The Planning Board is holding a public hearing on Colarusso's dock operations on Tuesday, July 15. One of the complaints voiced last week by Donna Streitz of Our Hudson Waterfront is that the Planning Board has not yet discussed the public's comments in an open forum.
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| Photo: Peter Jung |
Dear Hudson Planning Board,
I lead a data science team for UNICEF, and as part of our activities we design air quality monitoring programs at children's schools. I have been monitoring the air quality at the Hudson waterfront since early June using a new factory calibrated particulate matter sensor from the same reputable manufacturer we use for monitoring air quality at children's schools. The below graph shows the air quality levels over the last month. It indicates chronic exposure to unsafe air quality for residents in the area with an average that is triple the level considered safe by the World Health Organization (WHO). Many days show PM2.5 levels above 25 μg/m³ which is extremely high. Only a handful of days fall below the WHO guidelines, suggesting that safe air quality is the exception at the Hudson waterfront, not the norm.
Long-term exposure to PM2.5 at this level is linked to cardiovascular disease, asthma, and reduced lung development in children. Considering that the industrial dock at Hudson's waterfront is adjacent to recreational park land designated for the public and for children's activities, this level of pollution is ethically and legally troubling for the city.
These preliminary findings merit a full assessment by an independent environmental monitoring company at applicant's expense before a permit for any industrial activity at the waterfront can even be considered. We need to understand why the air is already unsafe at the waterfront, and what impacts the suggested increase in mining operations will create. Your legacy and reputation as a planning board entrusted with the task of keeping Hudson residents safe and healthy is on the line. In the absence of such a study your course of action is crystal clear, you must deny any industrial use of the waterfront. To put the profits of a private sector company over our own children's health without even attempting to measure the impacts is morally bankrupt and puts the city in legal jeopardy.
I hope the Planning Board will respond to this information at the public hearing on Tuesday. The meeting takes place at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Fire Station, 77 North Seventh Street. There will also be a livestream on Zoom. Click here to find the link to the livestream.
COPYRIGHT 2025 CAROLE OSTERINK
When there is a tug & barge idling at the dock, the entire waterfront reeks of diesel fumes. I doubt that our Planning Board has devoted even one minute to this subject.
ReplyDeleteIs there data collected at different times reflecting specific activity at the waterfront? For example, during the times of the busiest train traffic but gravel okerations are closed, when barges are idling but there are no trains, or when there is peak auto traffic due to events at the waterfront venues? Just trying to see if it’s possible to pinpoint the source of particulate matter so comparison between activities is valid.
ReplyDeleteI believe the questions you raise are precisely why Ives Jaques is calling for "a full assessment by an independent environmental monitoring company."
DeleteThank you and I agree there needs to be unbiased data collected. It’s tricky to place the financial burden on the applicant only, would they be reimbursed if it turns out there are other major contributors to the particulate matter pollution? Hmm.
DeleteIt’s always the applicant’s obligation to pay for necessary studies — the applicant is moving its application, not the municipality.
DeleteIs the study a legal requirement? I thought all the legally required environmental studies had been completed, am I wrong? It seems this person took it upon themselves to take some data points and then decided it needed further investigation at the applicant’s expense.
DeleteIt's a legal requirement if the PB requires it . . . that's up to them. As to whether you're wrong or not I can only say, you're not correct. That is, the "person" who took "some data points" introduced themself -- he's a data scientist who does this for a living. So I suppose you could be more wrong, but I just haven't formulated how you could be more wrong. That is to say, your faux-curiosity and faux-folksiness makes me suspect you're a shill for someone who doesn't have the community's best interests at heart. That's just my take-away.
DeleteNo data scientist can establish causality with the sequence of data they presented here. Attempting to pin it to a specific source would at the very least require measurements in different places. That hasn't happened.
