No one wants their loved ones living next to a facility that damages their health, whether through dirty air or planet-warming emissions. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, AlexiusHoratius.
All of us want to protect our loved ones’ health. Now, imagine doing everything you can to keep your family healthy – but living under the shadow of an industrial facility pumping out toxic planet-warming and health-harming pollution. That’s a reality that many families in New England deal with right now. And that reality isn’t fair.
A new report by Synapse Energy Economics finds that nearly half of the region’s most heavily polluting industrial facilities are in or near communities already dealing with heightened pollution. State regulators have largely ignored the climate-warming emissions that impact these vibrant neighborhoods, home to cultural centers and thriving local economies. The states have so far assumed that industrial facilities are harder to clean up.
But that’s not true.
We have a smarter, cleaner way to power New England’s industries
Synapse finds that it’s possible for these facilities to upgrade their industrial heating processes, so they run on electricity instead of dirty fossil fuels. Upgrading to electricity would slash pollution, helping protect our loved ones from toxins, extreme weather, and other threats to their health.
To help navigate this report, we created a visual map to see how New England’s most polluting facilities impact residents in each state.
As a Connecticut resident and mother of three girls, I am particularly drawn to Hartford’s story. Our state’s capital city has three large industrial facilities clustered closely together that generate as many climate-damaging emissions as driving nearly 37,000 gas-powered cars every day for a year. No one should have to contend with that – I certainly wouldn’t want my children to live nearby. But that is the reality for families living in this area, and in many other communities around the region.
To learn more about the industrial facilities and communities they affect, scroll through the map and look for your state and neighborhood. Are any facilities close to you or people you know? And now that we know these companies can clean up their act, don’t you want them – or state regulators – to do something about it?
Switching to electricity is possible for most of the region’s industrial facilities today, and we could see our local air quality improve almost immediately. Awareness of this solution is only the first step to a cleaner future – but it’s an important one.
You can learn more about the report through Synapse’s own blog.
