AOC Organizing Team - “Asthma Alley”

Team AOC has been out on the streets educating community members about NRG’s attempt to build a fracked gas power plant in the heart of Astoria, Queens.

Western Queens is already subject to high levels of air pollution. Queens is home to highways, power plants, and the blocks that lead toward the NRG plant have long been known as “Asthma Alley.”

Placing more sources of pollution in neighborhoods that already bear the brunt of poor air quality is an environmental injustice. Your zip code shouldn’t determine your health outcomes.

After months of community pressure, the Department of Environmental Conservation is opening up a public comment period on the plant on August 26. Now is the time to organize our neighbors and stop this dirty power plant. Will you join us at an organizing event this month?

Upcoming events:

Attend a Green New Deal Deep Canvass Training Thursday, August 12 Learn how to have effective, deep canvass conversations and sign up for door knocking on the GND and NRG plant.Get more info or RSVP Tabling in Westchester Square Thursday, August 19 Join us at Owen F. Dolen Park in Westchester Square to distribute information to our neighbors about the NRG plant and resources related to COVID-19.Get more info or RSVP Rally to oppose the Astoria NRG Fracked Gas Power Plant at the public hearing Thursday, August 26 Join the Stop NRG Coalition and local elected officials to rally before the in-person hearing on the NRG Astoria Power Plant.Get more info or RSVP

NRG’s old power plant is so dirty that the state is forcing it to shut down by 2023. That’s because it burns kerosene, which produces large amounts of nitrogen oxides — air pollutants that can cause asthma, trigger asthma attacks, and increase the severity of respiratory illnesses.

They want to replace it with a fracked gas power plant that will pollute our community and climate just the same. Fracked gas power plants are major nitrogen oxide emitters which contribute to ground-level ozone and smog, threatening the environment and human health. Ground level ozone creates smog, and prolonged exposure to smog has been connected to various cancers, premature deaths in adults, and to low birth weight in babies.

Polluting facilities like power plants have long been disproportionately located near disadvantaged communities, including lower-income areas and communities of color that face higher pollution burdens than their more affluent and whiter neighbors. And that’s exactly the case with this proposed NRG power plant.

Queens neighborhoods experienced some of the highest COVID death rates. The poor air quality cannot be dismissed as a contributing factor to the devastating impacts of COVID in Queens and the Bronx.

We cannot allow this environmental injustice to remain unchecked nor allow NRG to continue to pollute and harm our neighborhoods. Please join us at the public hearing on August 26 to stop this harmful project.

In solidarity,

Team AOC