Assessing and Reversing Environmental Injustice in New York City

Danielle Muoio Dunn checks in with an environmental justice effort that launched in New York City just before the onset of the stay-at-home orders and shutdowns of the early pandemic.

Backing up the beginning, Mayor Bill de Blasio hired Adriana Espinoza at the beginning of 2020 to lead New York City’s first environmental justice study. A few weeks later, Covid-19 would give the study a whole new meaning, according to Dunn.

Communities of color that have long lived in the shadow of power plants, highways and waste transfer stations were among the hardest hit by the pandemic. Black and Latino residents have had significantly higher death rates than their white counterparts — often due to higher rates of preexisting respiratory conditions that trace their root, in part, to living in highly polluted areas of the city.

Dunn reports that the report will be released within months. Along the pandemic way, Espinoza says the work took on "newfound urgency to not only expose the environmental injustices that exist throughout New York, but [also to] create new standards for the government agencies she works with to undo them."

The source article also discusses examples of other jurisdictions around the country working to account for the effects of environmental injustice. The federal government has its own effort. "The Biden administration has similarly increased its focus on environmental justice communities through the Justice40 initiative — a program meant to ensure at least 40 percent of federal investments in climate and clean energy go to disadvantaged communities," writes Dunn.