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Pollution in the Chesapeake Bay

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Water. Mining. Fishing.

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Climate Change and The Water Cycle

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Great Neck South Middle School, Lakeville Road, Great Neck, NY, USA

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Great Neck South Middle School, Lakeville Road, Great Neck, NY, USA

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Great Neck South Middle School, Lakeville Road, Great Neck, NY, USA

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My home good :)

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Great Neck South Middle School, Lakeville Road, Great Neck, NY, USA

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Great Neck South Middle School, Lakeville Road, Great Neck, NY, USA

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Great Neck South Middle School, Lakeville Road, Great Neck, NY, USA

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Bronx River Alliance, Bronx River Parkway, Bronx, NY, USA

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Bronx River Alliance, Bronx River Parkway, Bronx, NY, USA

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Bronx River Alliance, Bronx River Parkway, Bronx, NY, USA

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About the Alliance - Bronx River Alliance

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About the Alliance - Bronx River Alliance

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Billion Oyster Project Williamsburg Field Station, Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA

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Billion Oyster Project Williamsburg Field Station, Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA

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Billion Oyster Project Williamsburg Field Station, Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA

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Restoring oyster reefs to New York Harbor through public education initiatives.

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Academy of St. Joseph, Washington Place, New York, NY, USA

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Academy of St. Joseph, Washington Place, New York, NY, USA

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Academy of St. Joseph, Washington Place, New York, NY, USA

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This is my school! Here we are very passionate about Climate Change

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14 Red Brook Terrace, Great Neck, NY, USA

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14 Red Brook Terrace, Great Neck, NY, USA

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14 Red Brook Terrace, Great Neck, NY, USA

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Words have Power

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Young Voices for the Planet is proud to show the story of Jaysa, a 13-year old girl from Bridgeport, Connecticut who speaks out at public hearings and helps catalyze the opposition to the coal-fired power plant that is causing her asthma. She addresses environmental racism in her community and reflects on the power a single voice can have on creating positive change. Watch and see what happens!

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Introduction to H2Know

The H2Know case study invites you to investigate a water quality issue in Lake Erie. Here, you will gather information about the problem, consider potential contributors and environmental factors, review data and research happening in the field, and engage in discussions and activities related to effective solutions that will improve the water quality of Lake Erie. Please begin by answering the pre-test questions below.

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Introduction to H2Know The H2Know case study invites you to investigate a water quality issue in Lake Erie. Here, you will gather information about the problem, consider potential contributors and environmental factors, review data and research happening in the field, and engage in discussions and activities related to effective solutions that will improve the water quality of Lake Erie.

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The Center for Ecoliteracy (www.ecoliteracy.org) advances school meal innovation and is pleased to introduce its California Food for California Kids initiative. Using the acclaimed Rethinking School Lunch planning framework and Cooking with California Food in K-12 Schools cookbook and professional development resource, the Center convenes food service directors from across California to support and inspire their work providing more fresh and freshly-prepared food for school children.

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Hellmann's short film (Eat Real. Eat Local)

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This short film explains what's happening to Canada's local food system and why we should all care. "where your food comes from?"

Almost everyone worked on this project from my company. Production, director, designers, 3D artists, Flame artists, editor... all departments. We shot all the stop motion by ourself. It's was great team work.

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Mary Hays poses for a portrait in front of her mobile home with her dog, Lulu, and a reminder to 'Keep Believing' on June 12th, 2020 at the Bay County Fairgrounds. Photo by Andrew Wardlow/Climate Central
By Ayurella Horn-Muller, Climate Central | This story was produced through a partnership between Climate Central and Southerly, an independent, nonprofit publication that covers ecology, justice, and culture in the American South.

PANAMA CITY, Fla. - With his only possessions packed tightly into two plastic bags on the ground beside him, Will Wells raked unkempt grass growing out of the sand around his friend's mobile home on a plot of land at the Bay County Fairgrounds.

Wells, a longtime Panama City resident, just turned 42, but the disabled veteran said he didn't have much to celebrate. He's been homeless for nearly two years - ever since Hurricane Michael, the strongest storm to ever hit the Panhandle, took everything. In between homeless shelters, Wells sometimes stays at his friend's trailer at a Federal Emergency Management Agency-operated (FEMA) campground.

On Oct. 10, 2018, the Category 5 storm dropped a huge oak tree on Wells' home, where he lived with his family. But he said that was just the beginning of his troubles. "Before the storm, I had a car, I had my bills paid," he said. "Then within two weeks, everything was gone."

The hurricane left 22,000 county residents homeless in the weeks following the storm and caused nearly $7 billion of total insured losses. The per capita impact of the storm totaled $3,650 per person - 27 times more than the impact of Hurricane Irma on south Florida. Since then, the federal government has disbursed $1.2 billion in aid to Bay County through a cobbled-together disaster relief system that includes federal funding paid to county agencies and nonprofits, as well as insurance payouts to residents and businesses.

Now, as local governments and residents prepare for more storms this hurricane season during a pandemic - which complicates and create new risks during evacuations - hundreds of people left homeless after the storm are still living in temporary trailers. Many are at the fairgrounds, the area's largest remaining FEMA campground, which is surrounded by empty, damaged businesses and homes. Others are living in tents as they wait for funding or resources to rebuild. Thousands of people have moved away.

"They had all these commercials where they said 'We're here for you,' '850-strong,' 'Panhandle-Strong,' and then you call and nothing," Wells said. "Nobody helps the people who really need it in this town."

Mary Hays is another resident who still needs support. She lives at the campground with her miniature shih tzu, Lulu. The 70-year-old vividly remembers when Hurricane Michael hit her public housing apartment complex for the elderly. "Michael blew the roof right off! Oh my goodness," she said. "And 14 stories of water came all the way down." She moved to the FEMA trailer while the building was being reconstructed, and said she was told she could move back three months later. But the demand for construction turned that wait into more than two years. Hays will continue to live in her trailer until the beginning of September if all construction continues as planned.

There's no guarantee that will happen, though: Nonprofit leaders, business owners, and residents say Bay County's rebuilding efforts have slowed to a near stop as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread throughout the state. Long-term planning to protect people and businesses from storms has been put on the back burner as COVID-19 cases dramatically increase statewide. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reopened the state in early May, and the onus is now on county officials to simultaneously rebuild, preserve local economies, and keep residents and tourists safe.

Hays and her neighbors are worried, and trying to prepare for the chance of another devastating storm.

"Give us a break, Lord," Hays said.
Caution tape lines the parking lot of an abandoned grocery store off of Sherman Avenue on June 12th, 2020, left damaged by Hurricane Michael. Photo by Andrew Wardlow/Climate Central
The overwhelming demand for construction reaches every corner of Bay County. An estimated 60,000 households - three-quarters of the area's houses - were damaged in the storm. The city of Mexico Beach was about 80% destroyed.

Panhandle residents like Wells felt forgotten in the aftermath. That year saw an especially destructive hurricane season in the Southeast; Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina about a month before. It took nearly eight months for the federal government to approve a disaster relief bill for Hurricane Michael, compared to just days or weeks for other storms like Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey.

Jesse Dasher, the pastor at Panama City's First Baptist Church of Callaway, said members of his congregation are stuck living in trailers and RVs in their front yards. The church is still undergoing major repairs; it took 19 months to settle with the insurance company.

In the meantime, Dasher has been holding services in classrooms and a fellowship hall. "When the hurricane first happened I thought by the next year we'd be back into the sanctuary," he said. "A year and a half later, and we haven't even started construction yet...I'm thinking of changing the church's name to 'First Disaster Church of Callaway.'"

