With New York facing significant fiscal challenges and concerns about terrorist threats, it may seem like an unusual time for citizens to launch a new campaign to preserve New York City's upstate reservoirs and their watersheds.
Yet that is exactly what is happening. Twenty-one groups, including some of the region's leading environmental and civic organizations, have unveiled a forward-looking plan that envisions expanded programs to safeguard watershed farms and forests and protect the lands that drain into New York's upstate reservoirs from sprawl that generates pollution.
In a recent letter to Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, representatives from the 21 groups noted that, despite progress over the last several years, "far too many acres of watershed lands are not permanently protected, and significant portions of the watershed are confronting intensified threats from haphazard development."
The letter outlined ambitious measures that the authors say are necessary to secure New York City's drinking water supply for future generations. The environmental and civic groups believe that implementation of an enhanced watershed protection plan will not only protect the public health of roughly 9 million water consumers, but will help avoid multi-billion dollar city expenditures for water filtration facilities.
In addition to the Natural Resources Defense Council (where I work), the other groups sending the letter are: Audubon New York; Arbor Hill Environmental Justice; Bronx Council on Environmental Quality; City Club of New York; Civitas; Environmental Advocates; Environmental Defense; Federated Conservationists of Westchester County; Friends of Jerome Park Reservoir; Friends of Van Cortland Park; New York League of Conservation Voters; New York Public Interest Research Group; Open Space Institute; Regional Plan Association; Riverkeeper; Scenic Hudson; Trout Unlimited - Croton Chapter; Trust for Public Land; West Harlem Environmental Action; and Westchester Land Trust.
BACKGROUND
New York City's water supply constitutes what may well be the region's single most important capital asset. The network, which has 19 reservoirs, is composed of three inter-related systems. The oldest, dating back to 1842, is the Croton system, located primarily in Westchester and Putnam counties. Beginning in the early 1900s, construction started on the Catskill and later the Delaware systems. Together, these two systems have six reservoirs, all west of the Hudson River, and send water downstate from as far as 125 miles away.
These 19 reservoirs and the watersheds that feed them supply roughly half of the state's population with more than 1.2 billion gallons of water every day. City water officials accurately describe this remarkable supply, often overlooked by most New Yorkers, as an engineering marvel.
But although New York City water quality still meets state and federal tap water standards, the long-term outlook for this supply remains uncertain, environmental watchdogs believe.
More than 100 sewage plants discharge treated wastewater in streams that flow into city reservoirs (the plants are now being upgraded). Over 110,000 individual septic and other subsurface systems in the watershed system also could pollute the water supply.
Of concern too, say environmental groups and drinking water officials, is stormwater runoff from roads, driveways and other paved surfaces, and from lawns, farms and golf courses. Rainwater picks up contaminants as it washes over these surfaces, and can flush pollutants into watershed streams and reservoirs.
They note that more than half of the 19 reservoirs have been found to be eutrophic, a condition that occasionally leaves green slime, caused by nutrients entering reservoirs from treated sewage and stormwater runoff. Eutrophication can lead to changes in the taste or odor of tap water, and the process to remove it can produce carcinogenic byproducts.
ECONOMIC THREATS FROM WATERSHED POLLUTION
In addition to the public health imperative of keeping contaminants out of our drinking water supply, there are strong economic reasons for watershed protection.
Under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, water suppliers – in this case New York City -- must filter drinking water from reservoirs unless they can meet all water quality standards and demonstrate a comprehensive watershed protection program, including ownership or control of watershed lands.
A controversial federal court order already requires New York City to filter its East-of-Hudson Croton watershed system. The much larger Catskill and Delaware systems are unfiltered, and New York City has a five-year waiver from having to build filtration facilities for them. But unless watershed safeguards increase, it is quite possible that this system will face a filtration order. Mayor Bloomberg recently estimated the cost of Catskill and Delaware system filtration facilities at $6 billion.
"From both a public health standpoint and to avoid the huge economic burdens of Catskill/Delaware filtration, it is essential that New York State and City continue enhancing and making more robust their watershed protection program in all three reservoir systems," says Natural Resources Defense Council water specialist Robin Marx.
NEW THREATS FROM SPRAWL DEVELOPMENT
In l997, Governor Pataki, New York City and officials from upstate watershed communities signed an agreement that broke a political logjam and advanced a cooperative upstate-downstate partnership for watershed protection. Among other things, that program has allowed the city to purchase 40,000 acres of undeveloped watershed lands from willing sellers.
Despite this, though, sprawl development has continued unabated and is racing ahead of state and city efforts to protect watershed wetlands, forests and meadows that are essential to a healthy watershed ecosystem. The trend is most obvious in the east-of-Hudson Croton system reservoirs and the Kensico basin, the 21-group letter warns.
"New subdivisions, corporate and business 'parks' and even strip shopping developments have been transforming the East-of-Hudson watershed for years," the environmental and civic groups write. They note that Putnam County is the fastest growing part of the state, with a 69 percent population increase between 1970 and 2000.
Around the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County, development pressures have mounted. Planned expansion of corporate headquarters, new subdivisions and runway expansion at Westchester Airport are the kinds of projects that, according to watershed watchdogs, threaten water quality in the reservoir that serves as the funnel for the entire Catskill and Delaware system.
While the West-of-Hudson watersheds have seen less dramatic changes so far, the threats to that mostly rural watershed area are also intensifying. Moving ahead in 2003 is the largest Catskills development project in memory -- the "Belleayre Resort," a mega-project with two 18 hole golf courses, two large hotels, hundreds of condominium and time-share units and related commercial facilities, proposed for 600 mountainside acres in Ulster and Delaware counties. Three new gambling casinos, to be built in Ulster and Sullivan counties, also could affect growth and land-use in the nearby watershed areas.
A 21st CENTURY PLAN FOR SAFEGUARDING WATERSHED LANDS
The 21 environmental and civic groups that outlined an enhanced watershed protection program in their recent letter to the governor and the mayor envision three major areas for stepped up activities.
First, the groups are urging a continuation and enhancement of the city's existing watershed land acquisition program. Their proposal calls for the city to purchase an additional 80,000 acres of watershed lands over the next 10 years by the city from willing sellers. This proposal would essentially continue the 8,000 acres-a-year pace that the city has been achieving since l997.
Second, the proposal envisions a greatly expanded program to acquire conservation easements on farms and forests in the watershed. These easements allow landowners to sell the development rights to their property, while providing the owners with continuing rights to live on, farm or harvest, and sell (but not develop) their parcels. The easements would be held in perpetuity by the city, state or land trust to protect the land.
Such easement programs also offer significant water quality benefits since they can preserve existing watershed land uses at roughly 60 percent of the cost of buying the properties outright. The environmental and civic group letter proposes that a combination of federal, state and city funds be utilized to secure 150,000 acres of farm and forest easements over the next decade.
Third, the 21 groups call upon the governor, the state legislature and local watershed communities to adopt and implement new strategies to advance "smart growth" and prevent haphazard development on Catskill, Delaware and Croton system watershed lands.
"There is no single greater threat to our way of life in New Jersey than the unrestrained, uncontrolled development that has jeopardized our water supplies, made our schools more crowded, our roads congested, and our open space disappear," said New Jersey's Governor James E. McGreevey in a remarkable discussion of sprawl and its adverse impacts, part of his recent 2003 State of the State address.
New Jersey, like Maryland, Oregon and a handful of other states, has been moving aggressively to protect their environment from the consequences of haphazard development. New York's water quality activists believe that similar actions are needed here.
To accomplish this, they propose ending highway expansions, as well as subsidies and tax breaks for developers seeking to build on sensitive watershed lands. Instead growth should be channeled into existing cities, towns and watershed hamlets. Also being proposed is state legislation that would give localities the option of placing a small surcharge on real estate transfers, with the proceeds being used to preserve open space in their communities.
OUTLOOK
According to New York City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Christopher Ward, the risk to New York City's water supply from a terrorist attack is small. The huge volume of water in the city's 19 reservoirs makes it extremely unlikely that toxins could be added to the water supply in sufficient quantity to harm the public without the perpetrators being detected, Ward and other environmental officials maintain. And city and state agencies have recently stepped up efforts to safeguard reservoir dams and other water system infrastructure from attack.
But the 21 environmental and civic groups who wrote to the governor and mayor remain concerned about the long-term, insidious threat to our reservoir network from ill-advised watershed development and the pollution it generates. Although far less dramatic than the threat of terrorism, this issue deserves recognition by all who care about the future of our city.
If Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and New York's other top elected officials take further steps to safeguard New York's priceless and irreplaceable watershed landscape in 2003, they will insure a lasting legacy that benefits the health, economy and public safety of New Yorkers for the remainder of the 21st century.
Eric Goldstein is co-director of the urban program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
New York environmental public policy debates in 2003 are likely to be dominated by fights over money.
