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I might be wrong, but when people think of the environment for the most part they seem to think of saving our wetlands or endangered species. There are other environmental problems and they affect our urban environments and as usual those problems have the biggest impact on people that cannot afford to do something about it, move away or stop the degradation of their environment in the first place, Harlem’s Hazards, A ‘toxic tour’ gave me an up-close look at environmental racism 

When people in positions of power intentionally build something that’s dangerous to the environment and the health of residents in a low-income and minority neighborhood, that’s environmental racism, Cadore told us. “We all have prejudices,” she said. “But once you attach power to your prejudice, it becomes racism.”

One place you can see the effects of environmental racism is in Harlem, a predominantly black and Latino neighborhood in Manhattan.

Now, there are beauties in Harlem that mustn’t be overlooked-the Apollo Theater, historic homes and countless other landmarks. Even on the tour, Cadore pointed out treasures like the Madame Alexander Doll Factory and the abandoned piers on the Hudson River that are being turned into Harlem’s first waterfront park.

But there are also several hazardous sites in Harlem within 10 blocks of each other. WE ACT’s full “Toxics and Treasures Tour” shows participants 15 sites above 96th Street.

The Right to Clean Air

Cadore said that there’s a myth that people of color don’t care about the environment. But they just live in a different environment, she said-not one with lots of trees and bald eagles, but an urban one where they live, work and breathe.

She encouraged us to pay attention to what’s put in our environment, and to fight against environmental racism. “It’s a right, not a privilege, to breathe clean air,” she said.

We took an abbreviated tour of the West Harlem sites to see for ourselves how environmental racism affected the community.

Odd how a sewer in Harlem was built to handle the waste from half of Manhattan and part of the Bronx, especially when doing so required special engineering to handle pumping sewerage up hill. Wonder how Westside residents off Central Park would have felt about a large sewer plant built there. Harlem residents at the grassroots have had some success, they organized and stopped a garbage transfer station from reopening in 2002.