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An aerial photograph of Newtown Creek and the Mobil oil refinery in 1960, 18 years before the discovery of significant oil contamination in the river and adjacent soil. Accessed online: http://www.newtowncreekalliance.org/community-health/exxonmobil-oil-spill/

Strategic Alliances in the Battle Against Environmental Gentrification

A Case Study on Greenpoint, NY

"There is no reason why residents of Greenpoint should have to choose between staying in their homes, having access to jobs, and having access to green space."

Winifred Curran and Trina Hamilton (2012)

Libbie Dina CohnMIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Ecological Urbanism Professor Anne Whiston Spirn

December 2014

Cohn | Strategic Alliances in the Battle Against Environmental Gentrification | 1

Abstract

This paper examines the strategies of residents in Greenpoint, NY to resist environmental gentrification. In particular, the Greenpoint case study offers lessons for how long-term residents can resist the confluence of two forces—gentrification and urban sustainability pressures--by building alliances with new residents (gentrifiers) and employing creative forms of environmental justice advocacy.

The paper begins with an explanation of environmental gentrification. Following this, it outlines the history of Greenpoint's environmental degradation and changing social fabric resulting from the pressures of gentrification. Three key strategies employed by veteran environmentalists will be explored. These strategies, together with specific characteristics of the Greenpoint story, ultimately resulted in the construction of a Nature Walk, a Brownfields Opportunity Area grant, and a Superfund designation at the site of a 50-year-old Exxon Mobil oil spill. The paper concludes with a critical examination of the successes of the collaboration and offers some lessons for other cities aiming to resist the effects of environmental gentrification.


Strategic Alliances in the Battle Against Environmental GentrificationA Case Study on Greenpoint, NY

"There is no reason why residents of Greenpoint should have to choose between staying in their homes, having access to jobs, and having access to green space." - Winifred Curran and Trina Hamilton (2012)

Introduction

Two powerful forces have been driving urban transformation in American cities in the twenty-first century. One is the politics of sustainability; the other is the market force of gentrification. Environmental gentrification is the process by which these two forces overlap and re-enforce each other. In particular, environmental gentrification highlights the intersecting forms of disempowerment experienced by low-income and otherwise marginalized communities in the face of these two forces.

While few would contest the importance of "sustainability" as a goal for cities, environmental justice groups have been asking the critical question of "sustainability for whom?" Tied to the scientific discussion of climate change, sustainability is often framed as lying outside of or above politics. With the backing of science, environmental or ecological goals are highlighted without recognition of the social dimensions of implementation—such as decisions about the siting of environmental amenities, the type of green space to provide and the financial investment in the clean-up of various toxic sites. Sustainable development presented in this technocratic, politically neutral form fails to recognize how sustainable policies are tied to issues of social and environmental justice, economic development, access to resources and differential health impacts. (Checker, 2011) The conceit that the science of sustainability is incontestable renders local knowledge irrelevant. In this kind of approach to sustainability, the voice of technical experts and consultants outweigh the voices of residents and non-expert advocates. At the same time, this logic of sustainability also undermines communities through the market forces driving environmental gentrification.

The process of gentrification, of which environmental gentrification is a part, describes the community fragmentation and displacement that results from the escalation of property values in a neighborhood or city. In the American context, gentrification describes city neighborhoods that were abandoned in the post-World War II migration to suburbs. Government sponsored initiatives, including the federal subsidization of highways and home ownership loan programs through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Veterans' Administration (VA) provided unprecedented support for middle-class white families to move away from crowded cities into the suburbs. At the same time, inner city residents, predominantly low-income immigrants and people of color, saw their neighborhoods destroyed by highway construction, economic depression, government divestment and dereliction of municipal responsibilities. (Godsil, 2013) As cities have regained their status as cultural and economic centers, outsiders have begun to move back to these neighborhoods. The growing demand for residential and commercial space brings an attendant rise in rents. Gentrification is the process by which these long-term residents are forced from their neighborhoods as residents, families and local businesses are priced out, and the neighborhood fabric is upgraded and transformed for


the new, wealthier residents. Brooklyn, which this case-study focuses on, has become a poster child worldwide for the processes of gentrification.