In a year in which both the city and state budgets are facing gaping deficits, expect to see bruising battles over funding for wide-ranging programs from recycling to superfund/brownfields clean-up to air pollution reduction. Every environmental initiative will be scrutinized in terms of its economic impact on this year's budgets, and proposals that require major new expenditures will be in for tough sledding.
Among the money pots that will be watched most closely is the State's Environmental Protection Fund. This dedicated funding mechanism created in l993 to finance such statewide programs as open space preservation, landfill closures, waterfront revitalization and urban parks is a possible target of raids from cash-strapped Albany officials. Convincing Governor George Pataki to protect $125 million of these dedicated funds will be one of the first environmental challenges of the new year.
At the same time, 2003 will also present opportunities for advancing environmental proposals that can reduce government operating costs or boost government income. Among the ideas that are likely to receive attention are new initiatives for energy conservation at the city and state level; increasing tolls on the city's East River bridges; and recovering from the beverage industry millions of dollars of unredeemed five cent bottle and can deposits that New York consumers pay every year.
Of course, there will also be efforts to address other issues that could have long-term adverse consequences for public health or the state's ecology if they continue to be ignored. For example, the governor is expected to advance a major new initiative to reduce New York's contribution to global warming. Depending on the specifics of his proposal, this could be particularly significant -- especially given the mounting evidence that climate change resulting from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels is the nation's number one environmental threat.
While many other environmental matters are likely to surface in the coming twelve months, here is a quick run-down of four issues certain to be the subject of forthcoming policy debates:
The most visible environmental issue of 2003 will probably be the rebuilding at the World Trade Center site and the reshaping of Lower Manhattan's infrastructure. Nine new design proposals have recently been presented to the public, and various public forums will be held during January and February (although, asyet, there is no official event comparable to the Civic Alliance's Listening to the City gathering that was convened to review the first set of design proposals last year). Meanwhile, the Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation have established an extremely tight schedule for the selection of a land use plan for the area by the end of February.
Of course, developing the concept and design for a meaningful memorial to the thousands who lost their lives on September 11th must be a top priority. And there will no doubt be much debate in coming months over the size and shape of the new buildings, as well as over the amount of open space and waterfront access.
But the scope of environmental issues involved in the rebuilding effort is much broader. How will the transit infrastructure be reconfigured and what impact will the choices have on future development patterns throughout the region?Will planners seize the opportunity to make these new buildings world-class models of energy-efficiency and green design?And what connection will there be between plans for the trade center site and Mayor Bloomberg's own provocative plan for reshaping Lower Manhattan with everything from new airport links to new parks?
"The world is watching what we do here," says Ron Shiffman, director of Pratt Institute's Center for Community and Environmental Development. "They watched the buildings come down, and they are watching to see what will go up," he continued." If we can rebuild lower Manhattan in a way that does not shift environmental burdens to other communities, that reduces dependence on fossil fuels and that becomes a model of green design, we can send a strong message to the region and the world" as to the future we envision for the urban environment.
Turning to New York City's handling of more than 30,000 tons a day of garbage, the coming year will bring numerous challenges.
Last year, in a big victory for environmental justice advocates, Mayor Bloomberg announced a plan to upgrade the city's old waterfront-based garbage transfer stations for trash export. If implemented, the plan --similar to one advanced by the Organization for Waterfront Neighborhoods and other waste activists -- could dramatically reduce the amount of garbage now carried into and out ofland-based transfer stations(mostly in already overburdened neighborhoods of Brooklyn and the Bronx) by diesel-spewing trucks. The lengthy process for reconstructing the first few waterfront waste transfer stations is expected to begin in 2003.
On the related issue of recycling, the city's solid waste program is facing more hurdles. Last year, the mayor and City Council suspended the collection for recycling of plastics and glass. A governmental task force is due to report in Feburary on future prospects for restoring those materials to the city's existing collection program. (The Sanitation Department has continued to collect paper and metals and take them to processors who pay the city for each ton of recyclables received.)
Although some recycling is already cheaper for the city than exporting trash to out-of-state landfills, finding new ways to reduce the costs of other aspects of the city's recycling program will be a focus of policy-makers in 2003.
"The time has come to look for new mechanisms and new institutions to help the city implement a more cost-effective recycling program,"says Mark Izeman, solid waste expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
A coalition of environmental and civic groups, as well as New York Sate Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, who has already established his credentials as an environmental champion, are seeking to advance legislation that would, among other things, generate as much as 170 million dollars a year for recycling and other programs around the state. This proposal envisions recapturing the unclaimed five cent deposits that are paid by consumers who purchase beer or soda containers but do not return those containers for their deposits. Since the state bottle bill was passed in 1982,beverage distributors have kept more than one billion dollars of such unredeemed nickel deposits. Attorney General Spitzer, environmental advocates and friends of recycling in the state legislature agree that the time for this industry windfall to end has arrived.
New York State's Superfund program, reponsible for cleaning up toxic wastes at hundreds of contaminated sites from Buffalo to Long Island, is stalled. This successful environmental program has essentially run out of funds. Last year, Governor Pataki proposed to spend $138 million per year to clean up all previously identified Superfund sites (as well as help fund "brownfield" clean-ups) over twenty years. But at the end of the legislative session only about nine million dollars were allocated. That was barely enough to retain the Superfund staff at the State Department of Environmental Conservation and to keep several partially completed clean-up projects moving forward. With current funds, the collapsing program can not support new investigations of toxic sites or take on new clean-up projects.
"Superfund and brownfields is the number one legislative environmental issue of the year in Albany," according to Jeff Jones, the ever-present communications director for the Albany-based watchdog group, Environmental Advocates. As has been true in the past several years, the legislative debate will center on appropriate clean-up standards for these sites as well as overall funding levels and the source of those funds ( e.g., the amount paid into the fund by businesses rather than by the general public).
While the number of state Superfund sites in New York City itself is relatively few, there are more than 5,000 abandoned or under-utilized properties, referred to as brownfields. These land parcels, frequently located in industrial and/or waterfront areas, are often not redeveloped due to concerns over possible on-site environmental pollution. Although these properties could be used for new businesses, homes, or recreational facilities, developers have also shied away from them because of pollution-related liability concerns and financial uncertainties. As a result, valuable city lands are lying fallow, in-city job opportunities are being lost, andadded development pressures are being placed on farms and ecologically valuable green spaces in the far fringes of the region.
For several years, legislative proposals have been kicking around in Albany that would attempt to accelerate brownfields clean-up by providing more formal and uniform standards for environmental clean-up and greater involvement by community groups in the planning process for brownfields redevelopment in their neighborhoods. Brownfields reform legislation has been tied to the state superfund issue, and it is likely that the two clean-up programs will once again live or die together in the 2003 legislative session.
Leaded paint remains the major source of high-level lead exposure to New York City children, and one of the oldest environmental disputes is expected to resurface again in 2003.
For decades, physicians have known of the mental and physical risks to children who mouth and chew paint chips that contain lead. (Although the federal government prohibited the use of lead for all interior and exterior paints in 1977, New York's older housing stock contains tens of thousands of apartments and residences where old leaded paint lingers as a problem.)
In l999, a new city statute took effect that altered the previous city law and weakened certain requirements on building owners and managers relating to leaded paint clean-ups. At the time the controversial statute was enacted, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional administrator warned that the new lead law omitted two critical steps-- requiring specially trained workers to conduct remedial lead-paint work and mandating follow-up testing for lead after remediation work is concluded. Public health advocates shared those and other concerns, and have been seeking to revise the law ever since.
"Though lead poisoning is entirely preventable, there were approximately 8, 000 new lead poisoning cases in New York City in the year 2000," says Queens-based City Councilmember John C. Liu, relying on official city statistics. (It is likely that this figure significantly underestimates the total problem.) Liu is one of more than 30 co-sponsors of Intro. 101, a new bill that would tighten leaded paint requirements for building owners and managers.
Manhattan Councilmember Bill Perkins, a primary sponsor of Intro.101, is spearheading the legislative fight for the new lead law. And with the New York Coalition to End Lead Poisoning, West Harlem Environmental Action, and an array of physicians leading the public charge,the push for reform of the city's lead paint law should reach a crescendo in 2003.
Eric Goldstein is co-director of the urban program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.Â
In this densely populated metropolis, the task of getting people to work, home and play is a complex and important undertaking. It is therefore an unfortunate side effect, that transportation on or along New York's waterways is among the biggest deterrents to recreation in and around the water. The shared use ethic that allows for a workable equilibrium in the city's streets, intersections and parks is now missing at the shore.
Wakes, the powerful, fast moving waves generated by the engines of some but not all boats can cause damage and be dangerous to other boats, property and people. This watery scourge has been noted recently as an ongoing, unregulated harbor menace. Ferries, hustling to maintain ever-expanding schedules, have adversely impacted marinas, harbor and dinner-cruise companies, fishermen and small boaters. Wake-caused waves from Hudson River ferries can reach distant Manhattan seawalls with powerful impact long after the vessel has passed. Damage from wakes can be devastating to moored vessels, dangerous to small craft on the water and sufficiently threatening as to preclude waterfront activity in advance.