ReplyDeleteA data scientist would also be keenly aware of the fact that there are different thresholds considered unhealthy when it comes to PM2.5. Conveniently, they quoted WHO's threshold that is considerably more stringent than the federal one published by the ETA. That one was last adjusted in 2024.
The narrative would have not been nearly as supportive of the narrative had they measured the data against the federal standard for PM2.5 which is nearly twice that of the WHO.
Meanwhile, the actual series of data points measured does not match what is currently available for Hudson's waterfront elsewhere. IQAir, a manufacturer of air quality sensors that publishes crowdsourced data from its user base, paints a very different picture for Hudson's waterfront. Not only is the average of PM2.5 significantly lower than stated here, it also follows a different pattern whereby it appears to be highest around and on weekends.
This here data scientist makes no reference to any of this because they first and foremost want to tell a particular story. It may still be true but that would be by pure happenstance and not because data-scientific rigor was used to produce it.
Max, he is calling for a study, he’s not calling what he did a study, just an exercise that yielded problematic results. And, frankly, I’m perfectly happy to reference stringent WHO standards rather than American domestic standards given that our nation is seriously anti-science, anti-common sense and seriously overly politicized. And, while I support ACS’s property rights and right to earn a living, no one who lives in this community can seriously question whether its operations negatively impact our environment. There is a happy medium to be found if we are simply willing to find it.
DeleteHi Tassilo, Someone pointed out your comments and I thought they merited a reply. I noted in my letter that these were preliminary results and that they suggested an environmental impact assessment should be performed. That was the whole point of taking some measurements. Because no one ever has. One monitor in one place for one month is obviously insufficient. As to another monitor being available at the waterfront on IQAIR that shows different results. Don't think so. I wouldn't have bothered if that were the case. The one you saw on IQAIR was my monitor! I had the data feed public. Go check online and you will see the monitor you mention is no longer present (as mine is currently offline). Regarding the data themselves, they do show peaks and valleys but peaks are not consistently on weekends, nor are the valleys. I admittedly don't know why there are some huge peaks. Wouldn't it be nice to know? A real study would do that. Again, this dataset was produced to raise awareness of the fact that no one in eight years of discussion about this subject has done so. Finally regarding differences between WHO and EPA limits, we use WHO as they focus exclusively on health effects, while the EPA moderates their limits for other non-health reasons like economic impact. We think it's preferable to separate those factors and I stand by the WHO guidelines as the true measure of health impact. Anyway, appreciated your comments and I hope that all this awareness raising results in a happy safe waterfront for Hudson.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am saying is that the data that you present does IMO not even warrant an impact assessment, at least not yet.
DeleteThese things aren't free. If you want to place this burden on the applicant, I think one needs to do better than pointing at marginally raised PM2.5 numbers.
Go to most places in the US, or anywhere in the world, where air quality measurements like PM10, PM2.5 etc. are made and you will find that very frequently, they exceed guidelines - at least where people live.
I don't see a hint of a smoking gun that the dock or the trucks are the main culprit. What if someone can prove that the lion share or a comparable amount of these particles stems from Amtrak or any of the cargo trains that use the tracks by the waterfront (there's also the ADM train that goes up the hill and passes through 7th Park weekly)?
It's why I proposed that in order to establish even the hint of causality, you need measurements in other places and preferably a way to control for different variables. What is for example the PM2.5 at the Catskill waterfront which to my knowledge is not industrial? Or better yet: Beacon which features a non-industrial waterfront and an active train station. That would give us a hint to what degree the industrial dock and the trucks might be contributing here.
Just like you, I also want a safe waterfront and clean air for everyone. To some degree this is however an illusion. In order to sustain a population of eight billion people we are forced to do things that have detrimental effects. The question always is how detrimental.
I maintain that the threat scenario that is routinely being drawn up at Hudson's current waterfront is massively out of wack with what is actually going on. If this waterfront was really such a perilous place, why isn't there data that shows increased rates of asthma among children living nearby?