The same confluence of market forces and government policies driving gentrification also drive environmental gentrification. As scholar Melissa Checker explains it, environmental gentrification is:

the convergence of urban redevelopment, ecologically-minded initiatives and environmental justice activism in an era of advanced capitalism. Operating under the seemingly a-political rubric of sustainability, environmental gentrification builds on the material and discursive successes of the urban environmental justice movement and appropriates them to serve high-end redevelopment that displaces low income residents. (Checker, 2011)

Squeezed between the apolitical logic of sustainability and the forces of market-driven displacement, we encounter the paradox faced by residents experiencing environmental gentrification. Simply put, they are caught between the desire to improve their neighborhood and the need to ensure that they still have a place in it. In other words, after what often amounts to decades of living under sub-standard environmental conditions, residents are forced to choose between environmental improvements to their neighborhood o the one hand, and the gentrification that tends to follow from those improvements on the other.

In this case study, I will examine the tactics employed by long-term residents in Greenpoint, NY to counter this confluence of forces. Having already experienced significant gentrification in their neighborhood, long-term residents in Greenpoint chose to create strategic alliances with new residents and to forge creative solutions to environmental gentrification. Their work offers lessons to other groups across the nation that are experiencing disempowerment in the face of similar forces. My research relies upon the work of two scholars, Trina Hamilton and Winifred Curran, who attended community meetings and conducted 24 interviews between 2008 – 2012 with a range of stakeholders in Greenpoint and others involved in the Newtown Creek clean-up. For information about the history of Newtown Creek's contamination and the securement of state and federal funds for remediation, I drew from the websites of two NGOs involved in the campaign—Riverkeeper and Newtown Creek Alliance. Finally, this case study also benefitted from the work of scholars Sarah Dooling and Melissa Checker, who have written extensively about other examples of environmental and ecological gentrification in Seattle and Harlem, respectively.

Greenpoint: an industrial history

Greenpoint is located at the northernmost tip of Brooklyn, across the East River from Manhattan's East Village. The neighborhood is bounded to the north and to the east by Newtown Creek, the site of significant environmental degradation since the mid-19th century. To Greenpoint's south is the adjacent neighborhood of Williamsburg.

The timeline below charts the history of Greenpoint from its origins as a center of shipping and industrial processing. Home to multiple shipyards, oil refineries and the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, Greenpoint's environmental history is heavily colored by the


pollution of the Creek. From serving as a receptacle for New York City's raw sewage, to countless leakages of industrial waste, to a massive oil spill in the mid-1950s and continued combined sewage overflows (CSO), Newtown Creek won the EPA honorific as one of the nation's most polluted waterways. (EPA, Region 2 Superfund; Newtown Creek) As Mitch Waxman, historian and tour-guide at the Newtown Creek Alliance explains, "Newtown Creek is the cost of Manhattan." (Dawson, 2012) Although there was a decades-long history of environmental activism in Greenpoint, especially following the 1978 discovery of an Exxon Mobil oil spill estimated between 17-30 million gallons, it was not until the early 2000s that the state and federal government provided the recognition and funds for a clean-up. This change followed the gentrification of Greenpoint, a parallel history traced in red in the timeline below.

Greenpoint Environmental Timeline

1850 - Twelve separate shipyards line the Greenpoint waterfront 1856 - New York City starts to dump raw sewage into Newtown Creek1870 - Greenpoint's port along Newtown Creek is one of the busiest hubs of industrial activity in

New York City. The area is home to more than 50 refineries, including petrochemical plants, fertilizer and glue factories, sawmills, and lumber and coal yards. The creek is crowded with commercial vessels. (EPA, Region 2 Superfund; Newtown Creek)

1881 - The New York Times describes the Creek as "the worst smelling district in the world" (New York Times, 1881, from Hamilton and Curran, 2013)