Damage and inconvenience aside, few wake-sufferers actively oppose ferry traffic, a commuter alternative that helps reduce air pollution and roadway congestion. Still, the question remains, must ferries cause damaging wakes?
Evidence in New York harbor suggests otherwise. For years, ferry companies have operated "fast ferries", boats capable of thirty miles per hour and more, which, by design, generated minimal wakes. Powerful harbor tugboats, cruise ships and other large and industrial vessels operating in the Hudson produce smaller wakes without negative impact. The vessels with the most dangerous wakes, today, are slower, older boats. Their re-design or replacement would largely eliminate the threat.
Recent decisions by the Hudson River Park Trust may reveal "precluded use". The Trust, the very slow builder of the narrow, mostly stone and concrete "park" being developed in "medicine drop" steps along Manhattan's West Side has decided to eliminate "get-downs". Get-downs are waterfront spots, protected by guardrail gates, where city park visitors may descend a few steps to actually reach the water. Safety concerns, wakes included, have led to a park that will likely be built to preclude water access, access that is historic and currently available elsewhere by design.
Ferry wakes are not the only transportation threat to waterfront access. Rail lines are a threat as well. Tracks and accompanying fence parallel the Bronx coast from the Westchester/Riverdale border to Hunts Point at the confluence of the Bronx and East Rivers. South of Riverdale, along a ten-mile stretch of shore, there are only two legal access points where peninsula-dwelling Bronx residents can reach the surrounding waters. Amtrak, Metro-North and freight lines form an iron curtain, denying water access, a basic right to a half million people.
A rising clamor for waterfront access has emerged. The Bronx River is being restored. Fishermen avoid fences and scramble over debris. Teenagers jump into the Harlem River from the rocky cliffs of the Spuyten Duyvil. Hunt's Point residents seek funding and support for a waterfront park. Their proposal needs cooperation from local rail and truck users.
Government holds the key to safe, shared use and access. The City Council has called for an inventory of waterfront uses. Mayor Bloomberg has called for shoreline economic development. Ferry companies rely on city, state and federal support, as do the railroads. Public funding should be linked to behavior that recognizes access and shared use as a New York virtue on land and at sea. For people living on an island, reaching the water should be a birthright not a life risk.
Peter B. Fleischer, currently writing a book on the New York City waterfront, was formerly a transportation and environment policy advisor to New York City Mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani.
On most mornings Christopher Saxe wakes before dawn to the sounds of men hauling trash from the alley beneath his window. He can hear the truck's engine roaring, its radio blasting, the shouts of the men. And when they raise the dumpster and drop it back to the ground, Saxe says, "It sounds like they're throwing air conditioners off the roof."
Saxe lives next to a movie theater in the East Village, and for the last four years he has battled with the company responsible for carting the theater's trash, which is called IESI. He has yelled out his window and called everyone he can think of to complain. The actions sometimes lead to temporary relief, but the problem keeps coming back.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of New Yorkers, confront similar cacophonies. So, last month Mayor Michael Bloomberg initiated Operation Silent Night, the city's most aggressive attack on noise since 1994, when the police department focused on revelers in Greenwich Village. The initiative, which is designed to quiet unruly neighbors, curb drag racing on city streets and silence freaked-out car alarms, targets 24 neighborhoods considered to be among the city's noisiest.
This month, City Councilmember Alan Gerson, who represents lower Manhattan, announced plans to introduce a package of bills to reduce noise. The measures would allow police to confiscate motorcycles without mufflers, place further limits on construction work and restrict the city's raucous nightlife.
Operation Silent Night may not offer much help to Saxe, who does not live in one of the neighborhoods targeted by the program. Nor will it necessarily aid Queens residents afflicted by airplane noise, neighbors of the city's few heliports or those near large construction sites, like the Time Warner-AOL site on Columbus Circle or the Bloomberg LP site on the Upper East Side. In light of such shortcomings, some critics see the program as another way to get more revenues from city residents without raising taxes, and others say that, for all its pragmatism, the initiative barely scratches the surface of the city's noise pollution problems.
New York already has a noise ordinance that, among other things, prohibits horn honking except in emergencies and restricts the hours for construction work. All car alarms must shut off automatically within three minutes or the owners face fines.
But the mayor's office clearly believes more is needed. Already, Operation Silent Night has intensified police scrutiny in the 24 neighborhoods -- several in each borough, and ranging in size from a single block to several square miles. According to the plan, noise complaints that come into the hotline, police precincts or the city Department of Environmental Protection will now be quickly sent on to each precinct's executive officer, who will work with city agencies to address the complaint. Police officers in the listed neighborhoods will have noise meters and the power to write more summonses levying heftier fines, tow more alarm-blaring cars that will now cost more for their owners to retrieve and, in extreme cases, make arrests.
No one has put a price tag on the program, but with the city facing billions of dollars in budget cuts, should the mayor allocate any money to relieve the stresses of noise?
How to Complain
The city government and the Council on Environment of New York City offer a list of places that handle noise complaints. and ways to complain about noise. The Quality of Life hotline at 888-677-LIFE or 888-677-5433 handles a variety of noise complaints. But, depending upon the type of noise involved, it may be more effective to go to another city agency. For construction, nightclubs, outside speakers, private carter's trucks, barking dog, air conditioners and manufacturing machinery, call the Department of Environmental Protection at 718 DEP-HELP (337-4357). If the noisy garbage truck belongs to the city, go to the Department of Sanitation at 212 219-8090. If the problem arise from noisy neighbors, boom boxes, car alarms, loud passers-by, motorcycles, or noise outside a bar or nightclub, contact the local police precinct. For persistent difficulties, contact your local Community Board. If a metal plate in the street is the source of the disturbance, you must first determine who is doing the work -- a government agency, Con Ed, the phone company or Keyspan, to cite a few usual suspects. A nearby truck may offer a clue, as can the plate itself which may be marked. Ill-fitting gratings or manhole covers should be reported to Department of Transportation at 212 CALL-DOT (225-5368). |
In taking on the problem, says John Feinblatt, criminal justice coordinator at City Hall and one of the people in charge of implementing the initiative, Bloomberg is simply responding to his citizenry. Of the 97,000 complaints that come into the Quality of Life hotline each year, about 85 percent are about noise. Already this year, 93,000 people have called with complaints about noise [see box]. "Calls to the Quality of Life Hotline tell us that people in this city are concerned about noise," Feinblatt says. "Operation Silent Night is a response to those concerns."
Art Strickler, district manager of Community Board Two, which covers the West Village, said his office gets more complaints about excessive noise than any other problem. But he is less than totally sympathetic. "This is Greenwich Village," he said. "If they want peace and quiet, they should move to some bedroom community in Brooklyn."
Bloomberg's office has stated that getting tough on noise polluters is similar to former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's cracking down on squeegee men, turnstile jumpers and other very small-time offenders, and the administration hopes that it will produce similar reductions in crime. However, neither the administration nor experts can point to any studies linking crime levels with noise, or criminals with loud behavior.
Others contend that noise poses a very real public health hazard. Most obviously it can affect hearing, causing something called Noise Induced Hearing Loss. But the World Health Organization has listed an array of other effects, including a higher risk of hypertension and some types of heart disease. Unwanted noise creates tiredness and exhaustion, which in turn results in a lack of productivity on the job and anti-social behavior. People afflicted by excessive exposure to loud noise can become withdrawn and sullen.
Studies have concluded that students in noisy classrooms, such as those near airports or trains, do not learn as well as those in quieter settings. As evidence of the seriousness of the noise problem, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has established guidelines for safe noise levels in the workplace.
Sound levels, are measured in decibels (dB), with a normal conversation usually registering at about 60 decibels. Health problems can result from noises registering above about 75 to 90 decibels. A noisy restaurant or a construction site can be about 90 decibels, while motorcycles, firecrackers and small arms fire may emit sounds from 120 to 140 decibels.
John Dallas has been working since 1994 with the Bronx Campaign for Peace and Quiet, which is affiliated with Christ the King Church, to educate the public about the benefits of peace and quiet and the dangers of noise. "In a lot of neighborhoods you hear music blasting out of apartments," Dallas says, "and then you realize there are kids in there. Their hearing is being impaired. Some people say it's culture, but those kids are being harmed."
The effects of noise pollution can ripple through a neighborhood. "Noise pollution, from our perspective, is connected with impoverishment," Dallas says. "When you foster peace and quiet, when you live in a way that respects other people, you improve community." Noise, he adds, "chases away the middle class. People who want to improve their lives and be creative move away. So noise does not only impair physical health but also economic, social and spiritual."
According to some people involved with noise issues, Operation Silent Night, though a positive first step, fails to address some major sources of noise pollution in the city.