Almost 40% of Bay County's population are renters, and many of their buildings were hit especially hard during the storm. Rents skyrocketed after that, leaving no option for affordable housing. Thousands of people left: Research from the University of Florida suggests the county's population declined nearly 10% within six months of Hurricane Michael. Many of the rest are in FEMA trailers, camping out, or staying with friends and relatives.

The Panhandle isn't alone in this struggle. Natural disaster recovery processes have been fraught with problems for decades. Research shows that post-disaster government assistance programs are often structured in ways that make it difficult for the most vulnerable groups to receive help. Renters, who tend to have significantly lower incomes than homeowners, are also disproportionately overlooked by government aid programs.

There are also racial disparities, since Black, Native American, and Latinx residents are more likely to be extremely low-income renters. In Bay County, more than 15% of people are estimated to be living below the poverty line, according to the 2018 Census. But a quarter of Black residents live in poverty - a much higher number than both white and Hispanic residents.
Rendered uninhabitable after Hurricane Michael, the sanctuary of First Baptist Church of Callaway sits unused and awaiting construction twenty months after the storm. Photo by Andrew Wardlow/Climate Central for Southerly
Federal disaster relief funding comes in several ways: loans and grants to individuals, to relief organizations, and to the county or state. But when it comes to grants, FEMA doesn't pay for recovery costs upfront. Those bills are left to local governments, who must go through a series of steps with the federal agency to be reimbursed.

Valerie Sale, Bay County's public information officer, said Hurricane Michael's federal funding primarily goes toward paying back these types of loans. The county commission took out $250 million in loans after the storm, and still owes a little more than half of that. Bay County Manager Bob Maika said officials chose to take out loans in the interest of speed. "We spoke to both our federal and state partners about grants or low, no interest loans, and those sources were simply not available at that time," he said.

Critics say FEMA took too long to help people after the storm. In February, FEMA approved a six-month extension for the 450 Panhandle families still living in government trailers to stay on through mid-October. More than half of those are in Bay County.

FEMA spokesperson Gary Mayshaunt said the agency worked closely with the state to "get survivors into safe, sanitary, functional temporary housing as quickly as possible."

Mayshaunt said responsibility for recovery extends beyond his agency. "The whole community must tackle the challenge of affordable permanent housing for thousands of displaced survivors. The whole community includes local, state and federal partners, as well as nonprofits and the private sector."

There are financial resources available to those who need it, said Project H.O.P.E's Jessica Sabatino, who leads Bay County's chapter of the disaster recovery group. The organization, along with others in the area, provided on-the-ground support for people applying for loans and grants, rebuilding homes, and also offered mental health resources.

But the program officially ended May 29 after running out of money. "Those schools wanted us to continue," said Project H.O.P.E counselor Jamaica Thompkins. "The community wanted us to continue, but it was a federal plan."

Without their help, fewer people are likely to access funds they need. The process to apply for federal loans or grants is tedious and time-consuming, and residents often don't know how to find information or access the appropriate resources. "That's so much paperwork," Sabatino said. "And usually the residents just give up because they're so frustrated and they don't understand it."

Wells, the homeless veteran, said that's what happened to him. He said he was denied a FEMA grant or access to a mobile home after the storm. Without renters or storage insurance, he felt he had nowhere to turn. "See that store right over there?" Wells said, pointing in the direction of a grocery store near the FEMA campground

"I tore open the door and we slept in there for two nights because we had nowhere to be," said Wells, who no longer lives with his family. "Everybody has a sad story. I'm not the only one. There's a lot of people like me around here."
Homeless and disabled vet Will Wells continues to rake the land in front of his friend's FEMA trailer, after revealing the sepsis in a leg injury he sustained during the 2018 storm, at the Bay County Fairgrounds on June 12th, 2020. Photo by Andrew Wardlow/Climate Central for Southerly
Hurricane Michael - and the economic distress it has caused - has helped spur conversations in Florida about how to address sea level rise and extreme weather. Three years ago, local officials in Bay County were reluctant to mention climate change or discuss long-term climate adaptation planning, but Allan Branch, a lifelong Panama City resident and local business owner, said his neighbors are now looking more seriously at how coastal infrastructure will hold up as sea levels rise.

"This is a very conservative, Republican, Bible Belt area," Branch said. "And people are talking about climate change. Sea level rise. There's more hurricanes now and you know, that kind of talk is more normal now. I think the awareness of the conversation is starting to happen."

Research shows climate change is contributing to increasingly destructive hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. This season has already had four named storms, including Tropical Storm Cristobal, which caused minor flooding in the Panhandle. Forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said they are projecting an "above-normal 2020 Atlantic hurricane season," including three to six major hurricanes.

As the community rebuilds, they're facing tough choices, without much guidance from local, state, or federal officials. "The question is now: 'How can you build things that are going to be here for 20-30 years?'" Branch said. "It looks great today, but will it be here in four years?'"
With the sanctuary still damaged, the services are still held in classrooms and a fellowship hall. Photo by Andrew Wardlow/Climate Central for Southerly
Those critical conversations are on now hold because of the pandemic and hurricane season. This summer, city governments and emergency management teams across the Panhandle are racing to figure out how to handle a storm while preventing the spread of COVID-19. Frankie Lumm, Bay County's emergency management director, has exhaustive plans for monitoring temperatures and keeping people distanced in shelters, but he's worried about the logistics of evacuations and sheltering since so many are still homeless or living in trailers.

"What does that operation look like? Where would they be transported to?" he said. "I still have a lot of folks that are living in FEMA trailers and motorhomes in their own yards while their homes are being rebuilt."

Transportation during a hurricane evacuation is a major concern. "I think there's a lot we need to think carefully about - sheltering and transportation and what that looks like," said Donna Pilson, executive director of Rebuild Bay County, which helps nonprofits with construction and relief programs. "Are we ready for another storm? I don't know. I don't know."

Since the storm, many people in the area have struggled with mental health issues. Once the area's schools reopened, officials reported more than 5,000 students were homeless. A school district survey done last spring revealed that a third of Bay County's students and staff displayed signs of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. In addition to its other services, Project H.O.P.E provides mental health counseling and resource support for residents, which is becoming more urgent as recovery drags on. Sabatino, the director, said PTSD is a standard this time of year, during hurricane season. But now, she added, anxiety is also "heightened due to COVID."

"For some of them, one was the big hurricane and then some people lost family members after that just due to regular health issues or other things, and then you have the loss of what you thought your life was gonna be like or how you thought you were going to rebuild and then you have COVID and all these setbacks," Sabatino said. "So there's a lot of things that people are dealing with."

Helping them is much harder without funding, and the pandemic has drained resources for Michael relief efforts. Life Management Center, the Panama City mental health organization through which Project H.O.P.E operated, said donations are down tens of thousands of dollars.

"Now with COVID, [local businesses] have been hit more financially than the ones out of town have been," said Life Management Center's Brittany Cole. "So we can't go to them and ask for money. We have to go to these big outside agencies that are getting requests from everywhere. So that's been a huge issue of ours. We apply for every type of funding."
A trailer sits on a plot of land at the Bay County Fairgrounds, the area's largest-remaining FEMA campground for Hurricane Michael survivors, on June 12th, 2020. Photo by Andrew Wardlow/Climate Central for Southerly
Bay County emergency management director Lumm said the county is still applying for funding and trying to get equipment needed for hurricane preparedness and COVID-19. Life Management Center has received some to start another disaster relief group - called the Bay/Gulf County Recovery Project - that will carry on its mission, but they're still in the early stages of development.

As those logistics are worked out, people are attempting to get their lives back on track. Bay County teacher Denise Powiliatis and her family have moved 15 times - nearly every month - since Hurricane Michael wrecked their house. The Powiliatises were finally getting ready to move back home in March, when COVID-19 threw a wrench in their plans: The materials their construction team needed to finish the job were in Louisiana - and pandemic travel regulations meant they couldn't get there. It delayed the rebuild by another three months.

