The PEAK Coalition – composed of New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, UPROSE, The Point, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and Clean Energy Group – recently released a report that details the full economic and environmental costs of the city's peaker plants. The report, Dirty Energy, Big Money, found that some $4.5 billion in ratepayer money has gone to support New York City's dirty, inefficient fleet of peaker plants over the past decade. Those plants are a significant source of urban emissions, accounting for more than 10% of nitrogen oxide emissions on high-ozone days when air pollution is at its worst.
The Drive to Replace Summer-Only ‘Peaker’ Power Plants
The new report, entitled “Dirty Energy, Big Money,” was published by the PEAK Coalition, which consists of New York City environmental justice groups NYC-EJA, UPROSE, and The Point CDC, as well as New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and Clean Energy Group. Their analysis found that about 85 percent of the last decade’s peak electricity payments were funneled to three private, out-of-state firms—a Boston hedge fund, a Houston fossil-fuel generation company, and a New Jersey private equity firm—that own a large share of the oldest New York City peaker plants. These polluting plants are located in low-income neighborhoods of color, such as Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, a predominantly Chinese and Latino neighborhood, and the South Bronx, the country’s poorest congressional district and a predominantly black and brown neighborhood.
These dirty power plants cost billions and only operate in summer. Can they be replaced?
The new report, entitled “Dirty Energy, Big Money,” was published by the PEAK Coalition, which consists of New York City environmental justice groups NYC-EJA, UPROSE, and The Point CDC, as well as New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and Clean Energy Group. Their analysis found that about 85 percent of the last decade’s peak electricity payments were funneled to three private, out-of-state firms — a Boston hedge fund, a Houston fossil fuel generation company, and a New Jersey private equity firm — that own a large share of the oldest New York City peaker plants. These polluting plants are located in low-income neighborhoods of color, such as Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, a predominantly Chinese and Latino neighborhood, and the South Bronx, the country’s poorest congressional district and a predominantly black and brown neighborhood.
East Side delayed
A new coalition of environmental justice groups called the “PEAK coalition” including the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, UPROSE, The Point, and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest has formed. Their report tallies up capacity revenues for peaker plants located predominantly in low-income or minority communities, including those owned by NYPA. They’re focused on ensuring replacements, which will be driven for the oldest plants by DEC’s NOx regulations, are renewables and storage.
Von Punk zu Puppenstube
Nicht nur Adam Rome beklagt, wie der Earth Day heute begangen wird. Für Elizabeth Yeampierre, eine puerto-ricanische Anwältin und die Chefin der Nachbarschaftsorganisation "Uprose" in Brooklyn, ist der Earth Day nur ein Abschnitt einer langen Geschichte von ökologischer Ungerechtigkeit.
"Für uns geht es nicht um die vergangenen 50 Jahre beim Earth Day, es geht um 500 Jahre Ausbeutung, 500 Jahre seit dem Beginn von Sklaverei und Kolonialismus", sagt sie. "Unsere Gemeinschaften haben in diesen 500 Jahren all das überlebt – und jetzt erleben wir die Konsequenzen dieser 500 Jahre."
La historia oculta del Día de la Tierra: de sus raíces radicales a las aulas de primaria
No es solo Rome el que ve una cierta miopía en la forma en que celebramos el Día de la Tierra hoy. Para Elizabeth Yeampierre, abogada puertorriqueña y directora ejecutiva de la organización comunitaria UPROSE, con sede en Brooklyn, el Día de la Tierra es simplemente un marcador en una larga historia global de injusticia ambiental.
"Cuando hablas del Día de la Tierra, para nosotros no son 50 años, son 500 años de extracción, son 500 años desde la esclavitud, desde el colonialismo", dice ella. “Y en esos 500 años, nuestras comunidades han logrado sobrevivir a todo. Ahora nos enfrentamos a las consecuencias de esos 500 años ".
How Earth Day Lost Its Way
It’s not just Rome who sees a short-sightedness in the way we mark Earth Day today. For Elizabeth Yeampierre, a Puerto Rican attorney and the executive director of Brooklyn-based community organization UPROSE, Earth Day is merely one marker in a long global history of environmental injustice.