The targeted neighborhoods were selected on the basis of the number and locations of calls to the Quality of Life Hotline, which only addresses certain kinds of common problems. "The mayor is touching the tip of the iceberg," says Arline Bronzaft, a member of the Council on the Environment of New York City and a nationally recognized expert on noise pollution. "You can't think that you just go and ticket cab drivers [for honking horns] and that that is going to solve the problem." Noise comes from many more sources in addition to those picked by the mayor's program and affects many more areas.
Bronzaft says that the mayor's initiative has left him with the responsibility for quieting the city. "He's going to have to make a difference and lessen the din," she says. But Bronzaft says that will be difficult and points to three major gaps.
First, the Department of Environmental Protection enforces a Noise Code that is 30 years old and no longer addresses the real sources of noise or the latest ways to quiet them. The result is that the department, which is generally regarded as highly responsive to complaints, issues violations in only one out of four responses. "That's a poor batting average," Bronzaft says.
In response, the department has hired the consulting firm of Alle, King, Rosen and Fleming to update the code. "Clearly, it's time," agrees Feinblatt of the mayor's office. The firm's recommendations will eventually be open to public comment and could make it before the City Council. So far, though, no one knows what changes the firm might suggest or when this might happen.
Second, Bronzaft says, noise violations issued by police officers are usually thrown out in court because they are improperly written. Police must state their case objectively and, more often than not, this is almost impossible where noise is concerned. It may be that the noise meters that officers will now carry will help solve some of that problem by quantifying noise levels, though it is unclear how courts will view that information.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, many agencies that receive complaints about noise are not a part of Operation Silent Night. Mediation boards, the Buildings Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transit Authority, as well as the Sanitation Department and the Trade Waste Commission, all get calls from New Yorkers fed up with some sound or another. Yet, the new program focuses only on complaints received by the Quality of Life Hotline.
And there is some dispute over whether the targeted neighborhoods are indeed the city's loudest. For example, people in downtown Brooklyn were upset that it was not included as one of the target areas, despite high noise levels and frequent complaints to the Department of Environmental Protection, while certain other areas in Brooklyn, with more complaints to the hotline but fewer to Environmental Protection, were. In Manhattan, according to the Mayor's Report Card, two of the areas with the most complaints are the Upper East Side and Upper West Side. Not coincidentally, the City Council members from those districts had handed out brochures telling people to call the hotline. Yet, it would be hard to claim that those two neighborhoods have more noise problems than many other areas in the city.
The fact is that 93,000 does not represent anywhere near the total number of complaints about noise received by all city agencies. And, further, all the complaints made to every city agency probably do not represent anything approaching all the sleepless nights, interrupted conversations, lost thoughts and other problems created by a noisy city. For one thing, according to Bronzaft, "people in poor neighborhoods probably don't call because they don't think people will be responsive. But noise in this city is an equal opportunity offender."
While the mayor's office did not respond to requests for a numeric breakdown of complaints to the Quality of Life Hotline -- such numbers may not in fact exist -- the Department of Environmental Protection was able to show the most common complaints it received. According to its figures, air conditioners and ventilation equipment are the most frequent causes of noise complaints. Barking dogs, construction sites and loud music come next, followed by ice cream trucks and private carters. Amy Boyle, acting director of the Noise Center at the League for the Hard of Hearing says, "The problems [with noise] are as diverse as the people in the city, whether it's a person with neighbor noise or noisy motorcycles or cafes or elevated subways."
Or airplanes. Residents of neighborhoods around John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport are overwhelmed by noise from planes. At a press conference in Astoria, Bloomberg mistakenly responded to a question about airplane noise by stating that federal authorities have jurisdiction over the issue.
But Dr. A. Allen Greene, vice president of government affairs for the advocacy group Sane Aviation for Everyone (S.A.F.E.), says that is an easy out for politicians. "Politicians, every time there is an airport expansion plan, hop on the bandwagon," he says. "The city should take an active role in protecting citizens from aircraft noise. The city owns the airports. The Port Authority operates them. It's just not true to say that it's a federal issue."
The city does have the power to control another recurring nuisance: nightclubs. Interestingly, as the result of previous legal actions, New York takes a tougher stand against "unauthorized dancing" -- moving one's body to the beat in a bar or restaurant that does not have a cabaret license -- than it does toward excessive noise.
As part of his anti-noise agenda, Gerson wants the city to do just the opposite: relax the constraints on dancing in return for increased penalties on noise and enforcing soundproofing regulations. "If an establishment is appropriately soundproofed, government should not care if people inside dance. Otherwise, it is an impingement on personal expression," Gerson has said.
Operation Silent Night and Gerson's initiative seem to signal a newfound attention to a long-standing problem. "Consistently, across the board, we're being exposed to dangerously high levels of noise," says Boyle of the Noise Center. "There's a lot of noise out there, and whether or not it's louder than it was 30 years ago, it's too loud."
While the 2002 elections are empowering anti-environmental leadership in the United States Senate, they also represent a high water mark for New York's environment, at least in terms of political rhetoric. All three major statewide officials -- Governor George E. Pataki, Comptroller Alan Hevesi and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer -- campaigned as friends of New York's natural resources and actively touted their support from environmental groups.
Of course, there will be tough battles ahead. But here in New York (and in contrast to Washington D.C.), our top elected officials have all demonstrated their interests in conservation and/or environmental health issues. And all three owe a debt to their environmental friends and supporters.
The governor, who has developed a reputation as an avid outdoorsman and strong conservationist, highlighted his environmental support, perhaps to a greater degree than any of his predecessors. He publicized his endorsements from the Sierra Club and the New York League of Conservation Voters. One of his high-visibility campaign ads included comments from the League of Conservation Voters' chairman, Paul Elson, who identified "cleaner air, cleaner water and more open space" as among the governor's environmental accomplishments.
H. Carl McCall, Pataki's opponent, also embraced environmental issues in the campaign. He criticized the governor for failure to advance refinancing of the State Superfund program (for clean-up of toxic waste sites) and for lack of progress on efforts to remediate and redevelop urban "brownfield" properties.
A thoughtful New York Times analysis of Governor Pataki's record on key issues, written by Richard Perez-Pena, credited the governor with keeping hundreds of thousands of acres of upstate lands protected, advancing urban parks, and helping to persuade the Bush Administration to order the clean-up of toxic PCBs from the Hudson River. But the assessment also noted that he reduced monitoring compliance and fines against polluters and sought to ease clean-up standards at toxic waste sites. The Times report concluded that "Mr. Pataki's oratory on environmental issues has exceeded his performance in all areas but conservation, partly because he has promised so much."
New York State Comptroller-elect Alan Hevesi also publicized his environmental support in his successful and hotly contested race against Assemblyman John Faso. As City Comptroller until last year, Hevesi proved himself to be a dedicated protector of the New York City water supply. Among other things, he skillfully defeated an ill-advised proposal to sell off the city's reservoirs and water assets for quick cash. And he played a crucial role in strengthening the 1997 city-state watershed agreement.
One ad that the Hevesi team ran frequently in the final weeks before Election Day highlighted his Sierra Club and New York League of Conservation Voters support. And on the campaign trail, Hevesi attacked his opponent for, among other things, his "votes against the environment."
A comparison prepared by the Albany-based group Environmental Advocates of the voting records of Hevesi and Faso covering the six year period (1988-1993) during which they both served in the State Assembly found that Hevesi's overall average score was 85 percent pro-environment, while Faso's was 69 percent. Not surprisingly, Faso did not focus on environmental issues in his losing effort.
The third statewide candidate, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who had the easiest contest on Election Day, also featured his unassailable environmental track-record in his low-key campaign. During his first term in office, the Attorney General was a steadfast environmental advocate from the outset. After hiring the respected lawyer Peter Lehner ( a former colleague of mine at the Natural Resources Defense Council) to head his Environmental Protection Bureau, Spitzer and his staff took on polluters big and small.
In campaign appearances, Spitzer frequently mentioned his lawsuits to curb air pollution from mid-west power plants, to force the clean-up of PCBs in the Hudson River and to rescue hundreds of New York City's endangered community gardens.
Spitzer's opponent, Judge Dora Irizarry, shared an interest in environmental issues, although her underfunded campaign was unable to get her message out.
The prominence of environmental protection as a campaign issue extended beyond these three statewide contests. In several other races throughout the region, environmental themes played critical roles for winning candidates.
In what was one of the most incendiary Congressional campaigns in the region, Southhampton College provost Tim Bishop squeaked by one term Congressman Felix Grucci in the contest for eastern Long Island's House seat. Bishop was helped over the top by an intensive ad campaign in the closing weeks that focused largely on Grucci's weak positions on toxic waste clean-up and other environmental issues.