1900 - The growth of industries brings many Polish immigrants to Greenpoint from around the turn of the century to through the 1930s

1950s- An estimated 17-30 million gallons of oil seep into the Creek and into the 55 acres of surrounding land, mostly from facilities owned by Exxon Mobil

- Toxic uses including waste-transfer stations and combined sewage outflows begin dumping into the Creek (Stern, 2012, in Hamilton and Curran, 2013)

1978 - The US Coast Guard discovers the Exxon Mobil spill on a routine helicopter patrol but abdicates responsibility because the spill is not on navigable waters

1980s- Greenpoint Historical District declared, gentrification begins1986 - The New York Times describes Greenpoint as "feeling the exponential rent increases,

housing turnover and influx of young professionals that have characterized gentrification in New York City." (The New York Times, 1986, in Curran and Hamilton, 2012)

1992 - Williamsburg is featured by New York Magazine as "The New Bohemia" and an extension of "Manhattan's underground hipness" (Gooch, 1992, in Patch, 2004)

2002 - Riverkeeper, a New York-based environmental organization founded to help clean-up the Hudson River, rediscovers the spill while on a boat patrol, begins to advocate for clean-up. "Rediscovery" instigates a new era of activism

- Newtown Creek Alliance is founded—a community-based organization dedicated to restoring the Creek

2004 - Riverkeeper files a federal lawsuit against Exxon Mobil2005 - Williamsburg and Greenpoint's neighborhood waterfronts are rezoned. Industrial

areas are now zoned for mixed-use, with incentives for integration of affordable housing. Zoning includes plan for riverfront open space

2007- State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo files a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil


2007 - Newtown Creek Nature Walk opens2008 - New York Department of State grants a Brownfields Opportunity Grant to

Newtown Creek Alliance, the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, and Riverkeeper

2010 - The 2010 Census shows that 39.2% of Greenpoint residents have a college degree, up from 22.9% in 2000, while 35.5% of residents work in management, business and financial services, up from only 9.84% in 2000. Educational attainment and employment are two key indicators of gentrification (Hamilton and Curran, 2013)

- Newtown Creek declared a Superfund Site and lawsuits against Exxon Mobil are settled

2011 - Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund created to disburse $19.5 million in grants obtained from Exxon Mobil

Successes and Alliances

The timeline above concludes with the significant achievements secured for the Greenpoint neighborhood in the past decade. The first concrete success was the design and construction of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk, which opened in 2007 after nine years of community advocacy for more open space in the neighborhood. As will be described below, the design and function of the Nature Walk reflect the concerns of long-term residents wary of environmental gentrification and the possibility of displacement. After almost three decades of government neglect following the 1978 discovery of the Exxon Mobil oil spill, the promise of a state-sponsored clean-up with the 2008 Brownfields Opportunity Grant and the 2010 Superfund designation also represent massive victories for long-term residents and gentrifiers alike. However, these victories alone do not capture the successes of the organizing effort that helped to achieve them. As a result of leadership from veteran environmentalists, there now exists a unity of vision across the wide range of actors fighting for the Newtown Creek remediation. The organizing process that made this happen, the exchange of knowledge, experience and learning that resulted, and the partnerships forged are as much a success as the more concrete environmental achievements. Together, they provide the groundwork for future organizing efforts, including joint campaigns to resist the pressures of gentrification. I will describe the Nature Walk below and then focus the rest of the study on the organizing strategies and collaborations that constitute the successful resistance to environmental gentrification.

