Environmental Justice
The Ironbound Community Corporation is commited to the Principles of Environmenal Justice. Our aim is to create a sustainable and healthy environment for our future generations. Our community, “The Ironbound” is defined, as such, because of the following:
The Ironbound is a culturallThe Ironbound community is an old, densely populated, industrial community that is among the most polluted in the nation. y diverse community with at least 54 different ethnic groups and with new immigrants arriving daily.
It is bounded by highways (Routes 1, 9, 21, 78, NJ Turnpike), polluted waterways (Passaic River, Newark Bay), and Newark Airport.
Within it are numerous Brownfields and hazardous waste sites, including the Diamond Shamrock Superfund site that contained the world's largest concentration of dioxin.
There are over 100 Ironbound sites on the NJDEP's List of Known Contaminated Sites.
Ironbound's Zip Code, 07105, ranks it among the worst pollution emitters in the region, certainly the worst in New Jersey.
Toxic Release Inventory data from 1994 show over 7 million pounds of releases and transfers and nearly 22 million pounds of production-related waste produced in the community.
The socio-economic conditions of the Ironbound community have provided obstacles to the natural facilitation and coordination of information and participation in environmental justice issues. In general, the overwhelming majority of the 45,000 people in the community fall into one or more of the following categories: low income, non-English speaking, people of color, recently immigrated.
At least 90 of its 125 streets, some in heavily residential locations, have facilities -- over 200 in total -- that store and use hazardous substances, accounting for over 30% of such facilities in Essex County while Ironbound makes up only 8% of its area. Three of these facilities store over 10 million units of hazardous substances.
The adverse environmental impact on park and recreation facilities have further degraded the community's quality of life:
- Ironbound Stadium has been closed since 1987 due to contamination, leaving high school athletic teams homeless.
- A planned community pool to be built in the 1980's is still awaiting construction due to site contamination; public park space along the Passaic River between Jackson and Brill Streets is unusable due to degradation and riverbank contamination
- The 11 acre Riverbank Park, one of only two in the community and comprising 50% of the community's public park space, was closed in 1996 due to contamination.
Unfortunately, the data and history have not precluded proposals for and developments of new facilities in the community, such as the Essex County Recovery Plant, the state's largest garbage incinerator, located within 1/2 mile of two low income federal housing complexes and adjacent to two of the community's poorest census tracts of 8,000 people. Tract 75.02, for example, is 70% Hispanic and African American and houses immigrant Portuguese families.
While the general profile of the community's adverse environmental conditions and disadvantaged population paint a clear picture of environmental injustice, the picture gets even bleaker as one moves to the edges of the residential community:
- At the edges of the community, particularly the south, east, and north, one is immediately adjacent to industry, highways, polluted waterways, and identified contaminated sites, all adding up to increased adverse environmental exposure.
- In the areas along the edge reside the community's poorest people and nearly the entire Ironbound African American and Hispanic population.
- The aforementioned three federal low income housing complexes (Terrell Homes, Hyatt Court, Pennington Court) and one private, federallysubsidized housing complex (Aspen River Park) are all located on the edges of the residential community.