And in the U.S. Senate race in New Jersey, former Senator Frank Lautenberg defeated businessman Doug Forrester. Lautenberg's campaign, and ads from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, filled the airways with environmental messages (e.g. Forrester "wants taxpayers to foot the bill for cleaning up SUPERFUND toxic waste sites").
The increasingly visible use of the environment as a 2002 campaign theme in the New York region tells us something about the candidates who sponsored these messages and the voters who responded to them. First, it suggests that New York State's three statewide officials all have at least some track record on and commitment to improving environmental quality. Second, it reflects a growing recognition of the importance of environmental issues to New York voters. And third, it is evidence that New York has in fact become something of a "green state" -- a place where environmental health and natural resource protection have become cornerstone values that are widely shared by the electorate.
To be sure, there are many other issues on the minds of New Yorkers, none of the three state-wide office holders were elected primarily for their environmental accomplishments. In addition, it is unrealistic to expect that the governor, the comptroller and the attorney general will always (or even often) be able to act in concert on environmental issues. And the expressed views of these three officials on environmental issues do nothing to resolve the extraordinary problems that continue to plague the legislative process in Albany.
Nevertheless, New York's highest elected officials have all appealed to the voters to support them in their campaigns based in part upon the candidate's environmental interests and sympathies. It is now up to New York's voters to hold their elected officials accountable for insuring cleaner air, cleaner water and more open space.
Eric Goldstein is co-director of the urban program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Every day, the lines form - more men than women waiting for a soup kitchen, more women than men outside food pantries.
The federal government sponsors half a dozen nutrition programs meant to prevent Americans from going hungry, including senior lunch subsidies, meals for schoolchildren, and food stamps. But emergency food programs report rising demand for their assistance every year.
Since 1995, the number of people receiving food stamps in New York City has sharply declined, and the use of food pantries and soup kitchens has nearly doubled. Opponents of welfare reform believe these changes are connected. They also attribute the growing need for food assistance to the economy: when times were good, the poor gained little; now that times are bad, they are the first to feel the pinch.
BEING ELIGIBLE FOR FOOD STAMPS IS NOT ENOUGH
Food stamps have never been used by everyone who is eligible, partly because of the widespread belief they are only for welfare recipients. Many low-paid workers do not know they might qualify for food stamps. Others are too proud to apply for benefits, or intimidated by the application process.
The recent drop in the food stamp rolls can be traced to two laws passed in 1996. One barred most immigrants from receiving food stamps; the other mandated welfare reform. The Food Stamp Reauthorization Act of 2002 restored eligibility to most immigrants, but those who lost benefits under the 1996 law may not know they can re-apply under the new rules. When immigrants do apply for benefits, they encounter the city's failure to comply with a court order to translate written information into all needed languages, and to provide each client with a caseworker who speaks their language.
Make the Road by Walking, a Brooklyn-based social justice organization, joined the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the New York Legal Assistance Group to sue the Giuliani administration for violating the right of non-English speakers to services in their own language. After losing in court, the Human Resource Administration mailed 500,000 notices, in 17 languages, announcing the right to free translation and interpretation services. The agency also translated paperwork into nine languages, and agreed to assign bilingual caseworkers to clients with limited English skills.
However, the city is still a long way from fulfilling the mandates upheld by the court decision. Make the Road by Walking monitors the city's compliance by reviewing its quarterly reports, and by sending members and staff to inspect application sites.
"Even if a form is translated, it often sits in a folder on peoples' desks," reports Andrew Friedman, executive director of Make the Road by Walking. Computer-generated documents are not yet translated, so some clients are sent notices they cannot read. "The consequences are obscene," says Friedman. If a client misses an appointment or brings the wrong documents to an interview, her benefits can be lost."
The Human Resource Administration currently matches clients with caseworkers speaking their language in 40 percent of cases. Several years ago, it was just five percent. Friedman attributes the success of individual centers to their managers, while the system as a whole is "perfectly content to have people unable to access their services."
The second cause of declining food stamp use in New York City, "welfare to work," is related to the city's incorrect administration of state and federal regulations. Recipients are entitled to get food stamps even if they are sanctioned for failing to meet strict work requirements. Those who find paying jobs can keep food stamps until their salaries rise above the eligibility limit, which was $1,180 a month for a family of three in 2001. However, for years local welfare workers did not tell recipients who were losing cash benefits that food stamps were still available to them. The city automatically cut off food stamps whenever a person's cash benefits were stopped.
Food stamp assistance did not decline equally in all ethnic groups. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that between 1995 and 1998, Latinos were the hardest hit. Eight out of every hundred Latino households in the city stopped receiving food stamps between 1995 and 1998. African-American households saw a smaller change: less than two percent lost food stamps during that time. In contrast, nearly 1% of all White and Asian households were newly eligible for food stamps between 1995 and 1998.
Last August, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum issued a report comparing New York City with 14 other cities in the state and nation. New York was the only one where food stamp rolls continued to drop even while the unemployment rate rose. The state's Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has accepted recommendations made in the report, although most have not yet been carried out.
"Change takes time," says Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, "but there are fewer problems than there used to be." A shortened application form is in the works, as are an extra two months of food stamps for newly employed recipients. According to Berg, the city is lagging behind the rest of the state in this extension of benefits.
THE PERSISTENT GROCERY GAP
When the city cuts off their food assistance, clients often find out only at the supermarket checkout counter, when their electronic benefits card doesn't work. Facing a stretch of days without meals, they turn to emergency food programs run by private nonprofit organizations. Nearly a thousand people searching for emergency food called the Food for Survival hotline in the six months up to November 2002.
Even if everyone who is entitled to them were getting food stamps, many would still use up their allotment too soon. Food programs see rising demand as each month nears its end; some clients count on them to supplement food stamps year-round.
There are over 1,000 emergency food programs in the city, according to Food for Survival, whose Food Bank is the major local distributor of emergency food. Over 700 food pantries are members, plus 300 soup kitchens, and over a hundred shelters and other service providers. This patchwork feeds about half a million people each week, and a total of 1.5 million people over the course of a year. The Food Bank distributed 61.5 million pounds of food last year, an increase of more than 10 million pounds over the previous year.
WHO USES EMERGENCY FOOD PROGRAMS?
According to a survey of its member programs released by Food for Survival in October 2001, one in four clients reported having recently chosen between buying food and paying their rent or mortgage. About the same number were receiving food stamps, although many more may have been eligible. Slightly fewer lived in a household with at least one working adult member. Very few clients were homeless or on public assistance.
For the majority, their main source of income was Social Security (including disability as well as old age payments), workers' compensation, or a pension. This suggests that more than half were elderly and/or had disabilities. Adults in one in six client households said that in the past year, they had to skip meals nearly every month, or eat smaller portions, because they could not afford enough food.
FILLING THE FOOD BANK
Federal, state, and local governments provide a large part of the Food Bank's supplies; budget deficits threaten this assistance. The city's Emergency Food Assistance Program, the main source of food for over 200 programs, was on the list of contingency budget cuts announced by the Bloomberg administration last spring and is likely to be on the list this year.
The Food Bank also relies on individual donors, corporations, and foundations, who mostly give cash. Nonprofit organizations collect food and funds, and City Harvest brings leftovers from restaurants, caterers, and others. Since the start of 2002, these private donations have fallen sharply.
THE MISSING BILLION DOLLARS
The New York City Coalition Against Hunger estimates that at least 800,000 New Yorkers who are eligible for food stamps are not receiving them. Those who do get assistance receive an average of $104 a month, allowing about a dollar per meal. Not only is this skimpy for individual recipients; it also represents a huge loss to the city's economy. If all eligible New Yorkers were getting food stamps, there would be close to a billion extra dollars, all of them federal, pouring into neighborhood grocery stores and bodegas each year. Economists know there would be a "multiplier effect": for every new dollar spent in New York City, several more are generated as jobs are created, profits are made, and workers and business owners spend the extra dollars.
That doesn't happen when food stamps are replaced by charity. Nearly all of the staff of food pantries and soup kitchens are volunteers. Their work is vital to the people they feed, but they don't earn any new dollars. The programs spend less on food than their customers would if they had money, for two reasons. Their purchases are supplemented by donated goods, and they buy too little to give out the amount of food their clients would buy if they had food stamps.
DEMAND OUTSTRIPS SUPPLY
Many feeding programs now have to turn away clients, reduce their hours, or dole out smaller portions. Meanwhile, nonprofits that never used to feed clients are finding that giving out groceries is faster than getting emergency food stamps from the city. For the United Way report, IN JEOPARDY: THE IMPACT OF WELFARE REFORM ON NONPROFIT HUMAN SERVICE AGENCIES IN NEW YORK CITY, researcher Mimi Abramovitz interviewed a nonprofit executive who told her, "We don't want to be a food pantry. Nonetheless, if someone is literally desperate, we do have emergency food on hand and the requests for it have increased dramatically."