A year-and-a-half later, they've finally moved back into their home. "It's an emotional process. Promises, disappointment, promises, disappointment. It was like this rollercoaster," Powiliatis said. "I don't ever want to go through it again."
Ayurella Horn-Muller is a freelance reporter and regular Climate Central correspondent, based in Florida.

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'Give us a break, Lord': Amid active hurricane season, pandemic halts recovery in Florida two years after Michael

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Mary Hays poses for a portrait in front of her mobile home with her dog, Lulu, and a reminder to 'Keep Believing' on June 12th, 2020 at the Bay County Fairgrounds. Photo by Andrew Wardlow/Climate Central By Ayurella Horn-Muller, Climate Central | This story was produced through a partnership between Climate Central and Southerly, an independent, nonprofit publication that covers ecology, justice, and culture in the American South.

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A soccer game next to the Ravenswood Generating Station last Fall. CLARISA DIAZ, GOTHAMIST/WNYC By Clarisa Diaz (Gothamist). John Upton (Climate Central) contributed reporting.
Looming over a playground in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Queens stands the enormous Ravenswood Generating Station, the 23rd largest power plant in the country. Its functions are to operate as a fossil fueled peaker plant, providing an extra surge of electricity during 'peak times' of high energy demand, such as when everyone turns on their air-conditioning during a heatwave.

While peaker plants were originally intended to only be used once or twice a year, they now run in New York City on a more regular basis to meet the city's growing energy demands, particularly in the evening when more lights and devices are turned on. If one spends some time by a peaker plant they may feel a little nauseous. They may feel worse if they reside near one.

It's one reason why there's a push to eliminate them, and rethink how the city approaches energy sources. During a pandemic summer, when more people will be indoors using their air-conditioners, the city could be in for even more devastating impacts on the communities where peaker plants are located.

The Problem With Peakers

Respiratory illness in Western Queens is rampant, notably in Long Island City and Astoria, which have higher than average asthma rates when compared with the rest of the borough. "This is our own version of Asthma Alley and these power plants are, I believe, a huge part of that," said New York City Council Member Costa Constantindes, whose district includes Astoria, East Elmhurst, Long Island City, Woodside. He chairs the council's Committee on Environmental Protection.

According to the New York Public Service Commission, peaker plants around the city emit twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of electricity than regular power plants and 20 times as much nitrogen oxides-responsible for high rates of respiratory illnesses like asthma, heart disease, and cancer. In the Mott Haven and Melrose sections of the Bronx, which are surrounded by peaker plants, the asthma emergency room visit rate among children ages 5 to 17 is nearly triple the citywide rate.

"You don't want to be here for long, the air does not feel healthy," said Mychal Johnson, co-founder of the advocacy group South Bronx Unite. Johnson describes the maritime industrial area in the borough, stretching from Port Morris to Hunts Point, as a "toxic soup" of environmental hazards including peaker plants, waste transfer stations, and thousands of diesel trucks that drive in and out of his neighborhood daily, issues that have run rampant in the Bronx for decades.
Mychal Johnson of South Bronx Unite near one of the peaker plants in Port Morris by his Mott Haven home. CLARISA DIAZ, GOTHAMIST/WNYC
The impact of peaker plants on air quality, and contributing to respiratory illness, has left residents of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn living in the vicinity of these plants more susceptible to COVID-19, which has disproportionately impacted people of color in low-income areas. Living with long-term air pollution is deemed "a threat multiplier," drastically impacting health outcomes, which also point to the disproportionately higher rates of COVID-19.

"We've seen a clear line drawn between our continued reliance on peaker plants and the devastation COVID-19 has brought to over-polluted communities," said Constantinides. "This is only going to get worse this summer, as the energy burden gets shifted from office buildings to homes. In turn, we'll breathe more toxins at a time when our respiratory systems are at greater risk, especially in Black and brown communities."

"We've seen a clear line drawn between our continued reliance on peaker plants and the devastation COVID-19 has brought to over-polluted communities," said Constantinides. "This is only going to get worse this summer, as the energy burden gets shifted from office buildings to homes. In turn, we'll breathe more toxins at a time when our respiratory systems are at greater risk, especially in Black and brown communities."

There are 16 operating peaker plants in New York City that fit into the New York Power Authority's market and send their energy to the city's power grid, which is distributed according to demand across the city by companies like Con Edison and National Grid. Almost all of these peaker plants are located in low-lying, industrial flood zones abutting low-income communities and communities of color. With climate change contributing to more destructive storms and storm surges in low-lying areas, peakers can be compromised, offering less of an incentive for them to be built there.

Many of the operating peaker plants in New York City became operational in the early 2000s, under the state's PowerNow! Project, which was not subject to an environmental review. State energy officials predicted greater demand for electricity in the coming years and sought to prevent the kind of blackouts that California had endured then. This was caused largely by companies such as Enron, which deliberately shut off its plants during peak times in California as a way of artificially inflating their prices.

NYPA led the charge, launching what they called a " crash program" in late August 2000 to install the extra peakers, in response to warnings from officials in the public and private sectors. At the time Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the city was facing " a real emergency," justifying the construction of peakers.

But PowerNow! peaker plants were intended to be "temporary," a quick fix while a longer-term solution was found, and therefore did not require consultation or environmental review. What was supposed to be two to three years of occasional usage has turned into almost 20 years of permanent infrastructure that spews shockingly high levels of pollution.
CLARISA DIAZ, GOTHAMIST/WNYC
"We think that now is the time when they really don't have to be running anymore. Because of awareness of the climate crisis as well as developments in technology and alternative technologies that can be used to replace them," said Rachel Spector, director of the Environmental Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

Sustainable solutions may include not just providing enough supply, but also reducing demand. According to Spector, there can be pricing incentives that are built into the system to encourage people to not use so much electricity at peak times. "It's not just a supply issue, it's also a demand issue," explained Spector. "There doesn't have to be this huge spike in electricity demand at peak times. There can be pricing incentives that are built into the system to encourage people to not use so much electricity at peak times. Energy efficiency upgrades can significantly reduce demand on the system."

Spector estimates that the New Yorkers most affected by pollution from peakers are not necessarily the customers demanding the extra power. "The people who are facing the most risk and harm from fossil fuel emissions are not the ones that are using the resources. It's not like people in low-income communities and in NYCHA [public housing] are coming home and turning on their air conditioners. A lot of them don't even have air conditioners," said Spector. This summer 22,000 air conditioners will be given to seniors in NYCHA housing, though there are more than 400,000 residents in NYCHA housing in the city.

Residents of the South Bronx, Western Queens, and Sunset Park in Brooklyn have suffered the most from the siting of the city's peaker plants. "The carcinogens in our air are directly correlated to heart disease, respiratory illness, and cancer. And the top three causes of premature death in Hunts Point are heart disease, respiratory illness, and cancer. So you start to really see the direct effects of polluting infrastructure like peaker plants," said Fernando Ortiz, climate preparedness and resiliency organizer at The Point CDC, a non-profit based in the Bronx.

Industrial zoning and bordering expressways-such as the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, which is bound by the Bruckner Expressway and regularly sees truck traffic-already created environmental hazards resulting in health problems for residents; pollution from peakers adds insult to injury.

These days, the communities affected most by peaker plants intend to forge the way for New York City's energy future. "We want to not just advocate for alternative energy sources," said Ortiz. "We also want to own it."

What Will Replace Peakers?