“When you talk about Earth Day, for us, it’s not 50 years, it’s 500 years of extraction, it’s 500 years since slavery, since colonialism,” she says. “And in those 500 years, our communities have managed to survive all of it. Now we are faced with the consequences of those 500 years.”
The History of Earth Day: From Radical Roots to Elementary School Classrooms
It’s not just Rome who sees a short-sightedness in the way we mark Earth Day today. For Elizabeth Yeampierre, a Puerto Rican attorney and the executive director of Brooklyn-based community organization
UPROSE, Earth Day is merely one marker in a long global history of environmental injustice.
Borough President Approves Industry City’s Up-zoning Request, With Conditions
He cites UPROSE, a Latino community organization that has been protesting Industry City’s rezoning request, in his call for the city to complete the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, a 26-mile waterfront bike path that is not yet complete in Sunset Park.
To address the displacement concerns of Sunset Park residents and housing advocates, Borough President Adams turned to New York City’s housing bureaucracies and called on the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to set aside dedicated funding for affordable housing and to increase funding for tenant advocacy and counseling organizations. Many of these groups oppose Industry City’s rezoning application.
The End of the Corporation
The Sunset Park Solar project in New York City is the kind of initiative a Green New Deal could finance across the US. UPROSE, a Latinx organization, partnered with the state agency NYC Economic Development Corporation and others to install community-owned solar power on the Brooklyn Army Terminal. It will provide 200 low-income residents with electricity that is less expensive and more resilient in the face of climate-related grid disruption.
Gentrification vs. Sustainable Neighborhood Development in Sunset Park, Brooklyn
UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latinx community-based organization, has a radically different idea for Sunset Park, one that merges climate justice with industrial development. UPROSE focuses on designating Sunset Park’s waterfront as a “Green Resilient Industrial District” (GRID) offering an alternative rezoning plan with four main goals: preserving the industrial character of Sunset Park’s waterfront, retaining and creating well-paid working class jobs, supporting green industrial innovation, and promoting climate resiliency and a just transition through a circular industrial economy. Under the GRID plan, UPROSE seeks to take back the industrial waterfront—which is currently the largest employer in Sunset Park—and develop it to be more sustainable, while using the transition to environmental sustainability to promote job growth. For example, plans already exist to construct a 385 kilowatt community solar cooperative system on the roof of the Brooklyn Army Terminal, which would provide many job opportunities to residents in the construction of the project.
Only the GRID plan truly adapts the waterfront to the 21st-century risks of climate change; there is no language in the Industry City rezoning plan about climate change resiliency, mitigation or adaptation techniques. Only the GRID plan offers opportunities for those who actually live in Sunset Park to benefit from the transition to green energy and sustainability practices. Only the GRID plan offers a future for Sunset Park that allows the residents who currently live there to stay.
Activists Shut Down Brooklyn Borough President’s Hearing on Industry City Rezoning
Lourdes Perez, the Programs Coordinator at UPROSE, a Brooklyn-based Latino advocacy organization, said she’s also worried about climate impact and climate-disaster readiness in Sunset Park. She pointed to UPROSE’s counter-proposal for Industry City, the Green Resilient Industrial District (GRID), as an acceptable alternative to Industry City’s current plans for expansion.
Field Notes from Climate Justice Activists at the U.N. Climate Conference (COP25)
“It’s heartbreaking how they have commodified nature — the land, water, and air that is necessary to sustain life, and that should be accessible to all life forms.”
— Nyiesha Mallett, UPROSE
Nyiesha Mallett (Uprose, Brooklyn): COP is a space where bad business negotiations between irresponsible and powerful people take place. The people on the frontlines with the solutions are set to the side to sit on panels and preach to the choir when they should be at the table with the decision-makers.
Nyiesha: My COP25 experience was one I didn’t recognize I needed. I went to Spain as an 18-year-old, young, Black woman not knowing what COP was or what to expect. I came out with a brand-new perspective, experience, and purpose. Now that I’m back, I can’t help but wonder what that experience would have looked like in Chile, as the Chilean people are really stepping up and taking a stance against neoliberalism.
It was so powerful to see how Indigenous people showed up in the space. Indigenous people’s voices from across the globe were lifted. They showed up and demanded to be heard. I’m grateful that alternative spaces, such as the Cumbre and the Artspace were created. They provided a space where the real solutions could be discussed amongst the people who created them.