Make the Road by Walking opened a food pantry three years ago to feed members in crisis situations. In contradiction to official policy, "HRA is still telling people they can't get food stamps when they are on SSI or disability payments," says Friedman. Such errors can take weeks to correct. The agency's members may also encounter delays at food pantries, some of which require documents to determine eligibility. "We know our people, so we don't have to screen them," Friedman explains, adding that, "The pantry is empty more often now; it's more heavily used."
Emergency feeding programs are no longer just for emergencies. When they cannot authorize food stamps for clients, the city's own eligibility workers send them to pantries and soup kitchens. Unfortunately, feeding programs are themselves starved for resources, relying on uncertain flows of supplies, donations and volunteers. As charity is stretched thinner, the weak points in the government's nutritional safety net grow more obvious. Too little help is going to too few people.
RESOURCES
Where to find a food pantry or soup kitchen: call the Emergency Food Locator (866-692-3663), or the City Harvest Hunger Hotline (866-888-8777).
How to influence public policy on hunger, visit the New York City Coalition Against Hunger web site
Volunteering at a soup kitchen: call New York Cares (212-228-5000), or visit their web site. Remember that most soup kitchens have extra volunteers at Thanksgiving and Christmas, so your help may be even more welcome during the rest of the year.
Making donations: In November 2002, the NYC Bank-to-Bank Partnership is collecting food at over 100 bank branches. To find the nearest location, see the Food For Survival web site. At other times, call 718-991-4300 to donate or start a food drive.
Changes in the food stamp program as a result of the food stamp reauthorization law
Food stamp statistics from the city's Human Resource Administration: HRA Facts.
Every day, the lines form - more men than women waiting for a soup kitchen, more women than men outside food pantries.
The federal government sponsors half a dozen nutrition programs meant to prevent Americans from going hungry, including senior lunch subsidies, meals for schoolchildren, and food stamps. But emergency food programs report rising demand for their assistance every year.
Since 1995, the number of people receiving food stamps in New York City has sharply declined, and the use of food pantries and soup kitchens has nearly doubled. Opponents of welfare reform believe these changes are connected. They also attribute the growing need for food assistance to the economy: when times were good, the poor gained little; now that times are bad, they are the first to feel the pinch.
BEING ELIGIBLE FOR FOOD STAMPS IS NOT ENOUGH
Food stamps have never been used by everyone who is eligible, partly because of the widespread belief they are only for welfare recipients. Many low-paid workers do not know they might qualify for food stamps. Others are too proud to apply for benefits, or intimidated by the application process.
The recent drop in the food stamp rolls can be traced to two laws passed in 1996. One barred most immigrants from receiving food stamps; the other mandated welfare reform. The Food Stamp Reauthorization Act of 2002 restored eligibility to most immigrants, but those who lost benefits under the 1996 law may not know they can re-apply under the new rules. When immigrants do apply for benefits, they encounter the city's failure to comply with a court order to translate written information into all needed languages, and to provide each client with a caseworker who speaks their language.
Make the Road by Walking, a Brooklyn-based social justice organization, joined the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the New York Legal Assistance Group to sue the Giuliani administration for violating the right of non-English speakers to services in their own language. After losing in court, the Human Resource Administration mailed 500,000 notices, in 17 languages, announcing the right to free translation and interpretation services. The agency also translated paperwork into nine languages, and agreed to assign bilingual caseworkers to clients with limited English skills.
However, the city is still a long way from fulfilling the mandates upheld by the court decision. Make the Road by Walking monitors the city's compliance by reviewing its quarterly reports, and by sending members and staff to inspect application sites.
"Even if a form is translated, it often sits in a folder on peoples' desks," reports Andrew Friedman, executive director of Make the Road by Walking. Computer-generated documents are not yet translated, so some clients are sent notices they cannot read. "The consequences are obscene," says Friedman. If a client misses an appointment or brings the wrong documents to an interview, her benefits can be lost."
The Human Resource Administration currently matches clients with caseworkers speaking their language in 40 percent of cases. Several years ago, it was just five percent. Friedman attributes the success of individual centers to their managers, while the system as a whole is "perfectly content to have people unable to access their services."
The second cause of declining food stamp use in New York City, "welfare to work," is related to the city's incorrect administration of state and federal regulations. Recipients are entitled to get food stamps even if they are sanctioned for failing to meet strict work requirements. Those who find paying jobs can keep food stamps until their salaries rise above the eligibility limit, which was $1,180 a month for a family of three in 2001. However, for years local welfare workers did not tell recipients who were losing cash benefits that food stamps were still available to them. The city automatically cut off food stamps whenever a person's cash benefits were stopped.
Food stamp assistance did not decline equally in all ethnic groups. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that between 1995 and 1998, Latinos were the hardest hit. Eight out of every hundred Latino households in the city stopped receiving food stamps between 1995 and 1998. African-American households saw a smaller change: less than two percent lost food stamps during that time. In contrast, nearly 1% of all White and Asian households were newly eligible for food stamps between 1995 and 1998.
Last August, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum issued a report comparing New York City with 14 other cities in the state and nation. New York was the only one where food stamp rolls continued to drop even while the unemployment rate rose. The state's Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has accepted recommendations made in the report, although most have not yet been carried out.
"Change takes time," says Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, "but there are fewer problems than there used to be." A shortened application form is in the works, as are an extra two months of food stamps for newly employed recipients. According to Berg, the city is lagging behind the rest of the state in this extension of benefits.
THE PERSISTENT GROCERY GAP
When the city cuts off their food assistance, clients often find out only at the supermarket checkout counter, when their electronic benefits card doesn't work. Facing a stretch of days without meals, they turn to emergency food programs run by private nonprofit organizations. Nearly a thousand people searching for emergency food called the Food for Survival hotline in the six months up to November 2002.
Even if everyone who is entitled to them were getting food stamps, many would still use up their allotment too soon. Food programs see rising demand as each month nears its end; some clients count on them to supplement food stamps year-round.
There are over 1,000 emergency food programs in the city, according to Food for Survival, whose Food Bank is the major local distributor of emergency food. Over 700 food pantries are members, plus 300 soup kitchens, and over a hundred shelters and other service providers. This patchwork feeds about half a million people each week, and a total of 1.5 million people over the course of a year. The Food Bank distributed 61.5 million pounds of food last year, an increase of more than 10 million pounds over the previous year.
WHO USES EMERGENCY FOOD PROGRAMS?
According to a survey of its member programs released by Food for Survival in October 2001, one in four clients reported having recently chosen between buying food and paying their rent or mortgage. About the same number were receiving food stamps, although many more may have been eligible. Slightly fewer lived in a household with at least one working adult member. Very few clients were homeless or on public assistance.
For the majority, their main source of income was Social Security (including disability as well as old age payments), workers' compensation, or a pension. This suggests that more than half were elderly and/or had disabilities. Adults in one in six client households said that in the past year, they had to skip meals nearly every month, or eat smaller portions, because they could not afford enough food.
FILLING THE FOOD BANK
Federal, state, and local governments provide a large part of the Food Bank's supplies; budget deficits threaten this assistance. The city's Emergency Food Assistance Program, the main source of food for over 200 programs, was on the list of contingency budget cuts announced by the Bloomberg administration last spring and is likely to be on the list this year.
The Food Bank also relies on individual donors, corporations, and foundations, who mostly give cash. Nonprofit organizations collect food and funds, and City Harvest brings leftovers from restaurants, caterers, and others. Since the start of 2002, these private donations have fallen sharply.
THE MISSING BILLION DOLLARS
The New York City Coalition Against Hunger estimates that at least 800,000 New Yorkers who are eligible for food stamps are not receiving them. Those who do get assistance receive an average of $104 a month, allowing about a dollar per meal. Not only is this skimpy for individual recipients; it also represents a huge loss to the city's economy. If all eligible New Yorkers were getting food stamps, there would be close to a billion extra dollars, all of them federal, pouring into neighborhood grocery stores and bodegas each year. Economists know there would be a "multiplier effect": for every new dollar spent in New York City, several more are generated as jobs are created, profits are made, and workers and business owners spend the extra dollars.
That doesn't happen when food stamps are replaced by charity. Nearly all of the staff of food pantries and soup kitchens are volunteers. Their work is vital to the people they feed, but they don't earn any new dollars. The programs spend less on food than their customers would if they had money, for two reasons. Their purchases are supplemented by donated goods, and they buy too little to give out the amount of food their clients would buy if they had food stamps.
DEMAND OUTSTRIPS SUPPLY
Many feeding programs now have to turn away clients, reduce their hours, or dole out smaller portions. Meanwhile, nonprofits that never used to feed clients are finding that giving out groceries is faster than getting emergency food stamps from the city. For the United Way report, IN JEOPARDY: THE IMPACT OF WELFARE REFORM ON NONPROFIT HUMAN SERVICE AGENCIES IN NEW YORK CITY, researcher Mimi Abramovitz interviewed a nonprofit executive who told her, "We don't want to be a food pantry. Nonetheless, if someone is literally desperate, we do have emergency food on hand and the requests for it have increased dramatically."