The Point CDC is currently conducting a feasibility study for a new project called Hunts Point Community Solar. Organizers hope to utilize warehouse roofs to install solar panels that can be owned and maintained by community members of the South Bronx. "We have all these industrial sites that have historically created issues-environmental and social issues-for the community. And there's now a potential opportunity to remediate some of those past issues," explained Ortiz. "Give us access to your roof; let's have a more equitable energy system. Let's feed back into the community that you are part of."
Solar panels on the roof of The Point in the South Bronx. CLARISA DIAZ, GOTHAMIST/WNYC
Solar panels paired with battery storage is increasingly becoming a method for renewable energy across the country.

"A number of studies have shown that batteries are cost competitive. Prices are dropping significantly every year," said Seth Mullendore, vice president and project director of the Vermont Clean Energy Group. "There are no NOx or particulates being emitted from batteries. So they're better for local populations and they can be distributed pretty easily. You can put them in buildings, you can put them on small plots of land and they take up a lot less space than a power plant."

Unlike peaker plants that have to be fired up to turn on, batteries are quicker to respond as backup energy.

The downsides to battery storage? Safety and fire risk-batteries catching fire from thermal runaway in high density spaces is a concern-though there are preventative measures that can be taken; like not over-charging the batteries, proper storage, and disposal of a battery after the expiration date or when the battery is no longer functioning properly.

Lithium ion batteries are also not environmentally friendly to produce and there is currently no recycling infrastructure for them. However, as batteries for electric cars start to retire, that could change. The lifespan of a standard battery is 5,000-10,000 charging cycles, each charge running for a limited time of four hours; with industry innovation, newer batteries are now able to run for 8-10 hours at a time.

In July 2019, the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) put out a study identifying peaker plants in the state that could be replaced with battery storage, and Ravenswood was identified as a candidate to phase the peaker plant into an 8-hour battery storage facility that can power 250,000 homes.

Most of the Ravenswood transition aims to be completed by March 2021, and this transformation is considered a new sustainable model for the city to transition other peaker plants to zero emissions. The Ravenswood battery will be the largest battery-run plant in the state, considered the first of its kind in the region, and falls in line with Governor Andrew Cuomo's Green New Deal goals of 1,500 MW of storage in New York by 2025 and 3,000 MW of storage by 2030. The state recently finalized new pollution restrictions that would drive the most polluting plants into retirement.
The Ravenswood Generating Station next to a city park and playground in Queensbridge. CLARISA DIAZ, GOTHAMIST/WNYC
Still, batteries are only as environmentally friendly as the sources of the power that recharge them. The Ravenswood battery would still be charged in part by existing fossil fuel infrastructure. "It's a good step in the right direction, but we would rather see them fill those batteries with renewables than just using off-peak hour fossil fuel infrastructure," said Constantinides. "It's not the complete win that we could have."

According to Constantinides, New York City needs a true public utility. "Con Edison and National Grid have demonstrated who they are. They're for-profit companies that masquerade as public utilities," Constantinides described. "They're giving us service that has been poor. We need a public utility to take over."

New Yorkers are all too familiar with Con Edison's failures, including a blackout last summer. "I'd rather have someone that's accountable to the people of the city of New York. We've had two hearings; Con Edison walked away saying how they want to work with us. But I've seen no real substantive changes in their operating procedures," said Constantinides.

Keeping peaker plants operating has come at the expense of all electricity-paying New York City residents. According to a newly released report by PEAK Coalition, about $4.5 billion in capacity payments have been paid to owners of both public and private peaker plants between 2010 and 2019, ultimately at the expense of New York City electricity customers. The analysis by PEAK Coalition also estimates that the three private owners ( ArcLight Capital, NRG, and LS Power) have likely collected over $3.9 billion in capacity payment revenue over the last ten years.

Along with financial costs, the social costs of peakers are not accounted for. The cost-benefit analysis of switching to solar and storage extends beyond the dollar-for-dollar cost of installation. "We're paying a really heavy price when a kid shows up at the emergency room and is struggling to breathe," explained Constantinides. "There needs to be more of a recognition of the seriousness of the times that we're in and the political will to push us forward."

He calls for more transformative policy, embodied in his Renewable Rikers Act legislation, which would convert the uninhabitable ' house of horrors ' into a renewable island of solar arrays and a water treatment facility. "We can change what Rikers Island means to this city-a place for opportunity, that people can look to and say that's the beginning of our green revolution," said Constantinides.

Sustainable CUNY and the Center for Urban Environmental Reform are some groups working with Constantindes to study the feasibility of the capacity of Rikers Island to replace all of the city's grid-feeding peaker plants. "Our legislation would do a much deeper energy study to see how much energy we could get," explained Constantinides, The study would focus on multiple energy options including how much energy could be produced if wind power is added to the solar/battery mix.

Exploring a Cooperative Model

Starting a municipally-owned, public power utility is currently happening in other parts of the country. Austin, Texas has a robust community solar program and public power utility, as does Salt Lake City, Utah with Rocky Mountain Power Authority. It's a lengthy process particularly if the shift is from investor-owned or monopoly utilities. "Sometimes it takes five years if a utility is willing to sell; 10 years average," explained Ursula Schryver, vice president of education and customer programs at the American Public Power Association (APPA).

"It definitely requires commitment of the community. And I think the larger the utility, there will be even more resistance to let customers go." As an example, Boulder, Colorado has been trying to get out from their investor-owned utility Xcel Energy for the past 10 years.

But Salt Lake City took a different approach. "We don't have the funds to buy them out," said Vicki Bennett, sustainability director for Salt Lake City on Rocky Mountain Power Authority. "It really came down to how could we partner with Rocky Mountain Power? Look at some sort of way that we could move forward in good faith with them, understanding how they make money and how they could still be part of the picture, yet meet our renewable energy goals."

Salt Lake City didn't go it alone, but joined with other cities and towns in the state that wanted to participate to write joint legislation between community partners and the power authority.

"We did have both an employee and consultant/attorney that were really familiar with the local regulatory environment, so Rocky Mountain Power knew that we understood the options. They couldn't try and make things sound easier or harder than they really were," said Bennett.

Based on how many committed communities are interested (by passing a resolution to have 100% net renewable energy by 2030), Rocky Mountain Power caters their energy infrastructure to customer demand, only in the renewable forms they accept.

"Any customer in Salt Lake that doesn't want to be part of this will have to have the opportunity to opt out, which is fair," Bennett said. "We've got till 2030 and we actually think we can get this done a lot faster, with the costs of renewable energy dropping so fast, we don't think it's going to cost more."

There is also a net metering program where people can install their own solar roof and sell excess energy to Rocky Mountain Power Authority, a financial benefit for many residents who want to live off the main grid. The power authority has also installed a shared solar farm that residents can buy into.

"It's like if you own a condo and you can't have your own solar, you can buy a piece of the solar farm, and that gives you the ability to own your own system," described Bennett.

In Sunset Park, local community-based organization UPROSE is leading the construction of Sunset Park Solar, one of the nation's first-and New York's first-cooperatively-owned community solar project, on top of the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
A cooperatively owned solar array will be installed on the roof of the Brooklyn Army Terminal. SUNSET PARK SOLAR COURTESY UPROSE
UPROSE has been organizing for local renewable energy since Hurricane Sandy, when residents realized they needed to run their own power.

"The project didn't start with the [Request for Proposal], it's been a long time coming," said Summer Sandoval, Energy Democracy Coordinator for UPROSE. The solar panel farm will be a 685-kilowatt system that can support about 200 local households and small businesses, which is signing up subscribers now.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is leasing the rooftop of the terminal, along with Solar One, which is providing technical training to community members. Initially, the project will be cooperatively-owned with a tax investor for start-up funding with a limited number of years to collect federal tax credits. After the financing period, the project will then transfer ownership to Co-op Power and UPROSE. UPROSE will then determine whether to share ownership and management with Co-op Power or purchase the remainder of the project for full community ownership.