“The Ironic Nature Walk”Greenpoint's new open-space amenity along Newtown Creek was inaugurated in 2007

after nine years of advocacy. The Nature Walk is primarily constructed out of concrete slabs and gravel and offers views of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and other “Industrial Scenes,” as illustrated by a NYC Department of Environmental Protection pamphlet. (NYC Department of Environmental Protection) While lacking in the typical environmental and ecological elements of river-front open space, the Nature Walk satisfies Greenpoint's residents' long-term desire for access to the waterfront. (Curran and Hamilton, 2012) Dubbed “the ironic nature walk” by The New York Times (Ruen, 2009), the design and function of the new open space amenity offers a unique example of environmental infrastructure specifically intended to


side-step the trap of environmental gentrification. Instead, the open space project is designed to fit the existing industrial and manufacturing character of the neighborhood while eschewing features of environmental amenities that often increase surrounding property prices, such as modern designs and materials, cafes and grassy areas. While it provides increased open space and access to the river for existing residents, it simultaneously highlights the Creek's history of environmental degradation and the ongoing battles to raise awareness about the contamination of the river.

Strategic Alliances and CollaborationsLike the Brownfield Opportunity Area grant and the Superfund designation, the Nature

Walk emerged out of a collaborative process between long-term residents, gentrifiers and the NGO Riverkeeper. While veteran environmentalists had been fighting for remediation since the 1978 discovery of the oil spill, the campaign did not gain significant traction until the late 2000s, when a much larger alliance of advocates was able to attract media attention and secure local political allies. While the demands of the gentrifiers and new activists could easily have conformed with mainstream conceptions of urban sustainability, efforts by veteran environmentalists to educate newcomers about the history of environmental burdens and the priorities of long-term residents helped create a cohesive collective vision for a cleaner Newtown Creek. This alternative ethic of sustainability included a concern for environmental justice and equity. In particular, residents envisioned a cleaner Creek and remediation of the oil spill without displacement of the industrial functions of the Creek, the manufacturing base in Greenpoint and the working-class character of the neighborhood. With this shared vision and goal, the alliance of veteran environmentalists, NGOs and gentrifiers were able to collaborate on many fronts to mobilize the community and gain the support of long-resistant state agencies.

One of the veteran environmentalists in Greenpoint, interviewed by Hamilton and Curran, described the new opportunity for environmental organizing that came with changing demographics in the neighborhood:

Up until 2000, it was a community of a lot of immigrants and people who were blue-collar workers and even low income, and so it was easy for the agencies to throw things at them. There’s no one to really fight for them. They don’t vote.People were working really hard, you know, to buy their home and to stay in their home without really realizing what was happening to them . I really feel that many things are probably happening because of gentrification . I think that if we were all still the old timers, I don’t think we would have gotten the [Attorney General’s] lawsuit.. I mean, there was dumping since 1950—how all of a sudden we got united, we have all of these groups coming in, and why? Because there were more people coming in, different people, different factions. More votes coming in, more money. You will see when you look at the next census, this is going to be a different neighborhood. And therefore, people demand different things (Christine Holowacz, interview, December 2008, quoted in Hamilton and Curran, 2013).

Key Organizing StrategiesThe first of two key strategies that helped achieve this coalition of activists was the

framing of the environmental threat as a shared burden. The lack of any comprehensive study


about the extent of the oil contamination created uncertainty about the geographic boundaries of the oil spill, the potential health hazards and property value impacts The uncertainty offered an opportunity to highlight the relevance of the environmental issue to a wider range of residents and businesses. In particular, many young families new to the area were motivated by the threat of potential health risks. Other gentrifiers, who learned of the contamination from veteran environmentalists, were drawn to activism by a sense of having been deceived about the neighborhood's environmental history when purchasing their homes. In addition to the framing around collective risks, the creation of a narrative around collective responsibility also enabled the critical collaboration between a range of residents. Organizers enlisted help from many neighborhoods and fostered a cross-class sense of community concern for environmental justice that would preserve the working-class neighborhood and industrial uses along the river, while fighting for a cleaner Creek.

