EcoJustice Summer!

This Summer, the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center along with A Village Inc., will conduct its five-week EcoJustice Summer Youth program for youth ages 14 - 18.  Participants will have the opportunity to earn an income while being engaged in hands-on work and learning related to local ecological and social justice issues.  Based out of the Radix Center, youth will be employed in food justice  activism through the maintenance and operation of Radix’s one-acre urban farm as well as numerous gardens throughout Albany’s South End.  Produce harvested from these gardens feeds local residents and supports Radix’s educational programs.  Days also consist of educational opportunities, with workshops, guest speakers, and outdoor field trips to local sites. The dates for the program are from Monday July 3^rd through Friday, August 4^th.

Ezra Prentice Community Health Project

A Joint project of AVillage…, Inc., and the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center.

Introduction: The Ezra Prentice Community Health Project was developed in response to a need perceived by AVillage… Inc., a community based not-for-profit in the South End of Albany. Ezra Prentice Homes is a public housing project situated next to the Port of Albany in the city’s far southern edge and has been officially designated as an Environmental Justice community by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. However, until recently the DEC has been reluctant to address the air pollution issues that plague this community. Through direct observation it was evident that residents of Ezra Prentice suffer from an extremely high level of illnesses that appeared to be related to air pollution. Ezra Prentice is in a highly industrialized area, with many potential sources of air pollution, but the two sources that most clearly impact residents are from the Kenwood rail yards, where oil tanker and other rail cars are parked and switched directly behind Ezra Prentice, and the heavy diesel truck traffic on South Pearl Street.

The Health Survey: Working with the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center, a partner South End not-for-profit, we designed and implemented a comprehensive health survey and organized local residents to do the outreach. Wherever possible we used verified questions and relied on advice from faculty at the SUNY School of Public Health in the design and administration of the survey itself. The Resident Outreach Workers make the initial contacts, conduct an initial environmental awareness survey, and make appointments for graduate students certified in human subjects research to administer the survey. Residents are compensated for taking the surveys with gift cards, and survey results are kept confidential and under lock and key.

What We Learned From Global (And What We Still Don't Know)

Residents at Ezra Prentice and members of AVillage met on November 9, 2016, with Global Partners, owners of the black oil tanker cars. The meeting produced no big surprises, but one commitment from Global and some helpful information. More information should come from the meeting planned by the EPA tonight at Ezra Prentice.

Dylan Remley, Global’s regional manager, was accompanied by two members of the company’s environmental quality staff and three members of the local facilities staff. He gave a brief presentation of the company’s operation at Ezra Prentice, with a site map showing where it loads its oil cars onto barges or ships.

Several residents asked Remley whether the tanker cars have to be parked immediately behind the residences at Ezra Prentice. They talked about the constant noise and the tension of living with an unknown, menacing presence only yards away. He replied that he has no answers now, but will talk to Canadian Pacific and the Port of Albany. He explained that Canadian Pacific owns most of the track near and behind Ezra Prentice (some is also owned by CSX and by the Port of Albany’s own rail subsidiary).

Remley also said he would ask Richard Hendrick, the Port of Albany General Manager, to come and talk directly to the residents of Ezra Prentice. “He says he will come,” said Remley. He said he would find out who is responsible for the Canadian Pacific tracks near Ezra Prentice and pass on that information.

The global economy has done what years of litigation and actions could not accomplish. Remley stated that in the last three months there have been “essentially zero” oil trains coming through the Port of Albany.

Note: This is confirmed by observation and independent media reports, and is based at least in part on the current glut of petroleum products on the world market. “Due to lower prices, East Coast refineries can get oil cheaper from Africa by tanker,” says Justin Milkula, a local observer and contributor to industry watchdog Desmogblog.

Remley said the tanker cars we are seeing are carrying ethanol.

Note: These tankers will look the same from the outside. Ethanol is also a volatile fuel, but there is some evidence that it is somewhat less dangerous than the heavy North Dakota crude that had been coming through the Port, says Mikulka. 

Remley was asked about odors that seem to be coming from the tanker cars, especially with the lids up. He said the lids up do not signify that the tanker cars are venting gases. The only venting takes place when the tanker cars are emptied for shipping, and those gases are captured and do not go into the atmosphere.

Note: This is also partly confirmed by Mikulka: “When you see those hatches up on the top of the cars, those are only the exterior man way covers. So there is another interior cover that keeps the tank car closed to the atmosphere. I spoke to someone who used an infrared camera to check for fumes venting from the tank cars and they said they saw none. I also believe that they would not want the cars open to the atmosphere.  In DC I saw a presentation about the corrosion issues they have with the Bakke tank cars. It is a real issue. They definitely would not want to leave them open to the atmosphere and risk a rainstorm. 

“However, this is all assuming everything works properly.  As we know, that isn't the case with the oil and rail industries.”

Remley resisted discussing the legal issues that Global is facing from the state and federal governments, or its proposal to build heating ovens so that even thicker crude from Canada could be processed through the Port of Albany.

  -- Tom McPheeters

Ezra Prentice in the News, and Behind the Scenes

  The campaign for a healthy Ezra Prentice community continues on many fronts, but much more publicly than we had expected at this point. Part of the story can be told in the media coverage that has come following the visit by EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck last August. 

Here are some more developments since our last post:

• A lengthy and well researched article, Carbon Wars, by Jenny Zou appeared on the website of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington think tank and was picked up by Huffington Post and circulated locally. The video that Jenny shot while visiting Albany framed the Ezra story very well, and the article puts our issues in the context of the nation-wide problems of the failure of governments at all levels to properly fund environmental protection or address environmental racism. The article drove home to us the importance of local organizing
• Another lesser known but important source is Desmogblog.com, which published this article by their local correspondent, Justin Mikulka: Ruling by Little-known Federal Agency Paves Way for Communities to Say No to Oil by Rail.  Justin has been following the Ezra story for several years, and his blog has become a must-read for locals.
• Fred LeBrun, the Times Union columnist who makes the Cuomo Administration cringe every time they pick up the Sunday paper, weighed in with his October 16 column (Oil Scales Tip to Albany Citizens). Although this is the first time in a while that Fred has covered the Oil Trains at Ezra Prentice, we owe him a great deal of thanks for his relentless coverage of the Hoosick Falls PFOA debacle. Without Hoosick Falls there might not be an Ezra Prentice in the news.

  Meanwhile, the wheels turn, but slowly. We have established regular meetings at Ezra Prentice so residents can keep informed, and so that the various players can come there to report and answer questions. That would include the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Port of Albany, and also Global Industries, which is now mandated by DEC to address the environmental racism issues in the continued presence of the oil trains yards away from Ezra Prentice homes.

  Our team of advisors is planning to meet soon with DEC to dig into their plans for air quality studies that are scheduled to start next spring. They will report to residents after that meeting.

  And while we have heard nothing directly from the Port of Albany, we are informed that their traffic counts are pretty close to the traffic counts we did on South Pearl this summer — about 1,000 diesel trucks during work days.