VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Promises and pollution: Syracuse residents question I-81 project’s impact
Joseph Duffey: As Syracuse prepares for the next phase of the I-81 project, new air quality monitors are being installed in surrounding neighborhoods. We’re going live with Sydney Cuillier to explain how this change will help residents in the future. Sydney?
Sydney Cuillier: As the construction of the I-81 project continues to move forward, some residents are worried about how much air pollution is going to be effecting neighborhood surrounding the project. The state says air quality monitors will track pollution during construcion of the I-81 project, but some community leaders say those protections are long overdue. Onondaga County legislator Charles Garland says residents have been raising concerns for years.
Charles Garland: All that pollution, that’s a ground level. And it’s been, this plan has been going on for twenty years, twenty years.
Cuillier: Garland a vocal critic of the community grid plan says majority African American closest to the project can face the greatest impacts.
Garland: Their prioties are directed to the SU hill, that area, and expanding into downtown at the cost of the people who live in that area that are suffering the most.
Cuillier: Southside resident Caprice Hibbler says air quality concerns are already a reality for many families.
Caprice Hibbler: I feel like my brother is at the hospital every other week now.
Cuillier: We reached out to Syracuse Common Councilor Dr. Chol Majok for a comment, but we did not hear back before out deadline. However, Major previosuly spoke with the Central Current outlet about the monitoring effort. He said and I quote, “Preparing for negative environemntal impacts in neighborhoods the city has historically neglected is a step toward hearing and meeting the needs of long-neglected communities before the residetns are negatively impacted by construction and redevelopment projects.” Supporters say the mointors will provide data as construction continues, while residents say they’ll be watching to see whether that date leads to action. State officials say inforamtion collected by the air monitors will be readily availible to the public thorughout the duration of the construction project. In Syracuse, Sydney Cuillier, NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – As construction on the I-81 Community Grid moves forward, some Black community leaders and activists say the project risks deepening long-standing environmental and health disparities in Syracuse’s Southside neighborhoods.
“Syracuse is one of a hundred small-to mid-size American cities, but out of those hundred maybe thousands but, we’ve had the unfortunate distinction of having the highest infant mortality rate, the highest rates of poverty among Black and brown children, some of the highest concentrations of people with upper respiratory illnesses in America at one time,” said Onondaga County’s longest serving legislator Charles Garland.
Garland, a part of activist group Renew 81, filed not one but two lawsuits in federal court in an attempt to halt construction related to the I-81 expansion until city officials thoroughly analyze the environmental effects of the viaduct teardown.
“The state has done the minimum, and at first they didn’t even do that,” Garland said. According to him, the city agreed to install air-quality monitors in response to the lawsuit, though they have not yet been installed.
Some natives such as Caprice Hibbler, who grew up in the Southside neighborhood of Syracuse, are in support of the I-81 project, agree that more environmental testing needs to be done. Hibbler said that is mainly because she has seen the effects in real time within her own family.
“My brother was born with asthma, so he’s always been affected by the air pollution that found its way on the city’s Southside, but now with the I-81 dust that comes with construction, I feel like my brother is at the hospital every other week now,” said Hibbler.
While Garland and Renew 81’s lawsuit has ceased, according to Garland, the jobs and housing that the city of Syracuse had promised have yet to come into fruition.
He said that the planning for this project has been in the works for 20 years, and the proper precautions could have been put in place a long time ago. Garland urges the next generation of community leaders to read between the lines.
“We need to show the younger generation how to fight, because if not, many will become complacent with what’s being handed to them, and not realize more not only is deserved, but could be done,” said Garland.