Noxious plumes and truck noise surrounded Tolani Taylor on Sherman Avenue Monday morning.
The environmentalist says she’s particularly concerned about what warehouses mean for constant truck traffic and, by extension, air quality.
And while the spot where she stood is one of the city’s hot spots for this type of activity, Taylor says investigators are finding the problems are common in other parts of the Garden State as well.
“Warehouses and ports are two very important parts of the freight and goods transportation system here in New Jersey. But where they are placed and how existing warehouses are already burdening communities … is what needs to change,” Taylor, an organizer with Clean Water Action, told NJ Advance Media.
A new report has discovered what many New Jerseyans would say they already know: A glut of warehouses brings heavy truck traffic and harmful health effects.
However, the latest light shone on the matter, outlining how in New Jersey – as in nine other states – it is also clear that Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native Americans and low-income people face the most risks associated with living near warehouses.
According to the report, there are 3,034 warehouses in the Garden State, covering 527 million square feet. About one in three people in New Jersey lives within a quarter mile of a warehouse.
The facilities reportedly generate at least 380,000 truck trips per day.
The number of warehouses in the state has grown by 35 percent over the past two decades, and 2.7 million people (about 1 in 3) live within a half-mile of these facilities, the authors said.
“Some 178,000 (of these people) are under five years old and 350,000 are over 64 years old,” reads an excerpt from the report.
The report was written by Sam Becker of the Environmental Defense Fund, with contributions from Earthjustice and Clean Water Action.
“Exhaust pollution from diesel trucks coming to and from warehouses and ports is a primary culprit,” Becker said of the problems in Newark and elsewhere. “These numbers stand out among the three state-specific reports we have written (NJ, IL and NY).”
Warehouses and New Jersey go hand in hand. Climate advocates recognize the benefits these places can provide. In addition to boosting the economy, their roofs are huge and can be retrofitted for solar panels – as some companies have already done.
The negative sides of warehouses are also stark. Workers, especially those without papers, often mention warehouses as a place where they can usually go without essential items during the warm summer months. These facilities, as the Environmental Defense Fund’s latest report shows, are also often built in places where a disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities is unavoidable.
A truck parked in the middle of the street in Newark, New Jersey, on Thursday, June 24, 2024.
A 2023 report from the Environmental Defense Fund said New Jersey had 1,777 warehouses. However, an organizer there said last year’s report only took into account leased warehouses equal to or larger than 100,000 square feet.
The new report includes leased and owner-occupied warehouses over 50,000 square feet in environmental justice communities (defined here by the state as “congested”) or 100,000 square feet in non-environmental justice communities.
“By including smaller facilities in these communities, this analysis recognizes the disproportionately high concentration of polluting facilities and the resulting health burdens experienced by these communities,” Becker said Monday.
A similar analysis to this one has been conducted in nine other states, including California, Texas and New York.
“I was shocked by the report and its findings, but it also made me even more determined to do something about the mega-warehouse boom,” New Jersey state Rep. Andrea Katz (D-8) told NJ Advance Media.
For Katz, the ubiquity of warehouses was evident during daily drives along Route 206 with her children, she said.
“The report has proven how serious this is,” Katz added, “and the cumulative impact is worse than most thought.”
Spurred on by the months-long analysis, Katz said she is working with Sen. John McKeon (D-Essex) to introduce legislation to “protect communities by ensuring these facilities reduce pollution and more carefully planning where new ones go.”
California has already implemented a strategy aimed at reducing emissions associated with warehouses, and New York is working on its own mitigation plans.
Two years ago, New Jersey’s Office of Planning Advocacy published guidelines to better equip municipalities when deciding whether to add or reject a warehouse. Last year, a bill, A5802, was introduced that gave cities access to funds that could help with these efforts. That bill has yet to pass out of committee.
In any case, climate groups said this week that New Jersey has no policies to curb the problems caused by warehouses and truck traffic. As a state, they pleaded, we could also be stricter about allowing them to continue to proliferate in certain areas.
The report says New Jersey should implement a comprehensive review process to reduce warehouse emissions in all neighborhoods, especially in places defined by the state as disproportionately burdened communities. need facilities that attract truck traffic to purchase and operate zero-emission vehicles and install on-site solar power generation and electricity storage.
A map from a new report from the Environmental Defense Fund shows that there are 3,034 warehouses in New Jersey, covering 527 million square feet.
Additional demographic findings, which organizers say lawmakers and regulators should consider in future policy, from the new report include:
- The Hispanic population, which makes up about 20% of the state’s population, is 1.8 times more likely to live within a half mile of a warehouse
- Low-income populations are 1.5 times more likely to live within 800 meters of warehouses
- Black residents, nearly 15% of the state’s population, are 1.4 times more likely to live within a half mile of warehouses
- The Native American population (which makes up 0.07% of the state’s total population) is 1.1 times more likely to live within a half mile of these warehouses than expected, compared to the demographics of the state as a whole.
- The Asian population, which makes up about 10% of the state’s population, lives within a quarter mile of warehouses, at a rate nearly identical to statewide demographics
- The white population, 70% of New Jersey’s total population, is 1.2 times less likely to live within a half mile of warehouses compared to the state’s demographics.
The Newark Steel warehouse in Newark, New Jersey on Thursday, June 24, 2024.
Feeling the pulse of the port
Online orders in New Jersey – like elsewhere in the country and sometimes linked to the “Amazon effect” – have skyrocketed.
This trend has only intensified following the COVID-19 pandemic.
That surge has led to increased warehouse development as companies try to meet the high demand and steady flow of cargo to places like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the busiest container port on the East Coast and one of the most active hubs of its kind in the country.
Along with the increase in people knocking on the door and ordering goods, port activity has increased and by extension the busy back and forth of trucks carrying deliveries and warehouse work required to process goods.
According to a spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a total of more than 3.3 million trucks visited its facilities in 2023.
The enormous CGM Marco Polo, which called at New York Harbor and New Jersey, passes under the Bayonne Bridge on its way to Elizabeth.
Officials at the port said they are aware of the emissions associated with these visits.
“We know that activity at our port facilities has a broad impact across the region, but it can also have a very local impact in nearby communities. That’s why we are active members of groups like the South Ward Environmental Alliance and maintain constant communication with local leaders to understand their priorities,” Bethann Rooney, port director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told NJ Advance Media in a statement .
Rooney said the port is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and that this will be done by taking measures such as phasing out “older, dirtier equipment” and encouraging the use of environmentally friendly alternatives.
A port spokesperson said the port has been voluntarily working to reduce harmful air pollutants since 2009 by taking several steps, including encouraging trucking companies to purchase “clean” vehicles.
Still, Clean Water Action’s Taylor stressed that the state could become stricter on truck and warehouse fees.
Without more oversight, she and other advocates said, warehouse use and trucking will only increase, further harming communities of color.
When asked what additional data could be collected to better understand the impact, Taylor said: “Air measurement data from truck counts, testimonies from community members living near warehouses (and) the percentage of community members with asthma or respiratory problems caused by diesel pollution from trucks coming out of ports and warehouses.”
To view the full report “New Jersey Warehouse Boom: Tracing the growth of warehouses and their impacts”.
NJ Advance Media Staff Writer Jackie Romans contributed to this report.
