Like the world's developing countries, poor communities [here] are faced with difficult choices about their futures and ask themselves what price they must pay for progress. Is a job more important than the quality of the air their children will have to breathe?
In this battle, the protection of the environment and the quality of life always lose, and the hot potato is passed on down the line to future generations.
The residents of a neighborhood in El Barrio find themselves on the horns of such a dilemma.
The imminent inauguration of the massive East River Plaza commercial mall still under construction, at 116th Street and the FDR Drive – it is slated to open next November – brings closer than ever a transformation that can affect the health and well-being of thousands of people.
The project is a fact. Its merits and benefits have been discussed for over a decade. But now one of the mall's tenants, the Costco chain of gigantic big-box stores, is soliciting an amendment to a license agreement, which would allow them to unload their delivery trucks between midnight and five in the morning.
According to the store, Costco will be open to the public between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., which would prevent it from keeping up its inventory, since this cannot be done with the public present.
This means that every night about 15 enormous trailer trucks would move between Third and Pleasant Avenues maybe 30 times, making the windows shake and spewing toxins into the air, as people attempt to sleep.
I am one of those people, and I'm already losing sleep. Sleeping during the day will not be an option, since the other East River Plaza stores, Best Buy, Target and Marshall among others, will be taking their deliveries throughout the day. So, what awaits us is 24 hours of traffic, noise and contaminated air.
Currently, East Harlem has the highest rate of childhood asthma in the city. The impending situation augurs nothing good in regard to these statistics.
The mall's administrators are thinking of offering to replace the windows and even install air conditioning units in the buildings adjacent to the loading zone. Those of us who live to the west of First Avenue, we will have to take recourse to sleeping pills and ear plugs.
I have realized, based on past experiences with noise, garbage and air contamination problems, that almost no one takes seriously complaints about the quality of life. They consider them frivolous and secondary.
But these are very serious problems. Constant noise and sleep deprivation affect our health and can even cause death – that is why they are used as methods of torture.
On March 17, the Executive Committee of Community Board 11 will vote on whether or not to support the permission Costco seeks. We urge them to weigh in the balance, on the one hand, the quality of life of the neighbors in El Barrio, and on the other, the jobs which we also need, and to do the right thing.
There's got to be a compromise somewhere in this that will protect us all.
