When Mayor Michael Bloomberg April announced the Clean Heat Campaign to end the use of No. 6 and No. 4 heating oil in the city, he made it clear he thinks these fuels are detrimental to the health of many New Yorkers.
While the administration presses private landlords to switch from both No. 6 and No. 4, though, the city itself plans plan to convert nearly 200 of its public schools from No. 6 to No. 4 heating oil --even though the mayor himself has acknowledged the hazards of heating oil No. 4.
"Shouldn't Mayor Bloomberg make it a priority to eradicate, rather than marginally reduce the problem of dirty oil that costs lives?' said Arthur Goldstein, teacher at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, one of the school slated to make the interim step.
Currently 232 city public schools burn No. 6 oil. The Department of Education plans to convert 198 of those schools to No. 4 heating oil by 2015. The other 34 schools are slated to eventually convert directly to No. 2 oil, according to Marge Feinberg, a spokesperson from the Department of Education.
"The faster these schools can switch to natural gas or No. 2 heating oil the better," said Isabelle Silverman, attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, an organization that works with the mayor's office on the Clean Heat Campaign. "But of course there are those limitations that the city has to deal with."
The "limitations" Silverman spoke of are economic.
It costs about $8,000 to convert one school’s boiler from No. 6 oil to the somewhat cleaner but still polluting No. 4 oil. That comes out to roughly $1.7 million in total costs for all 198 schools slated for the transition. Conversely, converting a single boiler to heating oil No. 2 or natural gas costs well over $1.7 million alone, according to Feinberg.
The transition to heating oil No. 2 is far more expensive than the conversion to No. 4 oil, because switching to No. 2 oil requires a full boiler replacement. That full boiler replacement requires the removal of asbestos -- the hazardous mineral fiber that lines and insulates many older boilers. The Environmental Protection Agency began restricting the use of asbestos in the late 1980s because of the damaging effects the fiber has on respiratory health.
Since many of the schools' boilers predate the EPA crackdown, full boiler replacements at these schools would require asbestos removal. Students and faculty cannot be in the building during this process. Thus, construction work must be done during after school hours and on weekends, further driving up worker costs.
Feinberg said the Department of Education has secured enough funding to convert half of the 34 schools it is targeting to switch directly to No. 2 heating oil. No timetable was given for these conversions.
The Clean Heat Campaign, which is a part of Bloomberg's PlaNYC2030 environmental initiative, requires that No. 6 heating oil be phased out by 2015 and No. 4 heating oil by 2030.
The 10,000 buildings that burn these two oils account for just 1 percent of the buildings in New York City, but they emit 86 percent of the city's heating oil soot pollution. Heating oil is the largest contributor to air pollution in New York -- a city that received a failing air-quality grade from the American Lung Association.
No. 6 and No.4 heating fuel are lower-cost unrefined residual oils, which when burned, release toxic nickel and heavy soot, or black carbon, into the air, according to the 2009 Bottom of the Barrel report by Environmental Defense.Studies have found that these air pollutants have serious effects on the health of city residents. On average New York’s nickel levels are nine times higher than those in other U.S. cities. High levels of nickel in the air have been associated with increased cardiovascular disease and premature death, according to Bottom of the Barrel. Additionally, soot pollution has been linked to serious respiratory problems.
"We know that exposure to this soot pollution increases asthma emergencies, as well as a wide range of heart and lung ailments," said Rich Kassel, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Buildings that burn dirty heating oil contribute more particulate pollution than all of the cars and trucks in the city combined."
In order to offset the fact that regular No. 4 heating oil is only marginally less harmful than No. 6 heating oil, the city will require that buildings use low-sulfur No. 4 oil, which is a mixture of No. 6 oil and a larger amount of low-sulfur No. 2 oil. This requirement goes into effect in October 2012.
The Department of Education plans to use low-sulfur heating oil No. 4 going forward at the schools slated for conversion. Low-sulfur No. 4 oil reduces soot emissions by up to 40 percent. However, a significant portion of low-sulfur No. 4 consists of heating oil No. 6, so it still produces large amounts of metal pollution, according to Silverman.
According to the Environmental Defense Fund report, No. 2 heating oil and natural gas emit 95 percent and 96 percent less soot pollution respectively than heating oil No. 6, and both "eliminate harmful nickel emissions."
In light of that, some experts think the city should convert directly to No. 2 oil.
The people I talk to, who are experts on the subject, feel strongly that this isn't the best approach that schools should go from No. 6 to No. 2," said City Councilmember Gale Brewer about plans to convert schools to No. 4 oil. "They're urging natural gas and other kinds of fuels that would be much more efficient and healthier going forward.
No. 2 oil offers other benefits as well. Boilers using No. 6 and No. 4 oil require daily maintenance during cold-weather months to remove soot and quarterly maintenance to ensure that the boiler remains efficient over time. No. 2 oil requires maintenance work just once a year, and natural gas just once every other year.