Make the Road by Walking opened a food pantry three years ago to feed members in crisis situations. In contradiction to official policy, "HRA is still telling people they can't get food stamps when they are on SSI or disability payments," says Friedman. Such errors can take weeks to correct. The agency's members may also encounter delays at food pantries, some of which require documents to determine eligibility. "We know our people, so we don't have to screen them," Friedman explains, adding that, "The pantry is empty more often now; it's more heavily used."
Emergency feeding programs are no longer just for emergencies. When they cannot authorize food stamps for clients, the city's own eligibility workers send them to pantries and soup kitchens. Unfortunately, feeding programs are themselves starved for resources, relying on uncertain flows of supplies, donations and volunteers. As charity is stretched thinner, the weak points in the government's nutritional safety net grow more obvious. Too little help is going to too few people.
RESOURCES
Where to find a food pantry or soup kitchen: call the Emergency Food Locator (866-692-3663), or the City Harvest Hunger Hotline (866-888-8777).
How to influence public policy on hunger, visit the New York City Coalition Against Hunger web site
Volunteering at a soup kitchen: call New York Cares (212-228-5000), or visit their web site. Remember that most soup kitchens have extra volunteers at Thanksgiving and Christmas, so your help may be even more welcome during the rest of the year.
Making donations: In November 2002, the NYC Bank-to-Bank Partnership is collecting food at over 100 bank branches. To find the nearest location, see the Food For Survival web site. At other times, call 718-991-4300 to donate or start a food drive.
Changes in the food stamp program as a result of the food stamp reauthorization law
Food stamp statistics from the city's Human Resource Administration: HRA Facts.
Linda Ostreicher, a former budget analyst for the New York City Council, is a freelance writer and consultant to nonprofits. She is currently on the staff of Bronx Independent Living Services.
The American public responded more generously than ever before when the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11. As of September 5, 2002, over $2.2 billion was raised, according to New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
One unintended effect of these gifts has been controversy over their distribution among victims of the attack and their families. If the nation had applied free-market philosophy to this situation, no charitable assistance would have been necessary. Victims' involvement in the attack would be attributed to bad luck and individual choice. Employees of businesses in the trade center buildings would be seen as having chosen to take their chances in a building complex bombed by terrorists in 1993. Police officers and firefighters would be seen as having chosen dangerous careers, with extra financial rewards in return for the risks. Even airline passengers could be seen as having chosen a form of transportation in which there is little hope of survival if the vehicle suffers damage.
Fortunately, people across the nation applied a different standard to this tragedy, one of mutual aid. According to a poll by the Independent Sector taken in October 2001, about 70 percent of Americans gave blood, donated money, volunteered their time, or in some other way tried to help the victims of the attack and their families.
However, the unity expressed by these donations does not extend to how they should be used. The resulting dissension reveals the diversity of meanings attached to words like "fairness," "victim," "family," and "need".
WHO QUALIFIES AS A "VICTIM"?
It was understood at the start that "victims" were people killed or injured in the attack, and that their "families" were their wives, husbands and children. The public was also eager to see help given to workers involved in the rescue and cleanup efforts.
Other relatives of the deceased soon made their claims on assistance clear. Parents, siblings, and domestic partners were added to a broadened definition of "family". Some charities gave help to anyone financially dependent on the victim, including former wives and their children.
Because so much money was collected, charities were able to stretch the meaning of "victim" still further, to cover others harmed by direct results of the tragedy: the 70,000 people who lost their jobs, the 6,000 downtown residents who had to leave their homes, and neighboring small businesses and nonprofits whose offices were thrown into physical or functional disorder by the event.
For some purposes, the definition of the disaster itself was extended to include anthrax attacks and post 9/11 hate crimes. The Uniformed Firefighters Association extended payments from its relief fund to families of all firefighters killed in the line of duty since 1980, and in the future.
TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS OR HER NEED?
"Fairness" is another ambiguous term; its interpretation goes to the heart of our inconsistent convictions about how people should treat one another. There are many methods for dividing up September 11 funds, and each has been championed by one or another constituency.
Distributing funds according to financial need would give more money to a family that was poor before the disaster, and less to one whose breadwinner earned a high income and maintained life insurance. According to Shawn Pattison of the Robin Hood Foundation, their September 11-related relief fund follows this principle. "Robin Hood wants to make sure no one falls through the cracks, particularly low-income people," he says. Robin Hood targets its relief efforts toward groups like immigrant communities isolated by language barriers and fear of deportation, and low-income people with mental illness. "There were Central Americans working as day laborers cleaning up the site," he explains, "and they were not given proper protective equipment. A number are quite ill now." Robin Hood supports the Latin American Workers Project, which provides health services and financial help to these victims.
Other cases inspire more disagreement as to what constitutes need. Does it include making monthly mortgage payments on a million-dollar house? Families of the victims expect donations to enable them to maintain the standard of living they had before the disaster. However, the Internal Revenue Service has explicitly barred charities from distributing money to families of victims based on their living expenses before September 11. The large nonprofits that control most of the September 11 donations have decided not only how much cash to give victims for paying bills, but also what kinds of services victims need. The major ones turned out to be mental health counseling and employment services, which are not what might be expected by viewers of news coverage of relief efforts in response to earlier man-made and natural disasters.
EQUAL SHARES FOR EQUAL DISASTER
In the most literal interpretation of a distribution of aid based on equality, you would give the same amount to each victim. This would mean giving the same amount to a person whose store was closed for a week due to roadblocks, as to a widow with young children.
A more nuanced interpretation of "equality" gives equal shares to all people in the same situation. The Uniformed Firefighters Association gave $50,000 to the family of each married firefighter who was killed, but did not initially extend this policy to beneficiaries of single firefighters. After protest by the excluded relatives, the firefighters' union gave $50,000 to domestic partners, parents and other beneficiaries of deceased unmarried firefighters. The Robin Hood fund did not distinguish between levels of need when it sent $5,000 one-time payments to each family of the victims killed on September 11. "By late November, it was clear from talking to many of our families that the money was just not getting through," says Pattison. In this situation, all families were subject to the same bureaucratic delays in releasing aid; later and larger distributions could be expected to adjust the total aid to each family according to a yardstick of need.
The September 11th Fund, a joint project of the United Way of New York City and the Fund for the City of New York, collected $501 million, more than any charity other than the Red Cross' Liberty Fund. The September 11th Fund set the value of emergency cash assistance at two levels, depending on the degree of loss. Injured survivors and victims' families would get $10,000 each; people who lost jobs or homes as a direct result of the attack received $2,500 each. The same amounts were given in a second round of cash assistance.
COMPENSATION FOR FINANCIAL LOSS: THE TORT-BASED MODEL
The court system calculates the value of human lives as it goes about its everyday business. The wrongful death of a young person counts as a greater loss than the death of a retiree, because of the years of future work that are lost. Higher salaries at the time of death mean more lost income. Higher levels of education imply the possibility of career advancement leading to higher salaries. This method of determining the amount of assistance is favored by many of the victims' families. Those whose deceased relatives would have earned the most have the greatest incentive to call for this model of assistance, and it forms one element in the federal government's calculation of awards from the Victims Compensation Fund.
Financial loss also decides the size of loans and grants being given to businesses and nonprofits in the vicinity of Ground Zero, many of whom were unable to function normally for weeks or months. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is offering both nonprofit and for-profit enterprises federally-funded grants and loans based on their annual revenues.
RECOGNITION OF EMOTIONAL LOSS
Most of the help being offered in recognition of emotional loss takes the form of mental health services or tangible gifts. The web site of the Twin Towers Fund "recognizes the importance of families spending time together in a fun and relaxing environment," and offers a variety of special events to the relatives of uniformed officers killed on September 11. They include sleepaway camp for children, golf camp for adults, free tickets to Mets games, sailing lessons, and sightseeing cruises from New York Waterways. Both the Uniformed Firefighters Association and the Twin Towers Fund are planning holiday parties in December for the families they serve.
MEASURING A PERSON'S VALUE TO THE COMMUNITY
The sacrifices made by police officers and firefighters inspired intense sympathy in the general public, which gives extra weight to the death of a member of these forces even in normal times. A study of 37 relief funds serving September 11 victims showed that nearly half of the cash paid directly to victims and their families went to relatives of police officers, firefighters, and court officers.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is offering payments to downtown residents, implying that people who remain in the neighborhood for the long term are more valued than those who leave or have recently arrived. Their web site offers a minimum grant of $1,000 to households, within specific boundaries, whose residents who lived at their present address last September 11. At least $750 more will be given to families who commit to staying in the area for at least one year, if they have one or more children younger than 18.
WHAT DO DONORS WANT DONE?
