Learn about the terrible environmental conditions that the 50,000 residents of the Ironbound District, part of Newark's East Ward, live with every day. This slide show presented by the environmental education and activism business, "Envision Blue/Green," will shock you. It will illustrate for you exactly why you should care about this neighborhood which may be located only a few miles from your own neighborhood. Tourists flock daily to the Ironbound shops & restaurants, especially the many Portugese ones, but few know where these streets lead or what's in the air they are breathing. Toxic air, toxic water, toxic soil. The children of the Ironbound have an asthma rate of 1 in 4 as compared with the average 1 in 12 in the rest of NJ. Beginning long ago during the Industrial Revolution, literally 'bound' by railroads and bordering a seaport, then later crisscrossed and surrounded by major highways and finally Newark Airport, this neighborhood was & is a major transportation hub --the largest gateway into the U.S. on the east coast. And all that traffic pours pollution into the air day and night. Meanwhile the huge trash incinerator, oil terminals, chemical companies, power producers, and other manufacturing plants spew smoke into the air. Poisonous fumes and particle dust containing neurotoxins like mercury, dioxin, and lead along with many other pollutants that cause lung disease and other serious illnesses. The soil that children walk to school across and run around on when they're throwing a football or tossing a frisbee, is TOXIC. In fact, the largest dioxin superfund site in the world is located here where pesticides and then Agent Orange were manufactured for years. And 17 miles of the Passaic River flowing past is, in and of itself, a superfund site. And both the sewage treatment plant and a huge municipal and solid waste treatment facility are both located there. And during major storms like Hurricanes Irene & Sandy? The river overflows its banks, flooding the neighborhood, spreading toxic sludge into businesses and homes. The people of the Ironbound are our neighbors. Literally the neighbors of other working class neighborhoods and towns as well as many upper middle class and wealthy communities in Essex and Union Counties. It says in the Bible, "Love your neighbor the same as you love yourself." Organizations like the Ironbound Community Corporation fight for environmental justice, but they need the help of their neighbors. Your house of worship, club, community organization, student group, or any group of concerned citizens can join the movement to stop this injustice in its tracks and create a healthier world for the people of the Ironbound, of all of Newark, of Essex County, and of the world. No one--no CHILD--should ever have to breathe poisonous air or crawl on toxic soil. Not yours. Not any child in the Ironbound District. Please join the Envision Blue/Green movement to help create a healthier planet for all earth's inhabitants.

3.  12 miles or Less from towns like summit & Short
Hills NJ & only 7 miles from Beautiful Maplewood
 J Ust a stroll outside the doors of Newark
penn station
South Orange
& Maplewood
Summit, Short
Hills, Millburn
The Ironbound
& Newark Airport

4. just on the other side of the railway wall…
…lies the Ironbound
Disctrict – famous for it’s
portugese restaurants
and colorful shops

5. The IRONBOUND is a 4 square mile section of Newark’s East Ward. With 50,000
residents, it is the most densely populated section of Newark.
It is a community just like yours, whose residents care about having a quality of life
that all human beings deserve. Especially for their children. And so they founded
an organization called the Ironbound Community Corporation or ICC in 1969.
THE ICC SPONSORS WONDERFUL EVENTS FOR ITS RESIDENTS SUCH AS:

6. The IRONBOUND COMMUNITY CORPORATION is proud of their home. But it has done so much
more for its residents than simply sponsoring festivals or other special events. Between 2010 &
2013 alone, they:
 Celebrated the opening of 15 acres of Riverfront Park
 Began construction on a new $6 million Early Head Start Center, adjacent to and integrated with
Preschool, creating a model infant-4 program.
 Developed new community garden projects
 Opened an 80 unit affordable housing building, the Ironbound’s first in 30 years

7. But the Ironbound is both literally and figuratively ‘Bound’
 Bound by its geography
 Bound by its history
 Bound by iron railroad tracks
Lehigh
Valley R.R.
The Ironbound
PENNSYLVANIA
RAILROAD
1904

