By Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Olivia Glenn is fighting for your right to breathe.
Glenn, who last month was named as a new deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, grew up in Camden, where a humming industrial waterfront has over time diminished the city’s air quality.
Glenn and many of her family members suffered from asthma, joining a disproportionate Camden County population affected by the illness — regularly linked to air pollution — at higher rates than the rest of New Jersey, according to a 2014 report.
“It’s kind of like how everyone talks about having allergies now,” Glenn tells NJ Advance Media. “Everybody had asthma.”
In Camden city, residents were sent to the emergency room for asthma more than 11,000 times between 2008 and 2012: Nearly 50% of the county total (the city makes up only 15% of the county’s population).
Now, its Glenn’s job to further the state’s environmental justice efforts in urban industrialized areas like Camden and Newark, which are known to have dirtier air than other parts of New Jersey. She says her goal is to boost public and environmental health in low-income communities of color that have long been burdened by the pollution of industry — from the refineries and factories just blocks from their neighborhoods, to the highways and airports in their backyards.
“I think if there was ever a moment in time where everything was lining up — social, economic, environmental, just people’s sense and empathy for others — this is our moment,” Glenn said.
Environmental justice advocates in the state have a long wishlist for the DEP, which stretches well beyond air quality, from stronger regulation of chronic polluters and troubled drinking water systems, to more support for green infrastructure development and the remediation of abandoned, contaminated lots that dot Garden State cities.https://3735ebfe5328ad0a87ce34e5a15728ca.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
“We really want the DEP to be a good partner and go beyond the status quo of compliance and enforcement,” said Ana Baptista, the associate director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center at the New School. Baptista is a Newark native who works on a number of environmental advocacy campaigns in the Garden State.
Glenn’s new role comes at a key moment in New Jersey’s environmental justice timeline. A shake-up in Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration and a major bill at the precipice of passage are signs that the movement is on the verge of a breakthrough.
One of Glenn’s main responsibilities will be the implementation of Murphy’s Executive Order 23 which directs all departments in state government to take on environmental justice initiatives.
That could mean helping the Department of Community Affairs work environmental considerations into housing policy, or working with the Department of Agriculture to improve food access for underserved communities.
“There are tie-ins to advancing environmental justice that depend on all of government working together,” Glenn said.
Air quality is a top priority for New Jersey’s environmental justice advocates. The state’s main sources of air pollution today are cars, trucks and other vehicles. This means communities near busy ports and highways — like Newark, where one in four kids has asthma — breathe some of the state’s dirtiest air.
“We’re disproportionately polluted on,” said Kim Gaddy, a Newark resident who is the environmental justice organizer for Clean Water Action of New Jersey. “We’re just fighting for a chance to breathe.”
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