HARDEST HIT BY FAR WERE
communities of color, where the death rate was
roughly double that of white neighborhoods.
Overlapping constellations of reasons drove
this—such areas house more essential workers,
living in more crowded homes, with less access to
health care—but among the more insidious was
chronic exposure to air pollution. A nationwide
study from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Pub-
lic Health found that COVID deaths increased by
8 percent with each additional microgram per
cubic meter of fine particulate matter, the con-
taminant most closely linked to highways, truck
traffic, and power plants. Given that the dirtiest
and cleanest neighborhoods in New York City
have an annual difference of about 4 micrograms
per cubic meter, areas near heavy industries net
a lot more deadly infections.
The residents of the Queensbridge Houses,
the nation’s largest public housing project, worry
this puts them at greater risk. “I’ve heard theWHEN COVID-19 SWEPT
THROUGH NEW YORK CITY IN THE
SPRING OF
UNEVENLY.
DID SO
82 WINTER 2020 / POPSCI.COMconversation in the park over the last three months more than in the
last five years,” says Suga Ray, a neighborhood activist and commu-
nity builder. “People are talking about the plants over there,” he says
of the Ravens wood Generating Station, whose iconic red-and-white-
tipped smokestacks create an omnipresent frame for the skyline.
Queensbridge consists of 26 Y-shaped buildings in the shadow of
the bridge that connects midtown Manhattan with the borough of
Queens. Forty percent of its approximately 7,000 occupants live be-
low the poverty line; 96 percent are nonwhite. Ravens wood, which
can supply up to 20 percent of the city’s peak electricity needs, sits
kitty-corner to these projects, and started generating power in 1963.
The Queensbridge Houses opened in 1939. “That’s how you know it’s
systemic,” Ray says. “They could have put it anywhere else. We cre-
ate these structures in communities dominated by Black people.”
But in an American era defined by divisions and reckonings—both
racial and environmental—Ravens wood is trying to clean up. That
begins with its worst-offending units, the gas-fired plants known as
“peakers,” turned on only to give the electric grid a boost on hot,
or “peak,” days. The station can crank out some 2,050 megawatts
of power (enough for around a million homes) in two ways. Four gi-
ant gas-and-oil-fueled steam turbines—ranging in age from 16 to 57
years—are its tortoises, ramping up slowly and deliberately, but al-
ways winning the race when it comes to total annual output. The hares
are Ravens wood’s peakers, engines derived from the fuel- gulping jets
on airliners, which, like similar systems around the United States,
can spin up quickly to meet demand spikes. They don’t run often, but
they run dirty. Most notably, according to the New York Department
of Environmental Conservation (DEC), they emit nitrogen oxide at
levels 30 times higher than cleaner turbines (like Ravens wood’s big
tortoises). They emit it at the worst time: on hot, high-ozone days.
And in the worst place: alongside communities of color, already filled
with truck tailpipe emissions and the accompanying health impacts.
At the moments of highest demand, congestion on the grid means
that electricity needs to be made near where it’s most needed—in
cities. But can that happen more cleanly? In 2019, New York state
passed one of the most ambitious climate laws in the country, man-
dating 100 percent carbon-free power by 2040. On top of that, the
state DEC adopted a rule specifically targeting peakers, lowering
their emission limits to a point that will force many into early re-
tirement, Ravens wood’s included. Under the new legislation, the
station’s three remaining units, all more than 50 years old and the
last of an original fleet of 17, will be decommissioned by 2023.
In their place, Ravens wood’s owner—private equity firm LS
Power—has received approval from New York state to build 316
megawatts of battery storage on-site, which will be among the larg-
est such installations in the United States. The cells will physically2020, IT