M.T.S. opponents turn attention to health concerns

Opponents of the 91st St. waste transfer station have opened a new front in their effort to kill the Upper East Side project.
Pledge 2 Protect, the main group fighting the garbage station, focused attention last week on the health effects of the M.T.S., which they say will exacerbate asthma and other health problems in a neighborhood that already is one of the most polluted in the city.
More than 200 school kids attended at Pledge 2 Protect rally on Oct. 1 that began across the street from the site of the planned transfer station and continued to a grassy area next to Gracie Mansion. Many of the students worse gas masks, which they said symbolized the increased health risks of the planned project.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has pressed ahead with the marine transfer station, which is deeply unpopular in the Yorkville neighborhood of the East Side where de Blasio now lives. Despite opposition from every other elected official in the area. de Blasio has said that project needs to be built, to move garbage out of the Upper East Side via the East River.
Opponents, largely through Pledge 2 Protect, have sought to unravel nearly every plant of the pro-M.T.S. case, from its environmental effects to concerns that it will deeply hurt business in a part of the city already hamstrung by the headaches from construction of the Second Avenue subway.
In addition to organizing the chuldren’s march, Pledge 2 Protect also released a letter to New York Health Commissioner Mary Bassett and signed by nearly 100 doctors and other health-care professionals.
“The M.T.S. poses very real health and safety dangers for tens of thousands of New Yorkers, including the most vulnerable -- children, seniors, and low-income families,” the letter stated. “We implore your office to take our concerns about the negative health and safety impacts of this facility seriously and immediately address these issues as a matter of public health and safety.”
The doctors lodged a formal request that the city immediately halt construction on the station pending an air monitoring study.
Of particular concern, according to the letter, is particulate matter exposure from the diesel-fueled trucks that will be bringing garbage in and our of the M.T.S. site. “Yorkville and East Harlem continue to have persistent pollution problems, which will only be made worse if immediate action is not taken,” the letter states.
The doctors ended by asking that the city begin continously monitoring the air quality around the construction zone of the M.T.S., and that those results are released immediately.
As Pledge 2 Protect was continuing to apply pressure on the project, some of the people arrested in a Aug. 6 protest at the site began appearing before a district court judge. More than 20 people were arrested at the rally, including some public officials and other local residents in wheelchairs. Of the cases that have gone before the judge so far, all have been dismissed.