Community member subscribers to Sunset Park Solar will also be members of the New York City Community Energy Cooperative, and engage in decision-making meetings where they can vote and have a say in the future of the project.

Community organizations across the city are looking at Sunset Park Solar as a potential model for how community solar programs can work with city agencies and multiple types of partners.

"Community owned solar is one piece of the big transition puzzle of how do we move from where we are today to where we need to go," said Sandoval. "It's not one-size-fits-all. You're always back to the drawing board of what works, because even though the concept of community solar is not new, in practice it is very new because it is so dependent on the partners, the building typology, the local and state legislation, all these things that really can impact what a project looks like. It's uncharted waters."

For something like Sunset Park Solar to be replicable, real estate development in the city will need to change. "There are agencies within city government that are really concerned about reducing carbon, about addressing pollutants and the environmental burdens that have hurt our communities for years," said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE. "But I don't think there is an analysis about how we use the spaces that we have available to do that."

To Yeampierre and other environmental justice advocates, it comes down to Mayor Bill de Blasio's leadership. "From a local perspective, what we see is an inconsistency between the Mayor's goals on climate and the Mayor's comfort with developers," continued Yeampierre. "What's in the way is a lack of vision and political will to make things happen. It can't be governance that is thinking about favors that have to be paid or deals that need to be cut because climate change disrupts all that. It takes a different kind of person and leadership who really knows how to use the spaces that we have available."

The incentive for developers, according to environmental groups, is being ahead of the game by understanding how climate change will affect business in the long-run, moving more towards a model that will be necessary for equity and sustainability.

The city is working to achieve 1,000 MW of solar capacity by 2030, enough to power 250,000 homes and create 14,000 jobs.

"The Mayor set a bold goal in OneNYC of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, and supporting solar development that benefits all New Yorkers is a critical part of that work," said Julia Arredondo, spokesperson at City Hall. "We've made major progress, including implementing the Green New Deal, a groundbreaking slate of legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions with a focus on our buildings, which included a sustainable rooftop mandate for buildings across the five boroughs. We continue to be committed to making New York City a cleaner city for all and we will ensure that environmental justice and addressing global warming are at the center of our recovery from this pandemic."

For now, the city's peaker plants are still operating.

"This should be the last summer we have to stress about our lives being on the line over peaker plants," Constantinides declared. "We should focus our recovery from this crisis on sustainability, and renewable energy, which will make our air cleaner and our city healthier."
Clarisa Diaz is a designer and reporter for Gothamist / WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter @Clarii_D. John Upton at Climate Central contributed to this story under an ongoing energy collaboration. Read the original story from Gothamist here

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The Push To Turn NYC's Polluting Peaker Plants Into Publicly-Owned Solar Power

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A soccer game next to the Ravenswood Generating Station last Fall. CLARISA DIAZ, GOTHAMIST/WNYC By Clarisa Diaz (Gothamist). John Upton (Climate Central) contributed reporting. Looming over a playground in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Queens stands the enormous Ravenswood Generating Station, the 23rd largest power plant in the country.

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An airman assigned to the 557th Expeditionary RED HORSE drinks water while working on a construction site.
SENIOR AIRMAN DAMON KASBERG / U.S. AIR FORCE Listen to the Story Here Hear this story airing on 89.9 FM WJCT.
Diallo-Sekou Seabrooks was working a job as a concrete finisher last summer when he started feeling dizzy and lay down in the bed of a truck before heading home. The next day, the same thing happened.

In the muggy conditions that August afternoon, "it felt like 100 to me," said the 48-year old, who was still recovering from kidney surgery at the time. Weather records show it only reached 92, with high humidity giving that heat its extra punch.

Without talking to a doctor, Seabrooks resolved not to put himself in that situation again.

"That was it," he said. After working outdoors most of his life, Seabrooks left the construction industry. "I'm done."
Diallo-Sekou Seabrooks
CREDIT: ANGELA SEABROOKS
Seabrooks isn't alone - as muggy weather has descended upon Jacksonville, residents have been retreating indoors for refuge and avoiding exerting themselves outside. Even before the summer, Jacksonville's average temperature between Jan. 1 and April 30 was 65.1 degrees, the city's warmest start to the year since 1971, putting outdoor workers and other vulnerable groups at risk of heat stroke.

Some of those most at risk include the elderly, people with schizophrenia and other diseases that make it difficult to regulate body temperature, and those living in formerly 'redlined' neighborhoods - a 1930's segregationist practice by the federal government of rating neighborhoods, which research has linked to ongoing inequities, including more intense heat.

The Climate Change Threat

This particularly muggy summer fits with a broader trend - the combination of high levels of heat and humidity, which can be deadly, is getting worse in Florida and beyond.

'Humid heat' is another name given to an index for measuring heat that's important for human health - the wet bulb temperature. Like the heat index, wet bulb temperature measures how heat, moisture and other elements affect the body. If humidity levels get too high when temperature is also extreme, sweating becomes physiologically impossible, which can lead to deadly heat stroke.

Scientists at Columbia University, Loughborough University and NASA published a paper in May revealing the rapid pace with which extreme wet bulb temperatures have been worsening globally, concluding it won't be long before humans can no longer survive in some parts of the Middle East and South Asia.

In Florida, the frequency with which the muggiest days occurred each year was found to have increased by 75% over a 20-year period, adding to health risks in an already-muggy state.

NASA postdoctoral researcher Colin Raymond - one of two authors of the study, published in the journal ScienceAdvances - said one of the most surprising findings was the severity with which the combination of heat and humidity impacts coastal regions like Florida.

"It was always sort of assumed on some level that the lower temperatures along the coast and the higher humidity was sort of offset when it came to heat stress," said Raymond. "But just looking at the most extreme events in the last 40 years, there are certain coastline areas [like much of Florida] where that is not the case."

Cranking Up the Heat in the Sunshine State

For the ScienceAdvances study, the scientists used earth modeling to examine humid heat data from 1979 to 2017 around the world. Then, working with Climate Central analysts, the team calculated state-by-state changes in the Lower 48, analyzing the frequency of the most extreme wet bulb temperature days by U.S. location. They discovered humid heat in Florida - on the hottest and most humid day of every year - has become substantially more intense.

A professor of meteorology at Florida State University, Vasu Misra has been studying humid heat along Florida's coast. He said the findings are in line with other research, and work is under way to project future conditions as intensifying heat and humidity collide.

"It may come as somewhat of a surprise to some of us that in a coastal region like Florida, heat stress could still be a threat, because people think of sea breezes," Misra said. "But the humidity is so high that the body is unable to cool down."

A year after his brush with extreme heat, Seabrooks is working in real estate. But he also describes himself as an urban farmer, which means he still exerts himself outside. When he does, he said, he's working for himself and on his own terms.

An atmospheric and marine scientist at the University of Miami, Amy Clement suspects what people are experiencing may be even more extreme than what Raymond's study is suggesting, because of potential problems with weather station data across urban areas.

"This entire year in South Florida has been record-breaking in incredible ways, by a large margin. And that includes heat and humidity," Clement said, pointing to the effects of climate change caused by pollution from fossil fuels and other industrial activities.

"The issue of heat in Florida has been dismissed by experts for a long time," Clement said. "I think it's because they think that we're adapted to high heat. But two things - one, the study is arguing that there are limits to that adaptability, and two, we're adapted to high heat because of air conditioning."

The Injustice of Climate Change

Air conditioning isn't an affordable cost for many. With a poverty rate of 16%, tens of thousands of Jacksonville residents struggle to pay the bills. In recent years, homeless shelters like Sulzbacher have opened cooling stations to help desperate residents escape the heat.