8. The Ironbound is still
bound by the railroads
and Port Elizabeth that
were built during the
Industrial Revolution, but
is now also at the
crossroads of multiple
highways & interstates
and bordered by Newark
International Airport

9. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The Ironbound was a natural crossroads with its
proximity to Port Elizabeth and the Passaic &
Hudson Rivers and NYC. And so with trains
arriving from all different directions along with
the shipments, factories sprang up. As long ago
as 1881, The New York Times printed an article
entitled, “The Polluted Passaic”
1950’S
Decades & decades of pre-regulation industrial
dumping and air pollution along with the heavy
concentration of rail, port, and later, highway, & air
traffic. All of which continue to flow past and above
the neighborhood in a steady stream
Site of Diamond Shamrock Chemical Company
which began manufacturing Agent Orange in the 1950’s
AGENT ORANGE!
Historic “Newark Waterfront,” Boylan Fitzgerald, b. 1909
17 Mile Passaic River Superfund Site
PRESENT DAY
Covanta’s Incinerator
Phase 2 Removal
Phase 1 Removal
The remains of all this pollution
lays in the riverbed & in the soil.
And the ongoing toxic emissions
Dioxin
& waste disposal from chemical
Superfund Site
plants, factories, and a massive
trash incinerator further
contaminates the soil & water. What Remains of Years & Years of the Manufacturing of Pesticides & Agent Orange

10. Troy Chemicals,
Preservatives, Additives,
Coatings, Plastics & More
December 2013, The
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency
proposed to add the Troy
Chemical Corp. site in
Newark, New Jersey to
its Superfund list of the
country’s most
hazardous waste sites.
Cardolite Corp.
Manufacturing Epoxy Resins
& Chemicals for the
Automotive Brake Industry
Oil Company
Motiva Oil Terminal
Ironbound
Oil Company
Oil Company
East Ward
Deleet Merchandising,
Printing Equipment
Doremus Terminal, LLC
Apex Oil Company
Synthetic Flavors, Fragrances
Adhesives & Sealants
CWC,
Metallic Foils
Roofing & Asphalt
Polymer Extruded Products
Plastic Film & Sheeting
Synthetic Flavoring &
Fragrances, Petrochemicals
Clean Earth of North NJ,
Soil & Waste Processing
Chafing Fuels
Reichhold Chemicals,
Resins & Coatings
Polyurethane &
Other Coatings
Paints, Stains, Solvents
“Toxic Release Inventory”
In 2004:150,000 lbs of 56 toxic
chemicals including hydrazine,
benzene, & mercury were
released from 23 facilities in the
Ironbound

11. PSE&G’s Coal
Burning Power
Plant on the
Hackensack
River, near the
Ironbound
Thanks to pressure from the Ironbound Community Corporation and
Greenfaith, in March of 2012, an agreement was reached with the Port
Authority of New York & NJ, who own the garbage incinerator (which is
on long-term lease to Covanta, the energy producer), to make a $75
million upgrade to better control emissions, especially of particulate matter.
Empower
our Youth!
Youth marched
with Ironbound
Community
Corporation
from a
community
garden and
compost site to
the Covanta
incinerator,
demanding
clean air
Two of the leading
sources for mercury
pollution are coal
burning power
plants and
incinerators
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

12. Burning Toxins
Newark children
suffer from a 1 in 4
ASTHMA RATE,
three times higher
than the state
average of 1 in 12

13. Passaic River
In the Ironbound neighborhood, storms like Hurricane Irene have brought major
flooding (see map of “Flow of Contaminants”). Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge
pushed the waters of Newark Bay and the Passaic River into areas that had never
experienced tidal flooding before. The water not only carried highly contaminated
sediments from these waterways, but as it washed across Superfund sites and
industrial plants located along the shoreline it picked up further toxic chemicals. To
make matters worse, the Passaic Valley Sewage Commission’s main treatment
facility, that handles sewer effluent for much of northern New Jersey, was
overwhelmed by the storm’s tidal surge, resulting in 3.1 billion gallons of untreated
sewage being released into the water. This noxious brew poured into basements,
homes and businesses.
Following the storm, New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection
was remiss in providing residents with information and people were pumping water
and cleaning up muck filled with PCB’s, Dioxin and the residue of raw sewage
including high levels of E.Coli and coliform bacteria.

