Brooklyn train station inundated with dust from Canarsie Tunnel construction

 

NY Post


“I want to get the f–k out of here,” said Aaron Burnett, 37, who left the station after seeing how bad the dust was. “They need to shut the train completely down. That’s what they said they were going to do anyway. If it’s going to cause health problems, they should close it!”

MTA board members — who are still waiting for an independent consultant on the project to be hired — say they will demand that the agency tell them what is in the dust at the station.

“Is this what riders have to look forward to for 20 months?” said Andrew Albert, an MTA board member who heads the New York City Transit Riders Council. “This is just the beginning.”

An MTA spokesman said in a statement that the platform is safe for all riders. 

 Why does that statement eerily resemble former EPA commissioner Christie Todd Whitman's reassurance that the air quality was safe to breathe at Ground Zero in 2001.

Big Allis a big polluter

From the Queens Tribune:

The Environment New York Research & Policy Center released a report last week indicating that the TC Ravenswood Power Plant in Long Island City is the State’s most significant carbon polluter.

According to the center, Ravenswood produces about 2.3 million metric tons in emissions, which is the equivalent of about 500,000 cars.

These statistics were collected from U.S. Dept. of Energy 2012 emissions data. Ravenswood generating station is a 2,480 megawatt with the capacity to service 21 percent of the City’s peak energy load.

Rose Marie Poveromo sits on the Community Board 1 environmental committee. In response to the ENYRPC report, she said, “I believe it.”

The plant, known colloquially as Big Allis, has sparked moderate concern from residents throughout the years regarding noise, water and air pollution.

“All [power plants] have to become clean and green,” Poveromo said. “We who live in the communities [are] suffering from air pollution and noise pollution.”

Dorothy Morehead, vice chair of the Newtown Creek Alliance and chair of the environmental committee for Community Board 2, which neighbors the plant, said “emissions from power plants has long been a concern.”

A TransCanada representative disputed the findings of the report.

“Their conclusion is based on estimated data, not actual data. Based on real data supplied to the regulator, our CO2 emitting rates at the Ravenswood Generating Station are significantly lower than what the report claims,” the spokesperson said.

Take a deep breath

From Metro:

The city’s air quality has reached the cleanest levels in more than 50 years through efforts that will save the lives of some 800 New Yorkers annually, officials announced Thursday.

“New York has the cleanest air now of any major American city,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

In the last five years, the levels of sulfur dioxide—which can cause difficulty breathing, death and contribute to acid rain production—decreased by 69 percent, according to a study conducted by the city. Soot pollution has dropped 23 percent since 2007.

Phasing out the most toxic heating oils as part of the Bloomberg administration’s PlaNYC initiative is the largest contributor to the reductions, officials said.

Through the Clean Heat program, more than 2,700 of the most heavily-polluting buildings converted to cleaner fuels since 2011, though regulations only require they do so by 2030.

“All of the people in this city have gotten together and, whether they really thought about it or not, collectively they’ve made a real difference in the stuff we’re putting in the air,” Bloomberg said.

Expanding the regional gas supply and local distribution as well as state emission regulations have also contributed to cleaner air quality.

Officials said these efforts were the biggest step in saving lives in the city since banning smoking in bars and restaurants a decade ago. Since 2008, there’s been about 25 percent less pollution-related deaths, hospital and emergency room visits, Bloomberg said.

City reopened Zone A school prematurely?

We're breathing this stuff in

From the Daily News:

Big Apple air is a bizarre brew of bacteria, pollen, clothing fiber, fungus, tire rubber, dead skin cells, cooking fat and carbon emissions.

The truth of exactly what New Yorkers breathe comes courtesy of air expert Bill Logan, who grabbed a “spore sucker” of his own design and joined the Daily News for a tour of the city.

The results might surprise you.

Yes, there’s the expected pollution in midtown and the South Bronx, and neighborhoods with lots of trees tend to have pollen and fungus in the air. But each breath you take — about 33,000 a day — also might include spores, bacteria, pollens, tiny bits of glass, starch and fat.

Queens’ famous diversity is mirrored by its air: Samples taked at 94th St. near 23d Ave. in East Elmhurst turned up a huge array of rust spores, a fungus. They could have come from grass, a nearby pine tree, or “something succulent and living,” Logan said.

Tiny bits of colorful glass, maybe from airplanes taking off or landing at nearby LaGuardia Airport, also appeared on Logan’s slides — and Elmhurst had its fair amount of carbon, tire rubber, starch and even teeny bits of insect exoskeleton.

NYPD doesn't enforce idling law

From CBS New York:

Engine exhaust from cars, trucks and buses has been linked to cancer, strokes and New York City’s high rate of childhood asthma.

The city has tough laws to prevent drivers who sit with their vehicles running, but, as CBS2′s Don Dahler has seen, some say it’s no more than an idle threat, because it’s rarely enforced.

When school lets out, scenes of drivers, parked and idling as they wait to take kids home, are playing out all over the city.