The second of the two key strategies was to recognize and enlist the wide range of skills and professional resources within the community itself. Gentrifiers and new activists brought with them tools that were especially helpful for political organizing, including previous experience working in public health and local government. The younger and more politically savvy residents were especially helpful in taking advantage of the critical shift in access to politicians at both the state and federal level following elections. At the state level, the 2007 transition in state administration from Governor George Pataki to Governor Eliot Spitzer heralded a new era of government outreach and accountability. One of Hamilton and Curran's interviewees described how the Pataki administration used bureaucracy to undermine their efforts. (Hamilton and Curran, 2013) With the transition to the Spitzer administration, there was a new interest in reaching out to and engaging organizers. Similarly, the 2009 transition from President George W. Bush's administration to President Barack Obama's administration enabled greater access to federal-level bureaucrats. While previous campaigns by veteran environmentalists took place primarily at the municipal level, the new activists brought experience with state and federal politics. It was not until Obama took office that the Superfund designation became a possibility, and the activists were prepared to take advantage of the new window of political opportunity. (Hamilton and Curran, 2013)

Members of Riverkeeper and new residents provided social media and other communication skills such as graphic design and fundraising that helped raise the profile of the organizing efforts. Riverkeeper's boat tours provided an effective media outreach opportunity, taking residents, local activists and even federal politicians to witness the contamination of the Creek first hand. Other new activists helped create an interactive online map featuring audio recordings of residents describing health problems and experiences with the Creek contamination. This provided a powerful vehicle for residents' stories, which, taken together, offered an alternative narrative about Newtown Creek.

Finally, Riverkeeper and new activists also provided scientific and legal expertise. In particular, Riverkeeper's partner, Pace University Law School brought the fight for environmental justice into the courts, a critical venue not previously accessible to the veteran environmentalists. The legal advocates offered workshops and intentionally helped transfer legal skills to the veteran environmentalists and community members—teaching them about civil lawsuits, relevant environmental laws, and legal watchdogs, for example. (Hamilton and Curran, 2013)


While the new activists brought a range of skills and resources with them, they also relied on long-term residents for important connections. The veteran environmentalists drew on historical alliances with local elected officials, with whom they had built relationships through activism around the local sewage treatment plant and other environmental issues. These long-time activists commanded significant moral authority and respect from local politicians for their continued advocacy, without which the new activists' efforts may have held less weight. (Hamilton and Curran, 2013) This collaborative process, which drew from the varied resources within an already gentrified Greenpoint, enabled an environmental campaign that explicitly resisted further gentrification. The issue framing, collaborative learning and application of skills and professional resources made possible the particular achievements around the clean-up of Newtown Creek that prioritized the interests of long-term residences. At the same time, the collaboration lays a strong groundwork for future organizing around environmental issues and resistance to gentrification.

Political and Social Context

To evaluate the Greenpoint case and identify lessons for other cities, it's helpful to outline the unique aspects of the Greenpoint context that may have contributed to the successful coalition between veteran environmentalists, NGOs and new residents. Four key characteristics of the Greenpoint mobilization are:

1. The case of a clean-up – the framing of the campaign around collective risks and collective responsibilities was enabled by the type of environmental challenge Greenpoint faced. The pollution and oil contamination posed a threat to public health, quality of life and property values, concerns shared by long-term residents, gentrifiers and NGOs. In contrast, the construction of a new environmental amenity might not offer as many opportunities for shared interests. Different sitings or designs for a park, for example, would likely offer different benefits to different groups, making it difficult to create a shared narrative.

2. A less complicated race dynamic – Since the early 20th century, the Greenpoint population has been predominantly white working-class—Irish, Italian and Polish families. After WWII, an influx of Polish immigrants in Greenpoint turned the neighborhood into a Polish enclave. Since the 1980s, the Hispanic population (Census designation) of Greenpoint has increased. However, the neighborhood remains predominantly white. (DeSena, 2009) The white racial make-up of the long-term residents may have simplified the process of building coalitions with predominantly white gentrifiers. The gentrifiers and gentrified in Greenpoint did not have to confront the history of racism against people of color that was a key factor in the disenfranchisement of other inner city neighborhoods. The race dynamic might pose an additional challenge to building coalitions in other neighborhoods facing environmental gentrification around the nation, though it could could also be seen as an opportunity to create inter-racial coalitions around shared interests.

3. The timing of transitions in political administration worked in favor of organizers. While the relationships and learning that arose from the collaborative process would persist without the concrete achievements of the campaign, these achievements


demonstrated the effectiveness of the collaborative process. Without similar windows of political opportunity, however, other organizing campaigns might struggle to sustain the level of participation across a wide range of organizers and to attract the continued media attention helpful for political change.

4. The stage of gentrification – the case study focuses on how gentrifiers and long-term residents collaborated around an environmental campaign for remediation that aimed to stem the pressures of future gentrification. In other words, the gentrifiers and the gentrification process created the conditions for the strategic alliances described in this case study. The skills and resources of the gentrifiers were essential in achieving the concrete outcomes, but other elements of gentrification also helped to highlight the extent and prevalance of the pollution. For example, as construction sites within the oil spill area were being dug up for development, residents and activists reported smelling and seeing evidence of the contamination. Many new activists were motivated to join the campaign due to this tangible and visceral reminder that the river's polluted history extended to their doorsteps. (Curran and Hamilton, 2012) The new demographics of Greenpoint also led to a change in some media outlets' willingness to report on the toxic environmental conditions. In an interview with Hamilton and Curran, Phil DePaolo described how media platforms changed their tune following the gentrification of the neighborhood: “We couldn't get an editor to touch [the issue] with a 20 foot pole … Now it's a money neighborhood, there has been a lot of press about the history of the environmental issues in Greenpoint.” (Phil DePaolo, interview, December 2008, quoted in Hamilton and Curran, 2013) This is not to suggest that the process of gentrification is a positive one or that gentrifiers can always be relied upon to support efforts to resist environmental gentrification. Rather, the particular context of gentrification in which the strategic alliances described in this case study were formed helps to illuminate the complex relationship between economic and social forces at play. As Hamilton and Curran conclude:

Activists in Greenpoint challenge the notion of gentrification as a complete and total neighborhood transformation and the notion of gentrifiers as necessarily always antagonistic to long-term residents’ interests. They have refused to accept their own displacement as an inevitable outcome of the real estate market of New York City and contest the dominant narrative of the postindustrial city. (Curran and Hamilton, 2012)

Complicating the Success

While this case study focuses on the community organizing that successfully prioritized long-term residents' interests in neighborhood demands for environmental remediation and open space, a critical examination of the success of this case study must extend beyond these campaigns. Looking ahead, the management of the clean-up and the process of disbursing funds from the Brownfields Opportunity Area Grant and Superfund Program will offer another important crossroad for Greenpoint's long-term residents. Will the coalitions created over the past decade continue to mobilize to ensure that remediation efforts maintain the industrial and


manufacturing uses of the river and support security of tenure for working-class residents? Will the new skills and the legal and political lessons be applied effectively in future campaigns to resist displacement from gentrification in general?

The combination of professional resources, political connections and moral authority among the coalition of long-term residents, NGOs and gentrifiers has the potential to support effective campaigns against other forms of gentrification. These campaigns could demand public interventions in the housing supply such as rent control, public housing, housing subsidies and vouchers, limited-equity cooperatives and inclusionary zoning in newly residentially-zoned areas. The alliance of residents could also work to foster a neighborhood culture of supporting long-term residents beyond the Creek remediation efforts. Anti-displacement campaigns in other areas of Brooklyn have challenged landlords' attempts to displace residents through extreme and often illegal increases in housing costs, threatening notices, dereliction of services or demands for immigration papers. Drawing inspiration from the work of Riverkeeper in monitoring water quality on Newtown Creek and other rivers around New York, Greenpoint residents could create a “Displacement Watch,” found in other Brooklyn neighborhoods. The coalitions could also work together to create programs such as those spearheaded by the Pratt Area Community Council, which hosts weekly tenant meetings, helps negotiate with landlords, and organizes prayer vigils, protests and letter-writing campaigns in support of residents threatened by displacement. (Newman and Wyly, 2006) Indeed, these efforts may already be underway in Greenpoint, demonstrating a longer-term commitment to the sustainability of the unique social ecology of the neighborhood.


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