Now COVID-19 precautions and regulations have forced shelters and businesses to modify the ways in which they operate. Chief Development Officer Eileen Briggs said Sulzbacher opened a second cooling center to help ensure social distancing and is screening residents' health before they can enter.

"It's had a huge impact," Briggs said. "We work with a population that congregate - they have to stand in line for meals, they live in group living situations where they don't have a private space of their own."

Experts say the pandemic underscores the importance of ensuring more equitable access to air conditioning, street trees, public transportation, and food - the types of things for which Jacksonville local and architectural designer Ashantae Green has pushed.

Green spends much of her time advocating for community-based solutions to hunger and food insecurity, and is running for a supervisor seat on Duval's soil and water district.
Ashantae Green in a community garden she manages.
CREDIT ANDREA BRYANT-SMITH
As WJCT News partner The Florida Times-Union reported in February, summertime temperatures in Jacksonville neighborhoods that were discriminated against under redlining policies roughly a century ago are nearly 10 degrees hotter than in tree-heavy, historic neighborhoods like Avondale, Ortega Terrace, Venetia, San Marco and Granada.

Based on race and ethnicity, banks declined to provide mortgages and other financing tools in redlined neighborhoods, meaning little could be spent maintaining or improving those areas. Green grew up in a redlined area on Jacksonville's Eastside and says people's having heat strokes, fainting, and getting dehydrated were all so commonplace that she didn't recognize the connections to climate change and racial disparities until recently.

"Although redlining was outlawed many, many years ago, the effects are still prevalent," Green said. "Especially when we're talking about climate issues and increased heat."
This story was produced through a partnership between Climate Central and WJCT News, from NPR member station WJCT in Jacksonville, Florida.
Read the original story at WJCT here, or listen to the radio broadcast here
Brendan Rivers can be reached at brivers@wjct.org, 904-358-6396 or on Twitter at @BrendanRivers.

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Warming Brings Muggier Weather to Jacksonville, Threatening Most Vulnerable

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An airman assigned to the 557th Expeditionary RED HORSE drinks water while working on a construction site. SENIOR AIRMAN DAMON KASBERG / U.S. AIR FORCE Listen to the Story Here Hear this story airing on 89.9 FM WJCT.

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This segment is part of The State of Science, a series featuring science stories from across the United States. This story by John Upton (Climate Central) and Clarisa Diaz (for Science Friday). Prospect Park goers find shade under trees. Credit: Clarisa Diaz
Taina was sitting with a friend in the shade cast by a large tree in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY on a Saturday afternoon in late July. Throughout the city, it was another scorching day for a population that had endured one of the world's deadliest COVID outbreaks just months earlier.

"The heat is way too unbearable to be doing anything else but sitting in the park in the shade and kind of just enjoying that fresh breeze and that shadow," said Taina, who asked Science Friday to use only her first name. "I live in Bushwick, and it takes me a while to get all the way across Brooklyn."
Brooklyn residents Taina and Cherise in Prospect Park. Credit: Clarisa Diaz
As pollution traps heat and pushes temperatures upward around the world, residents of its cities are experiencing the sharpest changes, with forests and other cooling landscapes replaced by pavement and other hard surfaces that absorb heat. But the heat is being felt unevenly, with the legacy of redlining and urban development keeping wealthier and whiter neighborhoods cooler than poorer and browner ones.

Luis Ortiz, a researcher at the New School's Urban Systems Lab, used data obtained by a satellite passing over New York City several days before Science Friday spoke with Taina. It showed Bushwick, which is a working class industrial area on Brooklyn's outskirts, in some places was more than 20°F warmer than Prospect Park and the tree-lined neighborhoods that surround it. The park is a nearly 600-acre behemoth of green space surrounded by a mixture of neighborhoods including the heavily gentrified Park Slope, where incomes and property prices are high.
Plantings on the perimeter of Prospect Park. Credit: Clarisa Diaz
Preliminary findings from survey-based research involving some of Ortiz's Urban Systems Lab colleagues indicate that park visitorship jumped this summer in New York City compared with before COVID triggered shutdowns. But not everybody could find luxuriant respite. The researchers also found that many New Yorkers didn't feel they could travel safely to a park during a pandemic, perhaps because parks near their homes are run-down or nonexistent and reaching larger ones require multiple bus trips.

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that New York City is home to 7 million trees overall. Such trees help counter the urban heat island effect, in which cities are warming more rapidly than surrounding countryside.

"We live in a pre-war building and it kind of traps the heat in during the summer months," Will, a seven-year resident of Brooklyn, told Science Friday as he worked on his laptop beneath a tree in Prospect Park. "If we can get out here, even when it's hot, it feels nice to be out in the breeze and near the trees and in the shade and everything."

Average nighttime temperatures are rising more quickly than those during the day, making it harder for people to cool off at night and recover. And a slew of scientific papers published this year have been confirming that low-income neighborhoods throughout the U.S. lack tree canopy cover and are consistently hotter than those that house wealthier neighbors nearby.

"As the day heats up, the buildings and the sidewalks absorb heat and store it," said David Nowak, a senior scientist at the U.S. Forest Service. In vegetated areas, by contrast, "trees are evaporating water and cooling the environment."

Heat is America's deadliest weather hazard, killing an estimated 12,000 every year. Seniors and those who can't afford air conditioning are among those most at risk. Hot nights can be particularly insidious, because they rob people of sleep and deprive their bodies the opportunity to recover from heat experienced the previous day.
Air temperature modeling showing Prospect Park is significantly cooler than surrounding areas on an average summer day. Credit: U.S. Forest Service New York City heat trend. Credit: Climate Central
This year, large parks have provided neighbors with an opportunity to escape the heat while observing social distancing guidelines, while smaller parks can hold fewer visitors and are more likely to cram those who do visit together.

"The heat island effect tends to be greatest just after sunset when the sun goes down," Nowak said. "The rural surface and natural surfaces tend to cool out faster than the urban surfaces. So you get the rural area cool off quicker than the urban area."
Entering the core woodlands of Prospect Park. Credit: Clarisa Diaz
After Nowak led efforts to model summertime air temperatures across the city more than a decade ago, clear differences could be seen following the contours of its parks, water bodies and other green spaces.

You can see these pockets of cooler surface air temperatures across New York City," Nowak said. "You get a huge cool island effect in the center of Staten Island. But also you can see pockets of cool around some of the bay areas. Also in Prospect Park, some other park areas such as Central Park, the surface temperatures tend to be cooler."
A typical plant palette for native woodland restoration in Prospect Park. Illustrations by Clarisa Diaz with information provided by Prospect Park Alliance
It's common for neighborhoods to be sharply divided in terms of the tree cover they contain, with those home to those with the lowest incomes faring the worst. These neighborhoods contain fewer trees and tend to be denser, allowing less air circulation. The problem is not unique to the U.S.-"This is a global phenomenon," said Chandana Mitra, an associate professor at Auburn University in Alabama who has studied such patterns around the world.

U.S. Forest Service research forester Morgan Grove helped pioneer research into the distribution of canopy cover and heat in Baltimore. He worked on a study published this year comparing tree cover in neighborhoods that were "redlined" a century ago by federal policies, depriving mortgages and curtailing investments from areas home to Blacks and immigrant communities.

The study examined 37 cities and Grove said wealthier neighborhoods had more than twice the amount of canopy cover than did the formerly redlined areas. "That was true regardless of the age of the cities, or in terms of the climate where the cities were throughout the United States," he said.
Archival map of Prospect Park in 1865. Credit: Brooklyn Public Library/Prospect Park Alliance
Reshaping an urban environment to usher in more greenery can be a challenging endeavor. With New York City built out and up over hundred of years into a remarkable metropolis, there aren't many places left here where big new parks could be plonked down. The good news? Grove and other experts said small clusters of trees spread out through a city offer advantages over large parks when it comes to cooling as many residents as possible.