Considering that No. 4 heating oil is supposed to be phased out by 2030, Brewer wonders whether really makes sense to convert from No.6 to No. 4 oil now -- when schools will eventually have to convert to No. 2 oil later.
"They're going to switch it later. I just wonder if you're going to be spending money twice," Brewer said. "You're going to be spending $8,000 now but you will be spending even more money again. Sometimes you have to spend a little more money in the beginning to save money in the end."
As compelling as the argument to convert to heating oil No. 2 is, it’s unclear whether a city struggling to keep teachers in classroom, can afford to put the best boilers in school basements. But the health benefits of No. 2 oil and natural gas use are clear, most experts believe. "From a health point-of-view," said Silverman, "all 10,000 buildings burning four and six oil should switch tomorrow."
For years, popular urban legend on Staten Island held that there were only two things you could see from space -- the Great Wall of China and Fresh Kills Landfill. For over 50 years the landfill served as New York City's receptacle for trash, receiving approximately 29,000 tons of waste each day and spawning mounds reportedly taller than the Statue of Liberty.
The city officially closed Fresh Kills Landfill in 2001 and has since begun a 30-year process of reclaiming it as a park. The Freshkills Park project has become a poster child for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's PlaNYC initiative, a symbol of the city's movement toward sustainable, environmentally oriented growth. But despite the park's draft master plan, progress at Freshkills has been slow.
The vision entails not only converting what once had been a site of environmental blight into a verdant space for recreation and contemplation but also using the area as an energy source. To boost that effort, the Land Art Generator Initiative, or LAGI, a project aimed at integrating renewable energy infrastructure with public art, has announced that Freshkills Park would be the site for its 2012 international design competition, LAGINYC. If successful, LAGINYC has the potential to jumpstart the clean energy efforts at Freshkills -- and turn around 50 years of history for Staten Island.
LAGI was founded by husband and-wife duo Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoianin in 2009 after they moved to Dubai. Ferry, an architect, and Monoianin, an interdisciplinary artist and designer, were inspired by the United Arab Emirates' Masdar initiative to introduce clean energy and sustainability to a region principally founded on the oil industry.
According to Ferry, LAGI aims to "create objects of profound beauty that are at the same time functional generators of clean energy" in the hope that public art "can help the transition to alternative energy." Ferry and Monoianin hope LAGI designs will “stimulate and challenge their viewers to re-conceptualize what clean energy can look like.
"All of the designs are new ways of thinking about renewable energy. … [They] create a vision for what the future can be," said Ferry.
LAGI's first ideas competition was held in the United Arab Emirates in 2010, drawing in hundreds of submissions from 40 countries worldwide. A panel of international artists, architects, academicians, industry leaders and writers chose Lunar Cubit as its winner in January 2011. Lunar Cubit, conceived by a New York-based team of Robert Flottemesch, Jen DeNike, Johanna Ballhaus and Adrian P. De Luca, proposes nine solar-paneled pyramids outside of Masdar City that would light up in accordance with the lunar cycle and generate energy for up to 250 houses in Abu Dhabi.
Runner-ups included Windstalk, a design for poles that use wind power in an effort to create a wind farm without turbines, and Solaris, a design for roughly 1,500 solar panels that resembles an ocean over the desert.
The winner of the LAGI competitions receives a $15,000 cash prize. LAGI, however, does not guarantee the construction of a design, although the initiative hopes to ultimately realize this goal. Ferry admits that Lunar Cubit's construction is still unclear, but he stressed that LAGI's intention is not just to generate innovative designs, but to build them as well.
"We're in really promising talks with very high-level people who have the ability to make it happen. … These things take time," he said.
LAGI's mission is particularly relevant for Freshkills, whose history, according to park administrator Eloise Hirsh, has "carved a big, psychic scar for Staten Island." Ten years ago, the area was both environmentally dangerous and visually repellent. LAGI could turn that around by generating designs that have the potential to not only power thousands of homes with clean sources of energy, but transform the blighted landscape into something beautiful as well.
Aesthetics play a key part in correcting what occurred at Freshkills, Ferry thinks. "It's important that [clean energy infrastructure] responds to our natural desire for beauty and conceptual layering and interest rather than just having simple utilitarian objects."
The LAGINYC competition will complement the city's ongoing environmental efforts, Ferry said, which both "work to integrate renewable energy policies" and "embrace ambitious public art." In Hirsh's view, it's particularly fitting that the competition involve Freshkills, a park whose principal mission is to "promote innovative strategies for environmental sustainability."
Freshkills is not new to clean energy initiatives. Already the park boasts a gas collection system that recovers methane from the site's decomposing waste. The methane, sold to National Grid for $12 million a year, heats up to 22,000 homes in Staten Island. The Department of City Planning estimates that methane can be harvested from the site for at least 30 years.
