With the end of World War II came the age of the interstate, an era resulting in critical cultural shifts and racial divides. Between the 1950s and 1970s, new highway infrastructure began appearing in many American cities, resulting in the birth of the modern ghetto and new racial divides (Avila 19). Highways cut into African American neighborhoods across the U.S. and contribute to environmental and health issues, representing the neglect of black bodies and spaces in this nation. New York City fell victim to the age of the interstate following World War II, and majority African American neighborhoods have been effected disproportionately, resulting in pollution and poor health. In addition, majority black neighborhoods of New York City within the Bronx, Harlem and Brooklyn house many of the city’s waste transfer systems, sewage treatment plants, electrical power plants, and other polluting facilities, which cause a number of environmental and health detriments to residents. Racist neglect by those with decision making powers in the public and private sector explains all of this.
A combination of the white flight of the 1960s and the simultaneous nationwide highway construction resulted in much of the environmental racism within majority black neighborhoods of New York. Before the white flight, South Bronx was majority white, working class (Carter). Robert Moses, a public official known for his urban development in metropolitan New York, led the highway expansion campaign with the goal of creating an easier route for wealthy residents of Westchester County to go to Manhattan. With South Bronx in between these two places, residents were forced to move out, oftentimes with less than a month’s notice. 600,000 residents were displaced from their homes in the process. The disinvestment that took place in the 1960s gave rise to all ensuing environmental injustices. Many outdated zoning and land-use regulations are still in place to continue placing polluting facilities in black neighborhoods. Therefore, black neighborhoods handle a disproportionate amount of these facilities. 80% of New York City’s entire waste is taken to transfer stations in north Brooklyn, southeast Queens, and South Bronx, all minority neighborhoods (Richards). The South Bronx itself contains nine waste transfer stations, nearly one-third of the total amount in New York City, but only 6.5% of its population (Pasquel). The heavy concentration of waste facilities creates a host of environmental problems on the residents of surrounding neighborhoods. Other polluting and industrial land uses in the South Bronx include the Hunts Point Cooperative Market wholesale food distribution center, the largest food distribution center in the world, power plants, and constant industrial truck traffic. Furthermore, New York City’s largest sewage treatment plant exists in Brooklyn. It receives waste from Brooklyn as well as Manhattan. Williamsburg is burdened by heavily polluting industries, resulting in unacceptable levels of pollution, and a disproportionate amount of the city’s waste.
The burdensome concentration of polluting facilities in New York’s minority neighborhoods presents a variety of health issues, which are unsurprisingly disregarded. The placement of transfer station in minority neighbors bring constant truck traffic that leads to health deficits such as asthma, lung cancer, and possibly heart disease and high mortality rates (Richards). In southeast Queens, the trucks are twice as damaging, since they transport cargo to John F. Kennedy International Airport daily, increasing air and noise pollution. Health disparities in the Bronx portray the direct correlation between wealth/race and health. The Bronx is the poorest congressional district in the country and almost universally African American/Hispanic, and its residents have some of the worse health outcomes in the U.S. Residents disproportionately suffer from obesity, diabetes, asthma, heart disease, mental illness, and other chronic health conditions. The asthma epidemic has been especially bad in the South Bronx. Rates of hospitalizations and deaths related to asthma are disproportionately higher than the rest of the city. According to the New York State Asthma Surveillance Summary Report, between 2009 and 2011, the Bronx’s age-adjusted death rate from asthma in New York City was twice as high as the rest of the city and six times as high as New York State. Moreover, Brooklyn residents suffer from extremely high rates of asthma, cancer and other chronic health problems because Brooklyn has waste transfer stations that handle 40% of New York’s waste. Some other public health hazards in Brooklyn include idling trucks and artificial fragrance chemicals. Idling trucks spread diesel fuel soot containing tiny particulate matter, which can cause severe respiratory issues, asthma and lung cancer. Artificial fragrance chemicals are misted by Brooklyn Transfer six days a week. The practice of misting these strong scented chemicals is illegal, and it is highly unhealthy. Many of the chemicals used are endocrine disruptors, which can affect youth and hormonal development. Managers of the privately owned waste transfer stations and concrete mixing plants pollute and completely disregard the residents of the community. New York’s City Council states that about one million of its residents, including 177,000 children, have asthma. In some low-income neighborhoods, the childhood asthma rate is 1 in 4, a much higher ratio than the city generally. New York City is working to cut trash by 2030, but this goal does not offer any short term relief to residents, who have been burdened by pollution for years. In New York, environmental racism persists as the managers of polluting plants consistently neglect the environmental damage and health threats they impose on these communities, disregarding the areas they profit from and delegitimizing the worth of the nonwhite residents that live there.
The South Bronx has had ongoing struggles with environmental racism. One example of an environmentally detrimental and health threatening plant in the South Bronx is the Browning-Ferris/Bronx Lebanon Hospital medical waste incinerator, which was built in 1993. The facility was intended to process medical waste of 12 hospitals around the city. Before the facility had been built, the community knew the detrimental effects the incinerator would cause, but it was built anyways. Within two years of its opening, asthma-related hospitalization rates doubled. Related sickness doubled at nearby schools as well. As is typical in minority communities, the incinerator violated state pollution regulations consistently with negligible consequences. Given the city’s demographic, it is upsettingly unsurprising that the effects of the incinerator would go unnoticed or neglected for over two years. Eventually, the facility accrued 500 citations, including excessive carbon monoxide emissions, resulting in a small $50,000 fine and a mandate to pay $200,000 for the funding of Bronx community programs.