Kensington Expressway project causing environmental health hazards

BUFFALO, NY — The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) decided to continue redeveloping Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway without conducting an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). On Friday evening, the New York Civil Libraries Union (NYCLU) Racial Justice Center decided to sue them.

In the 1960s, construction of the Kensington Expressway displaced Black Humboldt Park residents, and caused ongoing environmental health hazards. This neighborhood is still dealing with these issues today, having some of the worst air quality and rates of asthma in New York.

Now, state officials are encouraging a redevelopment plan to reconnect the community. Despite concerns from advocates and community members regarding environmental impacts, the NYSDOT refuses to fully study these.

“The NYSDOT’s refusal to thoroughly study the environmental impacts of the Kensington Expressway Project endangers the Humboldt Park neighborhood near the project site – a predominantly Black community that has carried the burden of decades of environmental racism,” said Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, Director of NYCLU’s Racial Justice Center. “With this lawsuit, the first filed by the newly created NYCLU Racial Justice Center, we are upholding our commitment to right the wrongs of the past and ensure they do not repeat themselves. In Buffalo, this starts with the state conducting an Environmental Impact Statement. Despite the Governor, federal, and state officials misguidedly championing the Kensington Expressway as a national model, this project will only meet the moment if air quality protections and mitigation measures for impacted residents are provided without delay.”

In February, the NYSDOT completed an environmental assessment that was limited and flawed. The agency used this to justify their decision to forgo an EIS.

The lawsuit asks the court to force the NYSDOT to complete an EIS and to direct the agency to protect residents from the increase in air pollution with mitigation measures implemented. This project will affect the Black and low-income community near the construction site.

“Before the Kensington Expressway was built, we never heard anyone talk about respiratory illnesses. After construction, air quality was a huge concern for our families, and now today, I’m one of many who has asthma and lung cancer,” said Gwen Harris, an 81-year-old resident who lives 500 feet away from the redevelopment project. “This project should make us safer and healthier, not the opposite. If the state doesn’t study the environmental impacts and take action to reduce the harm, my life, and many others will be put further at risk.”

The NYSDOT’s refusal to conduct an EIS and mitigate the increase in air pollution is in clear violation of the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

“As a child, I would hear stories about ‘reconnecting the community’ that was torn apart by the building of the Expressway and witnessing its devastating impacts on my community. Having hosted a community meeting on the redevelopment project, I am hearing the same refrain,” said Aymanuel Radford, a Buffalo resident and organizer with NYCLU. “The highway tore apart Black neighborhoods and supercharged segregation, to the benefit of white people living in the surrounding suburbs. Without an EIS, this new project is repeating the awful mistakes of the past.”