of incident from happening again in the future.” – Nicky Sheats, Esq., Ph.D., Director, Center for the Urban Environment, John S. Watson Institute for Urban Policy and Research at Kean University, and New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance Member

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* Coalition for Healthy Ports (CHP) is a bi-state alliance founded in 2007 by environmental and environmental justice activists, truck drivers, faith leaders, labor unions, and community advocates fighting for zero emissions, clean air, good jobs, healthy communities, environmental and economic justice at the Ports of New York and New Jersey and throughout the logistics industry. Particular emphasis is given to port-adjacent communities that are disproportionately overburdened by port pollution and operations. www.coalitionforhealthyports.org

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Study Reveals Importance of Driving Down Dirty Diesel Emissions in EJ Communities in Newark Area

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, November 16, 2020 

CONTACTS: 

Dr. Nicky Sheats, New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, 609-558-4987

Dr. Ana Baptista, Ironbound Community Corporation, 973-342-6056 

Melissa Miles, New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, 347-553-3338 

 

STUDY REVEALS IMPORTANCE OF DRIVING DOWN DIRTY DIESEL EMISSIONS IN EJ COMMUNITIES IN NEWARK AREA 

Transportation is one of the largest contributors to local air pollution and the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (1). Reducing emissions from this sector will be critical to improve air quality, especially within environmental justice (EJ) communities, i.e. communities Of Color and low-income communities, which frequently experience disproportionately high pollution burdens including elevated levels of air pollutants known to detrimentally impact human health. To better understand the equity implications of air pollution emissions the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance (NJEJA) commissioned a study, “Newark Community Impacts of Mobile Source Emissions”, of air pollution emissions from the transportation sector in the Newark area (2). The study examined air pollution emissions such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides (NOx) black carbon (BC) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The study looked at the related emissions exposure from various mobile sources and non road sources including: cars, medium and heavy duty diesel trucks, buses, locomotives, ships, and port related sources such as cargo handling equipment as well as idling from trucks and buses. The study examined emissions impacts on particularly sensitive populations in close proximity to transportation infrastructure such as schools, senior centers, daycares and dialysis centers. Finally, the study explored the potential impacts that electrification would have in the study area. The report confirms some of the concerns that EJ communities express about disproportionate exposure to harmful transportation sector emissions. The findings show that: 

  1. Emissions of the most health harming air pollutants such as PM2.5, BC, and NOx from non-roadway sources, particularly locomotives and port operations, have the highest air quality impact in the total study area, followed by medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. These sources far outweigh the emissions exposure from passenger vehicles and together contribute around 95 percent of the total emissions exposure modeled within the study area. 
  2. While the contribution of different sources varies within the study area, the highest burden can be found in locations close to high density truck and bus routes and locations close to port facilities and rail yards. 
  3. The analysis shows that while electrification of trucks and buses could be one path to reduce emissions of health harming air pollutants, electrification of these vehicles must be accompanied by a focus on emissions reductions from electric generating units co-located within the same community in order to ensure a reduction in overall local air pollution burden. Displacement of air pollution emissions to power plants due to electrification can be a significant factor in impact of local emissions under different electrification scenarios. 

Based on the findings of this study, when evaluating roadway transportation emissions sources, medium-and heavy-duty vehicles have an outsized impact on the harmful local pollutants that impact human health and contribute significantly to transportation sector GHG emissions. This analysis further found that reducing emissions from the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sector would have meaningful and immediate impacts on air-quality within disproportionately burdened communities. The implications of the report findings are relevant for several ongoing discussions concerning air pollution, climate mitigation and EJ. In New Jersey and regionally (i.e. Transportation and Climate Initiative) much of the focus of transportation sector climate mitigation efforts have been on car electrification. This study highlights the importance of prioritizing dirtier segments of this sector such as the diesel trucks and buses as well as port related emissions that have the greatest detrimental health impact on EJ communities. 

The investigation’s findings also indicate that developing climate mitigation policy that targets air pollution reduction and electrification can be complicated from an EJ perspective, at least partly due to the displacement of emissions to the power sector. Since so many of New Jersey’s existing power plants are located in EJ communities, already overburdened with multiple sources of pollution – shifting emissions from the tailpipe to the power sector could have localized impacts. Development of climate mitigation policies for this sector that takes into account EJ and equity considerations must be performed with careful consideration of the potential impacts that include but are not limited to geographic location, displaced emissions and community vulnerabilities. 

The study also highlights what NJEJA believes to be some of the key shortcomings of the proposed regional TCI approach with respect to EJ. TCI prioritizes light duty passenger vehicles in both its investment and electrification scenarios. This study shows how critical the dirtier segments of the transportation sector are to reducing the health harming impacts of the transportation sector. Without targeted, ambitious and significant attention to the diesel sector, EJ communities that suffer the greatest impact from transportation related pollution will not benefit sufficiently from TCI related policies. Furthermore, the strong emphasis on the electrification of the light duty vehicles may in fact pose a potential harm to those communities that host power plants where emissions of certain co-pollutants may increase. EJ and racial justice demand that we prioritize climate mitigation policies that affirmatively address those most severely affected by pollution. 

When we know better, we must endeavor to do better. This study clearly points the way forward to a more equitable and just approach to transportation sector mitigation policies focused on the communities that are most impacted. This would necessitate moving away from a program like TCI, which does not ensure emissions reductions in EJ communities as its core policy and moving towards targeted emissions reductions policies like Clean Truck Rules. 

“The only two children in my family who have asthma both lived along a truck route in the port-adjacent Ironbound neighborhood in Newark”, said Melissa Miles, Executive Director of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, a steering committee member of the Coalition for Healthy Ports. “Every year we counted trucks on our corner as part of a community initiative, only to find out through this report that we were also being exposed to heavy emissions from off-road sources like freight trains. New Jersey needs to address the most serious contributors to transportation emissions like trucks and trains, not just passenger vehicles which are the low hanging fruit.”

Quotations about the report and its implications from members of the Coalition for Healthy Ports 

“This report illustrates what EJ communities have long known, that living with dirty diesel in your backyard is dangerous to your health. Any climate mitigation policy focused on the transportation sector must prioritize the elimination of this local pollution as a core strategy.” Ana Baptista, PhD, NJEJA

 

(1) https://www.nj.gov/dep/aqes/oce-ghgei.html 

(2) The study was conducted by MJ Bradley and Associates with funding from the Natural Resources Defense Council. The report was also released and reviewed in consultation with members of the Coalition for Healthy Ports members, specifically, Ironbound Community Corporation, GreenFaith, NJ Clean Water Action and New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance.

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