Contents of RauwLetter January 2010
- New York City’s Resolutions for a Greener, Healthier Future
- Legislation in Place to Achieve New York City’s Resolutions of a Cleaner, Healthier Future
- Bedford, New York's Resolutions to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- Rauw Energy’s 2010 Resolutions
- Referral Program
New York City’s Resolutions for a Greener, Healthier Future
It's time to make resolutions. Along with the usuals of eating less, moving more, this could be the decade of less is more, particularly from an environmental perspective. Less CO2, less fine particulates, less hydrocarbons less sulfur dioxides equals more quality of life for those who suffer from pollution-related illnesses.
To fulfill a resolution of making New York City's environment healthier, a comprehensive study of air quality was conducted and two weeks ago the New York City Community Air Survey report was released. Go to http://www.nyc.gov/ for the full report.
The research in this study was undertaken in order to further understand where air quality issues are and where the pollution is coming from. The study revealed that although cars and trucks are contributors to the air quality issue, the main pollution culprits are the large commercial and residential buildings that line the streets of NYC, the oldest, most populated city in the nation. In particular, buildings with boilers that burn No. 4 and No. 6 heating oil are the predominant polluters. No. 4 heating oil is a blend of distillate (#2) and residual (#6) fuel oils used in boilers or furnaces for space heating. No. 6 heating oil is residual fuel oil; #6 fuel oil is used for space heating in larger buildings equipped with high-heat residual fuel combustion technology. No. 6 oil is also known as “heavy fuel oil” and is the remainder of crude oil, following the removal by distillation of the lighter gasoline and distillate fuel oils.
To help New Yorkers understand what their buildings are burning, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an environmental not-for-profit organization, has published a map of No. 4 and No. 6 oil burning buildings on their web site (www.edf.org/dirtybuildings). The map is helpful not only in providing information about individual buildings but also in revealing the surprising prevalence of soot-producing buildings all over the city.
In order to help combat the problem of poor air quality and the resulting health issues, the City of New York is proposing regulations to phase out both No. 4 and No. 6 heating oil. To comply, buildings will have to replace their boilers with boilers able to burn the cleaner No. 2 oil or even cleaner natural gas. This will entail significant upfront costs but, if the efficiency of newer boilers is taken into account, along with calculating in the costs of health care associated with pollution-inducing illnesses such as asthma, burning cleaner fuels makes economic sense both to building owners and to the public.
Burning cleaner fuels will result in significant pollution reductions that will benefit not only New York City but the surrounding areas as well - pollution does not abide by human-imposed legal boundaries. However, New York City's greening resolutions do not end there. Under its PlaNYC 2030 goals, six significant pieces of legislation were passed at the end of 2009.