According to Barbara Bryan, president of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, many charities were "overcome by the size of the generosity and by the size of the need, and all the different levels of need." At the end of October 2001, the Red Cross announced it had collected more than enough to meet the needs of the victims -- so much more that its Liberty Fund could start underwriting some of the agency's more routine costs for services to American troops on active duty; community outreach to encourage neutrality, unity and tolerance; and telecommunications equipment, computer systems and accounting services. It also intended to set aside about half of the Liberty Fund for future needs of the WTC victims or for victims of future terrorist attacks.
This plan made the Red Cross the target of a growing sense of frustration and distrust among donors, victims' families and Ground Zero workers. Chief Executive Bernadine Healy was forced to resign; the organization was questioned by the United States Congress. The Red Cross had to revise its plan, promising to give out about half of the Liberty Fund by the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attack.
The September 11th Fund chose a different route. It conducted surveys of the general public in October and November of 2001, polling both donors and non-donors to September 11-related charities. The results supported the fund's decisions to expand services to the broad range of victims described above, and to provide a variety of short-term and long-term services in addition to cash assistance.
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF CHARITABLE DISTRIBUTION METHODS
Even with public opinion polls, it is not possible to aid disaster victims in a way that pleases everyone. Each method of dividing up disaster relief funds reflects a conviction about what makes a good society; the subject stirs up almost as much passion as the idea of the World Trade Center disaster itself.
Distributing charitable aid based on financial need implies that charity should even out economic differences between recipients. Giving equal shares to all implies that charity does not have to take into account the different situations of recipients before the event that created their shared need. Giving charitable aid in proportion to the recipient's economic loss implies that charity should honor victims' property rights by preserving the existing hierarchy of wealth. Using non-monetary aid to compensate victims for emotional losses suggests that such suffering cannot be measured and is best addressed symbolically. Basing levels of aid on the victim's value to society implies that charity's purpose is to benefit society as a whole. And leaving the decision of how to use donations up to the donor means that their right to control their money trumps the greater experience of charitable professionals in determining the best use of assistance.
Barbara Bryan believes that charities will have to change in response to the disputes over disaster relief for the victims of September 11. "You have to be very clear about what you're asking for, " she says, but she is not sure of the specific steps that will have to be taken. "People are still trying to take lessons from all of this."
Linda Ostreicher, a former budget analyst for the New York City Council, is a freelance writer and consultant to nonprofits. She is currently on the staff of Bronx Independent Living Services.
Change is coming along the heavily industrialized East River shores of Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn streets with lovely names like Metropolitan and Grand once linked Manhattan's teeming Lower East Side to the city's largest borough via ferries. They retain magnificent skyline views, as do the unused piers and wharves off of Huron, India and Java Streets, that via freighter linked these neighborhoods to markets and goods worldwide. These once busy waterfronts now house the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant, the hulking remains of abandoned industrial structures, dilapidated piers.
Today, a thriving club and residential scene has emerged on Bedford Avenue, one stop from Manhattan by the "L" Train and a short walk from the river. Waterfront that was once the exclusive preserve of power plants, oil storage facilities, lumber yards, ferry slips and working piers, is being transformed into parkland, housing and a focus for a community returning to its maritime roots. The existence of large, underutilized, relatively inexpensive, waterfront parcels, easy access to Manhattan and superb views of the Manhattan skyline fuel the transformation.
Change comes to these neighborhoods, much as it comes throughout the city, in fits and starts. In recent years, residents have opposed municipal uses such as solid waste transfer stations and power plants. Today, the locals are advocating for public access to both the East River waterfront and the banks of polluted and much-maligned Newtown Creek while continuing to oppose power plants.
Conflict has come to this corner of Brooklyn as large empty spaces have been discovered by groups as diverse as power plant proponents, waterfront recreationists, housing developers and open space advocates. The neighborhood's lack of open space and waterfront access combined with a long history of having noxious municipal uses sited in the community makes today 's clash interesting even by New York City standards. A City Planning Commission zoning review, that promises to be contentious, is under way.
In Williamsburg, NAG, a community organization originally founded to fight waste transfer stations, has called for improved public waterfront access, open space and mixed-use development. In Greenpoint, 41 local, civic and non-profit community groups joined to form the Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning, GWAPP, an umbrella advocacy group. Again, the association's original focus was opposition to power plants. Both organizations now focus on the challenge posed by development --residential, commercial and industrial.
Joe Vance, co-chair of the Greenpoint association, described his role as one of the many watch dogs for the community. He hopes to "shepherd the neighborhood through the rezoning, open space and development processes" now unfolding.
At Brooklyn Borough Hall on June 13th, Governor Pataki announced grants to study and plan for public access to these Brooklyn waterfronts and for joint city and state development of open space at the WNYC transmitter site by the Greenpoint piers. These grants follow the recent $9.3 million purchase of more than six acres at Kent Avenue between North 7th and North 9th Streets for New York University sports fields, a waterfront esplanade and community open space.
Private sector forces are in the mix too. Two proposed waterfront developments in Greenpoint, comprising 38 acres, would, in Joe Vance's estimate add 15,000 new residents to a community of perhaps 75,000 people, dramatically inundating the ara.
And then, there is the power plant. To help meet the city's estimated future electricity demand, the TransGas Energy (TGE) System has proposed a 1,100-megawatt facility for the Bushwick Creek Inlet at the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The energy company favors the site because of its proximity to electric transmission lines, oil pipelines, Con Ed steam and the river. The neighborhood groups have banded together to oppose the project. According to Vance, "this is the first power plant of this size proposed for a waterfront site without a power plant."
TGE is expected to submit its application late this summer.
Peter B. Fleischer, currently writing a book on the New York City waterfront, was formerly a transportation and environment policy advisor to New York City Mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani.
Change is coming along the heavily industrialized East River shores of Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn streets with lovely names like Metropolitan and Grand once linked Manhattan's teeming Lower East Side to the city's largest borough via ferries. They retain magnificent skyline views, as do the unused piers and wharves off of Huron, India and Java Streets, that via freighter linked these neighborhoods to markets and goods worldwide. These once busy waterfronts now house the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant, the hulking remains of abandoned industrial structures, dilapidated piers.
Today, a thriving club and residential scene has emerged on Bedford Avenue, one stop from Manhattan by the "L" Train and a short walk from the river. Waterfront that was once the exclusive preserve of power plants, oil storage facilities, lumber yards, ferry slips and working piers, is being transformed into parkland, housing and a focus for a community returning to its maritime roots. The existence of large, underutilized, relatively inexpensive, waterfront parcels, easy access to Manhattan and superb views of the Manhattan skyline fuel the transformation.
Change comes to these neighborhoods, much as it comes throughout the city, in fits and starts. In recent years, residents have opposed municipal uses such as solid waste transfer stations and power plants. Today, the locals are advocating for public access to both the East River waterfront and the banks of polluted and much-maligned Newtown Creek while continuing to oppose power plants.
Conflict has come to this corner of Brooklyn as large empty spaces have been discovered by groups as diverse as power plant proponents, waterfront recreationists, housing developers and open space advocates. The neighborhood's lack of open space and waterfront access combined with a long history of having noxious municipal uses sited in the community makes today 's clash interesting even by New York City standards. A City Planning Commission zoning review, that promises to be contentious, is under way.
In Williamsburg, NAG, a community organization originally founded to fight waste transfer stations, has called for improved public waterfront access, open space and mixed-use development. In Greenpoint, 41 local, civic and non-profit community groups joined to form the Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning, GWAPP, an umbrella advocacy group. Again, the association's original focus was opposition to power plants. Both organizations now focus on the challenge posed by development --residential, commercial and industrial.
Joe Vance, co-chair of the Greenpoint association, described his role as one of the many watch dogs for the community. He hopes to "shepherd the neighborhood through the rezoning, open space and development processes" now unfolding.
At Brooklyn Borough Hall on June 13th, Governor Pataki announced grants to study and plan for public access to these Brooklyn waterfronts and for joint city and state development of open space at the WNYC transmitter site by the Greenpoint piers. These grants follow the recent $9.3 million purchase of more than six acres at Kent Avenue between North 7th and North 9th Streets for New York University sports fields, a waterfront esplanade and community open space.
Private sector forces are in the mix too. Two proposed waterfront developments in Greenpoint, comprising 38 acres, would, in Joe Vance's estimate add 15,000 new residents to a community of perhaps 75,000 people, dramatically inundating the ara.
And then, there is the power plant. To help meet the city's estimated future electricity demand, the TransGas Energy (TGE) System has proposed a 1,100-megawatt facility for the Bushwick Creek Inlet at the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The energy company favors the site because of its proximity to electric transmission lines, oil pipelines, Con Ed steam and the river. The neighborhood groups have banded together to oppose the project. According to Vance, "this is the first power plant of this size proposed for a waterfront site without a power plant."
TGE is expected to submit its application late this summer.
Peter B. Fleischer, currently writing a book on the New York City waterfront, was formerly a transportation and environment policy advisor to New York City Mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani.