NYDOT Legal Battle Continues: Air Quality Study Reveals Elevated Pollution Levels

The community on Buffalo’s East Side, along the Kensington Expressway, has long been subjected to higher amounts of air pollution due to traffic, the result of now-outlawed prejudicial real estate and development practices. 

But when it comes to the state’s expected efforts to cover a stretch of Route 33 and plant trees on top of the road to mimic, to a smaller degree, the park-like environment originally in place before the road was constructed, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation isn’t saying too much about whether it will improve or further degrade air quality. 

During an hour-long meeting by webinar Wednesday night, representatives from the DEC explained the results of an air monitoring study that examined the kind and concentration of pollutants found in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Tonawanda, one of 12 sites across the state. The results of that study, published earlier this year and based on data collected for one year ending August 2023, found many disadvantages: communities across the state are still dealing with higher levels of air pollution burdens. The results of the study are intended to help the DEC “target strategies to reduce air pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change.” 

When asked specifically about the proposal to cap a portion of the Kensington Expressway that originally linked Delaware and what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Park, state officials were hesitant to overstate the study’s possible impact on the project. 

“There’s been a lot of discussion about this,” said Margaret LaFarr, assistant director of the DEC’s Division of Air Resources. “There is some ongoing litigation, so we kind of have to walk a little fine line here.” 

She was willing to say, however, that “the use of this data, as we said all along, is to identify sources of air pollution and to find ways to mitigate the impacts from air pollution in those areas. Certainly, what our study shows is that that area along the expressway currently is showing impacts from transportation that is very similar to what we’ve seen across the state, and one of our objectives here is to find ways to mitigate those impacts, so we are looking for feedback and looking to find ways to improve air pollution, especially along busy highways.” 

In the portion of the report specifically about the Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Tonawanda regions, the DEC notes the industrial history of the area, from Hooker Chemical’s pollution of Niagara Falls in the Love Canal to the displacement of members of the Tuscarora Nation as industry pushed further into New York and drove indigenous communities out of the region due to flooding. It also mentions, on several occasions, the negative impacts of the construction of the Kensington Expressway.

“In the 1950s and 1960s, many highways like the Robert Moses Parkway in Niagara Falls, NYS Route 198 along the Scajaquada Creek, and NYS Route 33 (Kensington Expressway) in Buffalo were built, cutting through and segregating communities of color, contributing to the inequities and environmental burdens people in these (disadvantaged communities) still face today,” the report says. 

“The original Humboldt Parkway, with its wide tree-lined median and park-like appeal, had served as a focal point and provided a link between the adjacent neighborhoods, nearby recreational attractions, cultural and religious institutions, and local businesses. The removal of this original parkway and the subsequent construction of the Kensington Expressway reduced community connectivity, pedestrian activity, and limited green space.” 

The report goes on to note the state Department of Transportation’s intention to begin the project to “reconnect the neighborhoods, cover a portion of the expressway, restore green space with a tree-lined median, and rehabilitate local streets.” 

An interactive map, available for anyone to review, allows users to see the various levels and kinds of pollution found throughout the region. Users can also search specific neighborhoods in which air quality monitoring took place, both through sensors that took readings every second and mobile units that drove across the state a dozen times, hitting every road in which monitoring was taking place. By clicking on menu options, it’s easy to see that the monitors, purposely placed along the 33 and other areas of high concern for pollution and historic redlining practices, among other factors, are picking up high levels of diesel exhaust, non-diesel auto emissions, nitrogen dioxide (a product of burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas), and black carbon, another afterproduct of industrial facilities and fossil fuels. 

So what does this all mean for residents of Buffalo, specifically on the East Side and for the Kensington Parkway project? 

The East Side Parkways Coalition earlier this month successfully secured at least a temporary injunction to prevent work from starting on the project, something the New York Civil Liberties Union called a victory for the Humboldt Parkway community. “Today’s court decision is a major win for the Humboldt Park neighborhood, the predominantly Black community living near the project site. It sends a loud and clear message that this community should not be treated as an afterthought by the NYSDOT and the Federal Highway Administration,” said Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, the NYCLU Racial Justice Center Director. 

But the project and its affiliated lawsuits are due in court on Friday. Among the complaints listed in several lawsuits filed against the state to try and block the tunnel are concerns about air pollution, which the residents who live near the expressway believe will be in higher concentrations near both ends of the tunnel should the highway be capped.