In ongoing research that has been presented publicly by Grove's research partners but not peer reviewed or published, cooling benefits for surrounding neighborhoods were found to increase with the size of a park until it reached roughly the size of a football field, then the increase in benefits tapered off.

To translate it, it's better to have lots of small air conditioners throughout the city than big air conditioners," Grove said.

The finding didn't surprise other experts interviewed for this story. It suggests abandoned or redeveloped land wield vast potential to help New Yorkers adapt to climate change by helping cool down their neighborhoods. Retrofitting cities with more pocket parks and trees comes with substantial added maintenance costs in addition to up-front capital costs.

We have not come to terms with the real cost of what solutions for building resilience to climate change look like," said Timon McPhearson, director of the Urban Systems Lab at the New School in New York City. "The fact that nature is going to cost money to invest in should not be surprising to us."
John Jordan of Prospect Park Alliance inspects a native sugar maple. Credit: Clarisa Diaz
Individual trees in cities can cost thousands of dollars to purchase, plant and establish. A tree growing in a dense part of a city is harder and more expensive to keep alive than one growing in a forest within a sprawling park. Street trees can be particularly difficult to keep alive.

One of the most important things we can do is to plant trees to transform vacant lots into vegetated and small pocket parks, to take basically the availability of any space that's either being redesigned or reimagined or is still available, and make those spaces green," McPhearson said. "This is critical for climate resilience in low-income and minority neighborhoods."

One of the richest cities in the world, New York City is home to initiatives to increase tree cover in neighborhoods where it presently is sparse and expand parkland. Since 2007, its parks department says it has planted more than 500,000 native trees and shrubs where canopies had been lost, damaged or jeopardized by age. New trees are being planted where they can shade seating and walking areas.

Still, the inequity in tree coverage is a stubborn one, locked in place by urban planners of the past. And amid the pandemic, trees and parks are falling victim to municipal cost-cutting, even as fiercening summers and social distancing rules highlight their importance. New York City's parks department's budget this fiscal year was set at $503 million-$84 million down from last year, preventing it from hiring seasonal maintenance and operations staff.

A lack of tree coverage in a neighborhood jeopardizes more than physical wellbeing. It also contributes to stress and anxiety. "There is a booming body of literature on the benefits of green space exposure for both physical and mental health," said Alessandro Rigolon, an assistant professor in the University of Utah's city planning department.
Passing time under trees in Prospect Park. Credit: Clarisa Diaz
Yet the intended beneficiaries of new and improved parks can end up becoming their victims, leading to gentrification that displaces longtime residents from an area as it improves.

Rigolon said larger parks and open space projects, such as the revitalization of the Los Angeles River, tend to have particularly strong effects on gentrification. So, too, do parks built close to downtowns and linear parks like the Highline that can connect cyclists and pedestrians with different parts of a city. "We don't know about the gentrifying effects of pocket parks yet," he said.

Because of these gentrifying impacts from parks, Rigolon said that "when we do invest in those amenities," it's important to be "upfront in our efforts to do something about affordable housing, both in terms of maintaining existing affordable housing and building new."

Rigolon said the disparity between rich and poor areas can be even greater when talking about the number of trees than the number of acres of parkland, partly a legacy of nonprofit and volunteer groups prioritizing street tree plantings and maintenance in wealthier and whiter neighborhoods.

Environmental nonprofits were mostly helping those more affluent communities, because that's where the early environmentalists started from," Rigolon said. "The momentum movement is fortunately evolving, and it's evolved probably in the last 20 years to recognize issues of justice and equity."

To maximize the likelihood that trees planted in neighborhoods can survive and provide cooling and other benefits for years and decades ahead, Rigolon said neighbors should be involved in decision-making alongside environmental nonprofits that are thoughtful about issues of equity.

If it's top down from the city, it's harder to get buy-in from those communities," Rigolon said. "There's a distrust for public institutions among communities that have been the object of systematic racism for generations."

The Prospect Park Alliance, a nonprofit group that normally operates with an annual budget of $11 million (its estimated shortfall this year amid the pandemic is $3 million) has been improving the nearly 600-acre urban treasure since 1980s, following a decline in public spending that began during an economic crisis in the 1970s.
Core woodlands in Prospect Park. Credit: Clarisa Diaz
There was a lot of decline and neglect that happened in the city parks," said alliance spokeswoman Deborah Kirschner. "The budget levels never went back to whatever they had been previously, and a lot of the big parks in the city do have private nonprofits that help raise funds and employ staff and provide resources."

The alliance employs park workers and landscape architects, helps maintain the park's natural areas, works on forest restoration projects and runs volunteer and education programs, enriching the neighborhood with a sweeping escape from its hot and congested buildings and streets.

I think everyone deserves access to a park and access to have that moment of peace and tranquility away from the city, the noise, the hustle and bustle, and just being around green," said Liz, who was enjoying a picnic under a tree in Prospect Park on the hot summer day. "It's like a natural antidepressant."
This story and radio segment were produced through a partnership between Science Friday and Climate Central, a nonadvocacy science and news group, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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NYC's Trees: A Natural Defense Against Heat, But Not Equally Shared

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This segment is part of The State of Science, a series featuring science stories from across the United States. This story by John Upton (Climate Central) and Clarisa Diaz (for Science Friday). Prospect Park goers find shade under trees.

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Down Bottom Farms, an urban farm operated by the Ironbound Community Corporation in Newark's Ironbound neighborhood. September 21, 2020. (Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Where Newark is a desert of concrete and asphalt, Down Bottom Farms is an oasis of life.

Once a vacant lot, the urban farm now serves as a space for residents of the city's historic Ironbound neighborhood to connect with their food and community. But nourishing the plants at Down Bottom Farms takes work, and that effort can be downright brutal in the summer heat, especially on a patch of land lacking the shade of trees.

"Oh my god, it's unbearable," Chris Rodriguez, an activist who manages Down Bottom Farms, said of the heat. Her crew of local youth often rises early so they can quit working by noon.

"After that it gets too hot and we can't work here," Rodriguez said.

New Jersey just experienced its second-hottest summer on record, yet another sign of how climate change has intensified temperatures across the Garden State. But people in urban areas - which tend to lack greenery to break up the concrete landscapes - are more regularly exposed to dangerous heat than folks in suburban and rural areas.

For Rodriguez and others working on Down Bottom Farms, working in such weather can pose serious health risks. For the low-income elderly residents living nearby, the heat can be a life-or-death hazard.

Looking back on the steamy summer, NJ Advance Media and Climate Central - a news and research group based in Princeton - examined how decades-old and inherently racist policies made some urban areas as much as 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding suburbs.

Deadlier heat waves coming

Decades of burning fossil fuels have increased the amount of heat-trapping gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, in the Earth's atmosphere. This has caused average temperatures around the planet to steadily rise, and New Jersey is no exception.

The state's daily average temperature in the months of June, July and August was 75.3 degrees Fahrenheit - making it the second hottest summer ever recorded in the Garden State, according to the Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist.

This is not new. The Garden State's average annual temperature has already increased 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895, according to a report released by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in June. By 2050, that increase could double.

The rising heat could mean thousands of deaths in New Jersey, according to new research led by Drew Shindell of Duke University. Shindell found that excessive heat already kills around 12,000 Americans annually - about as many as gun homicides - with that number projected to increase rapidly if climate change is unabated.

In New Jersey, Shindell's estimate equates to 445 deaths a year now, rising to 3,560 a year at the end of the century, if nothing is done to slow climate change.