The best part of this trip was that I had the opportunity to connect with It Takes Roots members, activists, and youth from all over. It was an opportunity for us to sit together and share our stories and the work we do. Storytelling and gathering is important in the work that we do because it is a cultural practice. We have so much to teach each other, and the connections made on this trip created lanes so that knowledge can be shared. My future and the future of my family and friends should not be thrown to the side or taken for a joke. The best people to implement the solutions are Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color across the world who are being affected. We need to hold those in power accountable for the lives they are stealing.
Sunset Park’s future debated at Industry City rezoning hearing
Amid the back and forth members of Protect Sunset Park, a grassroots group that staunchly opposes the rezoning, held up posters scrawled with “rezoning = real estate speculation” and “climate jobs.” The latter is a nod to an 88-page plan put forward by Uprose that calls for the creation of the Green Resilient Industrial District (GRID). The plan seeks to preserve the industrial and maritime character of the neighborhood and foster the creation and retention of well-paying blue-collar jobs with supportive training. It also looks to support green industrial innovation and to promote climate resiliency.
“What Industry City is doing in Sunset Park has been done all over the city; the city’s invaluable industrial manufacturing spaces have become sacrificial for developers greed,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, the executive director of Uprose. “If Industry City wants to develop and make a profit in Sunset Park they need to follow the community led vision.”
Housing Activists vs Unions: Sunset Park Community Continues to Fight Over Industry City Rezoning
Industry city’s proposal threatens the working class character, affordability and social cohesion of the Sunset Park community. If Industry City wants to develop in Sunset Park, they must do so in context,” said UPROSE Executive Director Yeampierre. “They must amend their proposal to include the recommendations of the Green Resilient Industrial District (GRID) that are based on existing community based plans, years of engagement, organizing and community planning.”
Sunset Park Community Divided on Industry City’s Rezoning at Public Hearing
Others didn’t see any benefit in what Industry City was offering. The rezoning proposal “threatens the working-class character, affordability and social cohesion of the Sunset Park community,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, the Executive Director of local activist group UPROSE. “If Industry City wants to develop in Sunset Park they must do so in context.” She recommended the proposal be amended and that Industry City officials work with local residents on a revised version, called the GRID proposal (Green Resilient Industrial District), which they have already drafted and will address environmental concerns in the area.
Industry City Moves Forward With Massive Rezoning Plan: 'They Want It Their Way Or The Highway'
Unlike Atlantic Yards—now the site of the Barclays Center—which marshaled strong support from Bill de Blasio, then a local city council member, former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and several prominent community groups, Industry City’s rezoning lacks the same high profile and vocal backing. With local organizations like UPROSE, once a Menchaca ally, already mobilizing against the rezoning, lining up signatories may be harder, though not impossible.
Confronting climate change will mean changing society, Elizabeth Yeampierre argues in Rose Sheinberg Lecture
The groups most exposed to the risks of climate change must have a leading role in the effort to contain—and survive—global warming, argued Elizabeth Yeampierre in the annual Rose Sheinberg Lecture on October 3. For more than 23 years, Yeampierre has led Brooklyn’s UPROSE, a Latino community-based organization focused on sustainability, and she is co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, a network that seeks environmental justice and equitable economic change. She was introduced by Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
MENCHACA’S FINEST HOUR DIDN’T GO WELL
Some Sunset Park residents support the Industry City plan because it would create new jobs, and others, fearing gentrification, vehemently oppose it. Both sides showed up for Menchaca’s event, and in the end, his gesture toward compromise likely satisfied neither. But the resisters – including community groups like UPROSE and Protect Sunset Park and leftist activists from the South Brooklyn DSA – bore a superior fury, and their unconditional stance against the rezoning shut down Menchaca’s night. After he left, they took the microphone and, in an energetic display of popular democracy, continued to occupy the room, even after security tried to turn off the lights.
Friction Over Sunset Park Proposal Reflects Deeper Worries About Industrial Land
He had an opportunity to set precedent to send a message across the bow that developers can’t continue to engage in this way in the face of climate change and certainly not in an industrial sector. He had all the opportunities in the world,” said Uprose executive director Elizabeth Yeampierre. Uprose is a nonprofit focuses on promoting sustainability and resiliency in citywide policy for Sunset Park.