The city also is looking into the feasibility of solar and wind power, although no plans have been formalized. In an April speech, Bloomberg announced a new PlaNYC target to generate 50 megawatts of clean energy from solar power plants installed over landfills.
While no specific development has yet to occur, Freshkills would be a prime location to carry out such a project. "The understanding was the Freshkills would be a part of that," said Nick Dmytryszyn, the environmental engineer for Staten Island.
The location is also seen as a prime site for wind energy. A 2007 study conducted by the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency confirmed that Freshkills could support seven wind turbines and generate up to 17.5 megawatts of energy, over a third of Bloomberg’s targeted goal.
"The fact is that it is doable, achievable," said Dmytryszyn, adding that the turbines "could supply the energy needs for 3 percent of the Staten Island population."
Borough President James Molinaro, one of the city's leading proponents of wind energy, has spent over three years trying to convince city officials of the feasibility of wind turbines at Freshkills. Last month city's, Environmental Protection commissioner, Cas Holloway, announced that the administration would look into Molinaro's proposal, promising Staten Islanders that they will "see movement on that pretty fast."
As of now, however, both the wind and solar projects are vaguely defined, and their actual implementation is far from certain.
"We're very hopeful about the feedback that we will get, but the projects are still in the pre-feasibility stages. We have commissioned studies and are awaiting findings," said Michael Saucier, press secretary for the Department of Environmental Protection.
Once completed, Freshkills Park is slated to be 2,200 acres, roughly three times the size of Central Park. Visions for the area are just as expansive. Freshkills will offer space for mountain biking, running, kayaking, and horseback riding, as well as cultural and educational programming. It will also serve as a focal point for the borough, with an "expansive network of paths, recreational waterways, and a system of park drives" that will connect it to surrounding neighborhoods.
At the heart of the Freshkills project, however, is a commitment to environmental renewal. According to Hirsh, it will "stand as a symbol for the kind of transformation that can happen in seriously compromised sites."
The Department of Parks and Recreation has various plans to restore the park's wetlands, eradicate invasive plants, and support a diverse wildlife habitat at the former landfill.
"They've made ecological restoration part of the vocabulary,” said Deborah Popper, a professor of environmental studies at the College of Staten Island. "You can definitely see things … changing. … You can see the trees being planted, then starting to take off. [Freshkills] is beginning to look very, very different."
But with recent delays in some of the park's preliminary projects, such as Owl Hollow Fields and many of Freshkills' clean energy proposals barely in the planning stages, some residents feel this transformation is still far off.
"Most of the Staten Island community, while welcoming something of this size, has realized [they] won't see it come to fruition in their lifetime," said Dmytryszyn. "There's always hesitation that there' s not going to be funding for a park of this size -- in Staten Island of all places."
While Popper has seen significant changes at Freshkills over the last five years -- including increased access into the Park, ecological restoration and city-sponsored special events -- she admits that many residents remain skeptical.
"People really remember, and it wasn't even that long ago, how horrible the place smelled. … You don’t forget that easily," she said. "For years its been drilled into people: It's not a safe place."
Echoing Dmytryszyn’s concerns, Popper acknowledged the residents' resentment and distrust of city officials.
"Why did the rest of the city give us garbage?" she said. "It's that constant feeling that we're off in the sidelines even though we're the borough that's growing so fast, even though we're the borough that’s contributing so much."
Perhaps, LAGINYC could help change that. A large-scale, site-specific installation at Fresh Kills could transform Staten Island. The island, which Freshkills Park designer James Corner once called "the place people drive through on their way to somewhere else," could "capture the imagination of the world," according to Ferry.
Echoing this sentiment, Hirsh said, "It's really going to be a great way to get creative attention to the many opportunities and constraints of this site, to Staten Island. It will help us engage larger public conversation."
Moreover, if the design actually is constructed at Freshkills, Ferry envisions it would draw attention to the park and its environs. Ferry believes the competition could have profound effects for Staten Island by providing "cultural value, economic development value [and] tourism potential."
For Staten Island, "the forgotten borough" as some call it, this would be true vindication for its 50 years as New York's garbage site. Perhaps, Popper said, Staten Island "could become a central spot instead of a congested pass-through." And, she said, if LAGINYC and, on a broader scale, Freshkills Park, succeed, future New Yorkers "won’t even know what it used to be."
The heat of the late-afternoon sun beats down on the dry floor of the Douglass and DeGraw "Double-D" Pool in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. The pool's entrance gate is padlocked. Not a soul lurks on the premises.
New York City's outdoor pool season does not begin until June 29. But some city residents face the prospect of seeing their community pool remain as devoid of life and water as Double-D Pool is now for the entire summer.