Mocker calls out Bloomberg for caring more about tourists than Queensfolk

Mocker went to a press conference recently that the Mayor, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and get this - former president Bill Clinton - held in order to brag about how much air quality has improved in Times Square with the installation of the pedestrian plaza there. (Pretty bogus since the pollution didn't disappear, it just was diverted to other streets.) Then Mocker compared that initiative to how Bloomberg has ignored the 5-year plea for parkland in Maspeth. The City is about to dump yet another bus depot on the community, but continues to stall in converting the St. Saviour's site into a park, even though the elected officials have had the money raised for its acquisition for just about a year. Apparently, Bloomie and company would rather make nice with the owner than start the acquisition process. Forget PlaNYC 2030...Developers and tourists rule!

Ozone concentrations in the city

From the Times Ledger:

It has long been established that thousands of cars and trucks create major pollution along New York City’s boulevards and highways, but it turns out that even quieter places like parts of Queens endure a dangerous, smog-like ozone.

The city Department of Health completed a study of summer air conditions throughout the city and the agency found that ozone concentrations were highest in downwind outerborough locations, such as the Rockaways and lower Staten Island.

Ozone results from chemical reactions among other pollutants such as nitrogen oxide in the presence of sunlight.

But in a curious finding, the report said the same pollutants that cause ozone can also remove it from the air, which means high traffic centers such as midtown Manhattan with heavy emissions often have less ozone than downwind areas.

Ozone pollution, which the department said can aggravate asthma, was also detected in Howard Beach, Broad Channel, parts of Jamaica and St. Albans, College Point and Douglaston.

The report, conducted last summer, said any city neighborhood adjacent to busy highways was a major air pollution area.

The report said another solution to reducing harmful emissions is to expand mass transit options to help achieve the clean air goals set out in PlaNYC in 2007 to improve the city’s air quality. The results of the city Community Air Survey are part of PlaNYC and involve sampling the air at 150 street-level locations in every season.

Cleaner air for northwestern Queens?

From the Daily News:

Northwestern Queens may soon breathe a bit easier.

The fact that the region bears the burden of five power plants remains a sore point for locals, but many of the 1960s-built plants may be getting makeovers in the form of more modern, greener technology.

One such plant is a 600-megawatt site on the East River in Astoria owned by NRG Energy. Company officials have received most of the permits needed to begin a $1.5 billion repowering project.

Repowering entails replacing vintage steam turbines with newer, more efficient "combined-cycle" turbines, which recycle the waste heat that older units release into the atmosphere.

"The problem is our turbines are 40 years old," said Lee Davis, vice president of NRG. "We bought these older plants with the intent of repowering."

If NRG secures the necessary funding, it will replace 31 old turbines with four combined-cycle units. The new turbines will reduce emissions by more than 75% annually, Davis said. It will also increase generating capacity by more than 400 megawatts.

Of the five plants in the region, three are still using vintage turbines. In January, New York Power Authority closed the Charles Poletti Power Project - a move that locals hailed as a major victory.

Nabes most screwed by truck traffic

From the Times Ledger:

From December 2008 to March 2009, the city tested every city neighborhood for four air pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, elemental carbon and fine particle PM2.5, which Health Department Director of Environmental Research Thomas Matte said “has the strongest connection to public health.”

Elemental carbon, PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide are primarily released into the air by vehicles, Matte said. Sulfur dioxide is more of an industrial-based chemical compound. Elemental carbon is often caused by truck traffic, he said.

Matte said air pollution in most Queens neighborhoods was most influenced by whether those communities had heavy traffic and large buildings.

Sunnyside and Woodside had the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide, elemental carbon and fine particle PM2.5, whereas Elmhurst and South Corona were most polluted by sulfur dioxide. Other western Queens neighborhoods that ranked higher on each list were Long Island City, Astoria, Jackson Heights, North Corona, Ridgewood, Glendale and Maspeth.

Bayside, Douglaston and Little Neck had lower levels of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, but the northeast Queens neighborhoods ranked in the middle for elemental carbon and PM2.5.

Most South Queens neighborhoods had cleaner air. Queens Village and Rosedale had the least amount of sulfur dioxide, but Jamaica, St. Albans and Hollis had higher levels of nitrogen dioxide.

The Rockaways and Broad Channel had the cleanest air in all categories.

“Air pollution is a problem in New York City that is difficult to break down to specific neighborhoods — there’s a lot of overlap,” Matte said.

Queens 1 of top 3 dirtiest counties in NYS

From NY1:

The American Lung Association finds that the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan are the dirtiest counties in the state when it comes to particle pollution.

According to their 10th annual State of the Air report, 65 percent of New York State residents live in counties where air pollution levels endanger lives.

The report acknowledges substantial progress against air pollution in many parts of the country, but not in most major cities.

The New York metropolitan area ranks 17th on the list of most polluted cities by ozone, 16th worst on the list of U.S. cities polluted by short-term particle pollution, 22nd on the list of cities most polluted by year-round particle pollution.

City officials have not yet commented on the report.

Photo from Gothamist