14. DART, Doremus Avenue Recycling & Transfer Station
Disposal Materials Accepted
• Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)
• Construction & Demolition Debris (CDD)
• Contaminated Soils
• Residual
• Filter Cake/Treatment Sludges
• Drums
• Auto Shredder Residue
• Dredge Spoils
• Certified Destruction of Products
EnviroSolutions, DART facility, is, a rail served transfer station that uses ‘bale and rail’ technology.
Over ninety-five percent of the outbound waste is transported via rail. “We take pride in servicing
our customers and providing exceptional service - "The Answer to Waste.””
ILLEGAL DUMPING
What’s in this mound & who dumped it here?
Aside from processing waste, DART is the place where much of Essex County’s recycling
is processed. Recycling is a must, but this process also emits toxins into the air.

15. Soil at the Abandoned Tidewater Baling Site Contains PCB’s
MERCURY

16. In July of 2012, in response to a request by
Newark Energy Center for permits to build a
natural gas power plant in the East Ward, more
than a dozen speakers urged officials from The
Department of Environmental Protection to
deny the permits. Following on the heels of the
city’s planning board approval of an application
by Hess Corp. to build a 655-megawatt plant in
May, Jeff Tittel, director of the NJ Sierra Club
said, “This is a dirty deal for dirty air that affects
the lives and health of the people of Newark. DEP
is permitting a health crisis by allowing more
pollution into Newark and the Ironbound
community.”
Cleanup of PCB Contamination at Abandoned Tidewater Baling Facility
Even as the Department of Environmental Protection and state and city officials like Chris Christy & Corey Booker
support efforts to clean up the toxic air, water, & soil in and around the Ironbound, more industries seek to build toxic waste
facilities.
NJ has the most (114) federal Superfund sites in the country and more than 20,000 other toxic sites. The NJ DEP’s state
cleanup program has been privatized, and now “Licensed Site Professionals” (LSP) are in charge of certifying cleanup with
little or no DEP oversight. Given the inherent potential for abuse, the DEP must develop engineering performance
measurements that challenge the certifications of cleanup by the LSP’s.
Long Overdue Incinerator Filters to be Installed
Dredging the Passaic River

17. Environmental
Justice Bus Tour
Groups like GreenFaith work together with the Ironbound Community Corporation to
educate citizens—neighbors of the Ironbound, about the Environmental Injustices
they live with every day

18. “Ironbound Athletic Field B”
Until it was closed in 2009, 3-6 year old children played daily
on this LEAD CONTAMINATED artificial turf athletic field
over the span of 8 years
As of 2004,
there were
over 100
contaminated
& hazardous
waste sites in
the East Ward
Ironbound
Recreation
Center
Newark’s
Riverfront Park
Just beside “Athletic Field
B” is the new Ironbound
Community Center.
Housing an ice rink and a
beautiful state if the art
swimming pool. However,
the ground upon which
the center was built is
so toxic, that the
building was designed
so that the pool is
suspended above the
ground.

19. IRONBOUND
An History of Determinated People of All Ethnicity's Against The
Indifference, Unmoral, Provocative Environmental
Discrimination Suffered That
"...Never Lets The Flame Die"
Essex County’s Maplewood Mayor & former Ironbound resident,
Vic Deluca

20. “One law rules over all
other laws. This royal law
is found in the Scriptures:
“Love your neighbor the
Community Garden
same as you love
yourself.” If you obey
this law, you are doing
right.”
James 2:8
Ironbound mother drops off her 23 month old
daughter at the early Head Start Program
Riverfront Park

21. “Picturing Justice” New Jersey Institute of Technology
Professor of Architecture & Ironbound Resident, Troy West
engages students in ways to better their communities

22. Envision
…
…then change the world!
Contact Envision Blue/Green Owner, Andrea Correll at andrea@envisionbluegreen.com to learn about this or other Environmental Justice Projects