For the second straight year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed cuts in funding for New York City swimming pools to help close the city's budget gap. The budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 calls for the closure of four, as yet unnamed, city swimming pools and a shortened season for all pools.
Last year Double-D Pool, along with Wagner Pool in East Harlem, Fort Totten Pool in Queens and West Brighton Pool on Staten Island were slated for closure. Additionally, all of the city's 54 pools were set to close two weeks earlier than the usual Labor Day end date.
Fortunately for pool-goers, the City Council restored a portion of funding to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation at the 11th hour. This move saved the four pools from closure and allowed the summer pool season to continue through Labor Day.
"When I first heard it, I was like: they're not going to cut it. That pool is too popular; kids play then go swim there," said Michael Norman, a 16-year-old resident of Boerum Hill and frequent visitor of the Double-D and other Brooklyn swimming spots. "This park is really, really popular, not just in our community but communities in Redhook and [Park Slope]. And, they come from all around just to go to that pool."
It's difficult for many city residents to fathom the possibility of their local pool closing down for the summer, yet keeping the pools open presents a greater challenge this summer than it did a year ago.
"It will be difficult because there are other competing interests that may take some of the priority away from swimming pools," said Peter Stein, president of lifeguard supervisors for the union District Council 37. "The budget in general has significant other things that seem to be catching more attention."
Bloomberg's proposed layoff of over 4, 000 teachers and his plans to close 20 firehouses may be among those "other things." These cuts, along with decreases to social service programs in the mayor's executive budget for 2012, are likely to receive the most attention.
The Parks Department, which runs the city pools, will be cut further from last year. The mayor's budget calls for the city to spend about $222 million on operations for the Department of Parks and Recreation, a decrease of nearly 7 percent from fiscal year 2011, according to New Yorkers for Parks.
"One of the more unfortunate trends in this city in the last few decades is the feeling that park services are a luxury rather than an essential city service," said Alyson Beha, director of research, planning and programs for New Yorkers for Parks. "We have millions of kids who will be out of school this summer and they do need safe places to spend their days, and more often than not, those city parks and beaches and pools are the spaces that they go to."
The estimated cost of keeping the four pools open and all city pools operating until Labor Day is just over $1.4 million. The mayor has said that communities across the city will have to sacrifice some valuable services during these difficult economic times. He has not yet said which communities would have to give up their pools.
"It's a balancing act isn't it?" said Adam Tucker, a 41-year-old resident of Park Slope and father of one. "But if I was in charge of the purse-strings, then the development of youth services and amenities for the local youth would be fairly high on my list of priorities."
The summer of 2010 was the hottest on record in New York City, and attendance rose significantly at three out of the four pools that had been up for closure.
Wagner Pool rose from just 13, 812 visitors in 2009 to 21,965 visitors in 2010, Fort Totten Pool rose from 26,435 to 28, 815, and West Brighton pool rose from 13,812 to 23,886. Double-D decreased slightly from 37,838 to 37,511 visitors, according to the parks department.
Not only did these communities demonstrate the value of their local pools by showing up, but when funding was still in flux, a number of residents launched campaigns to save their local facilities.
Some community residents took to Facebook. A Don’t Close Double D Pool page was launched last year and amassed over 550 followers.
The Parks Department has yet to release an official list of the pools up for closure. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's office said that it received preliminary briefing documents that slated Wagner Pool for closure despite increased numbers in attendance last summer.
City officials from other boroughs who were contacted said they were still unsure what pools in their communities would be on the chopping block.
Despite the uncertainty, community members aren't wasting any time mobilizing. Another Facebook page, which is advocating for all city swimming pools for summer 2011, has already been created called Save NYC Public Pools. The group has over 150 members so far.
Organizations such as DC-37 and New Yorkers for Parks have testified and demonstrated at City Hall budget hearings. They're also petitioning to and collaborating with City Council members and other city officials to try to save pools.
With the budget deadline still more than three weeks away, it's too early to tell whether the groups will succeed in saving the pools. Even with the concerted efforts, those who hope to restore funding for the second year in a row face an uphill battle.
If city funding for pools were to fall through, a wealthy benefactor could step in and save the day. The Sol Goldman Family did this in the summer of 1991, when it donated $2 million to city pools to prevent the season from ending early.
"A philanthropist known as the mayor might be willing to donate $2 million to the pools," Stein said, half-lightheartedly and half-seriously.
New York City's pools have weathered economic downturns in the past. Some of the greatest pool construction projects occurred during the Great Depression. Eleven city pools were built in 1936 alone through the New Deal's Works Progress Administration.
That would not surprise Tucker.
"It's a vital resource. If these were to disappear, then you'd have the unpalatable prospect of traveling long distances to pay a lot of money," Tucker said. "I mean the virtue of this thing over here is that obviously it's free, and it's very pleasant and amenable."
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