Climate change is expected to increase the annual number of heat-related deaths in New Jersey. Graphic by Climate Central

Down on the farm

The Ironbound site of Down Bottom Farms, at the corner of Ferry and St. Charles Streets, is surrounded by a largely working-class immigrant population. It's an area Rodriguez describes as "forgotten" because it's not picturesque, and lacks the iconic restaurants of the stretch of Ferry Street just to the west.

The neighborhood is packed with black-top and concrete, transitioning from residential to industrial. Trees, or any greenery for that matter, are hard to find. That environment amplifies the area's temperature, often contributing to sweltering heat in the summer.

The problem, called the urban heat island effect, was documented in New Jersey cities 15 years ago by Greg Pope, now Department Chair of Earth and Environmental Studies at Montclair State University.

"It mainly has to do with the lack of vegetation," Pope said. "What happens with an urban heat island, the urban surfaces, like pavement, cement and brick, and rooftops, they do a better job of absorbing heat during the day and then releasing it at night."

The problem extends throughout the neighborhood, according to Rodriguez, who grew up nearby at the Newark Housing Authority's Hyatt Court complex and lives in the Ironbound today. She said the heat difference is noticeable even within the city, pointing out that leafy Branch Brook Park and surrounding areas in the North Ward typically feel cooler than her part of the city.

"Here we don't have that, so it gets unbearably hot," Rodriguez said. "You're sweating, probably, walking a couple of feet."

Recent research links the Ironbound's problem to historically racist urban planning measures.

In the 1930s and '40s, federal housing officials published maps showing where banks should make loans, starting the process of "redlining" neighborhoods with predominantly Black and immigrant populations, said Jeremy Hoffman of the Science Museum of Virginia. Those neighborhoods ended up with fewer trees, more pavement, and less public investment.

Essex County was one of the places mapped, and the Ironbound became one of those redlined neighborhoods. The area was described by federal officials in 1939 as a slum, and categorized as hazardous.

Over the decades, residents of redlined areas - denied the opportunity of home ownership - could not gain the economic and political power to improve their surroundings, Hoffman said. Often, local governments instead focused amenities on "better" neighborhoods with single-family houses.

"It's really an 80-year story of denying the ability to gain generational wealth," Hoffman said.

His team of researchers paired redlining maps of 108 American communities - including Atlantic City, Camden, Trenton and parts of North Jersey in the greater New York City area - with maps showing where summer heat hits hardest today. The connection was unmistakable, with redlined neighborhoods an average of almost four degrees hotter on average, and in some cases 17 degrees hotter, even in the same city.

Hoffman said decades of disinvestment and discriminatory planning left minority neighborhoods sweltering while wealthier areas cooled with parks, grass and shady trees.

"Even without climate change, these areas of our cities would already be warmer," Hoffman said.

Those who suffer most

Nationally, over 80% of heat deaths are people over 60.

Cities across the country have been working to keep senior citizens safe during heat waves by opening cooling centers (trickier to operate during a pandemic), distributing free air conditioners and even by dispatching teams of nurses to check on them. Poverty is the biggest challenge.

Clinton Andrews, director of the Rutgers University Center for Green Building, said that seniors in low-income areas may not be able to afford to run their air conditioners.

"People should know that heat deaths are also deaths of isolation, and when the weather gets very warm, everyone should reach out to older and more vulnerable people," said Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University.

Andrews' research team at Rutgers placed heat sensors in 24 senior apartments in public housing complexes in Elizabeth, just south of Newark, to learn how housing quality and elder behavior would affect their safety. The 2017 research was published this year.

The team chose to study Elizabeth because it suffers from a severe urban heat island effect and some of the state's worst air quality, thanks to the nearby port, Newark Liberty International Airport, Bayway refinery and the New Jersey Turnpike.

"It's a place where the trade-offs and the health threats are pretty constant and severe," Andrews said. "You want to open the window to cool off, and the air isn't very good out there."

Elizabeth's hot neighborhoods also reflect past racial redlining, according to research by Groundwork Elizabeth, a community non-profit, which worked with NASA scientists. They published a website that overlays the old redline maps with the heat affecting the city today, helping to highlight stubborn injustices.

The Rutgers study found that modern buildings with central air conditioning were safer for seniors. More surprisingly, older buildings designed with cross ventilation and outdoor shade worked well, too. And seniors with pets were among those who handled the heat best.

Andrews said pets help because they get seniors outdoors more, walking their dogs and meeting people, and visiting shady parks.

The Rutgers study found that modern buildings with central air conditioning were safer for seniors. More surprisingly, older buildings designed with cross ventilation and outdoor shade worked well, too. And seniors with pets were among those who handled the heat best.

Andrews said pets help because they get seniors outdoors more, walking their dogs and meeting people, and visiting shady parks.

"If it's not a dog, then they have families who live nearby who come and take them to the mall or do something like that," Andrews said. "There is a fair amount of sociability among the residents, more so in the sites that have good common areas."

Green space and other solutions

Back in Newark, Down Bottom Farms brings life to the area, serving to educate youth about nurturing plants and offering a space that hosts farmers markets and community events.

"It's more of a community space than anything, because we don't have that. We don't have that in this neighborhood," Rodriguez said. "We don't have a space where we can just go all come together in one area and have fun."

Pope, from Montclair State, said turning an empty lot into a green space, like Down Bottom Farms, can even reduce energy costs for surrounding residents. The cooling effect of the greenery spills over to nearby buildings, so they don't need to run the air conditioner as much.

But the heat still lingers at the farm, which offers little shade beyond a handful of trees at one edge of the property. Rodriguez said loads of wood chips spread on the lot has helped cool things a little, but that only helps so much.

Down Bottom Farms, an urban farm operated by the Ironbound Community Corporation in Newark's Ironbound neighborhood. September 21, 2020. (Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Rodriguez wonders how much the city cares about the lack of trees in her part of the Ironbound. She noted an abandoned building on a small plot at 520-526 Ferry Street, and said ICC and community members lobbied to have the property turned into a small park with a few trees. Instead, the city allowed a plan to redevelop the lot into a four-story apartment building to move forward, according to a JerseyDigs report.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, speaking to NJ Advance Media at an unrelated event, said the city understands the importance of green space and tree cover in fighting the heat. He noted an effort to construct more "pocket parks" in Newark, where possible.

"It's hard to do it in the Ironbound, because it's so dense and there's not really a lot of space to do that," Baraka said. "So what we have to do is try to plant more trees down here."

Nathaly Agosto Filión, Newark's Chief Sustainability Officer, said the city is exploring a number of ways to deal with rising temperatures. That includes finding new surfaces for turf playing fields that stay cooler, and replicating a program in New York City that has given away thousands of free air conditioners to low-income elderly residents this summer.

Agosto Filión said the city's strategy for planting more trees focuses on streets where the city owns the right-of-way. One issue the city has seen, she said, is that developers sometimes plant trees but then fail to care for them. To combat this, she said the city is considering adopting rules that would require any developer that plants a tree on the street to care for it for at least the first year.

But, Agosto Filión warned, there's only so much the city can do on its own in the face of climate change.

Research shows that heating caused by climate change could make today's hottest summers seem relatively mild in years to come, as Baby Boomers become the next generation of vulnerable seniors. Without global efforts to counter the threat, local solutions such as street trees may not be enough.

"We're really trying to do what we can at the local level, but at the end of the day this fight has to be more than that," Agosto Filión said.
This story was produced through a partnership between Climate Central, a non-advocacy research and news group based in Princeton, and NJ Advance Media.
Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com.

Charles Wohlforth may be reached at charleswohlforth@gmail.com.

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Down Bottom Farms, an urban farm operated by the Ironbound Community Corporation in Newark's Ironbound neighborhood. September 21, 2020. (Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Where Newark is a desert of concrete and asphalt, Down Bottom Farms is an oasis of life.

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