Releases Public Service Announcement and Launches Grassroots Voter Education Drive
As the new home of NJPIRG's environmental work, Environment New Jersey can be contacted regarding this news release.
TRENTON—NJPIRG
launched a phone bank, a grassroots voter education drive and released
a public service announcement on video on November 2 to educate voters about
Ballot Question #2. “We want New Jerseyans to know that there is an
important question on the ballot this Tuesday for the environment and
for the health of New Jersey,” said Ethan Lavine, Clean Air Advocate
for NJPIRG.
Ballot
Question 2 asks voters to allocate funding to the state’s diesel clean
up plan, which will retrofit over 30,000 diesel vehicles with
technology to reduce dangerous soot emissions. Toxic diesel soot
emissions pose a great risk to public health in New Jersey.
“The
wording of the question is a little confusing because it uses a lot of
legalese, which most people don’t speak. We want everyone to know that
a ‘yes’ vote means cleaner, healthier air. That’s something everyone in
this state surely deserves,” said Lavine.
Last
week, four local Comcast providers began airing a Public Service
Announcement (PSA) produced by NJPIRG and it is set to be aired on News
12 and Channel 11 this week. The PSA can be viewed at www.njpirg.org/images/NJ.PSA.finalmed.mov.
The stations airing the PSA together have 1.9 million subscribers with
News 12 reaching the most with more than a million subscribers.
This
weekend, NJPIRG staff will visit downtowns across the state to
distribute literature to people in fourteen New Jersey towns as they go
about their weekend errands. They will also be outside of polls to
inform voters on Election Day about Ballot Question 2. Some of the
group’s members have volunteered to do some of their own outreach by
passing out education materials to their neighbors and co-workers all
this week.
Last
night, the group began their telephone outreach drive through which
they plan to call 1,000 New Jerseyans by the end of the week to explain
the question and urge them to Vote Yes. “Everyone we talked to so far
about the question was really supportive. A bunch of people even
volunteered to distribute literature about the question to their
neighbors and co-workers,” said Lavine.
If
approved by voters, the diesel clean up plan would retrofit the state’s
school buses, transit buses, garbage trucks, and other publicly owned
diesel vehicles with proven clean-up technology, like exhaust filters.
The clean up plan would reduce diesel soot emissions by roughly 10
percent over the next decade, removing over 400 tons of pollution from
the air annually.
New
Jersey’s dirty diesel vehicles contribute to the state’s unhealthy
levels of soot pollution. Thirteen of the state’s 21 counties exceed
levels for soot pollution allowed under standards established by the
United States Environmental Protection Agency. The USEPA projects that
880 people die prematurely each year from exposure to diesel soot
pollution alone.
“The
soot in our air is making us sick,” continued Lavine. “Studies show
this again and again. On Tuesday, there’s a common sense step we can
take to make this state healthier for our children and for ourselves.”
Ballot
Question #2 has been endorsed by the American Lung Association of NJ,
the New Jersey Education Association, the American Heart Association,
the New Jersey Conference of the NAACP, the March of Dimes, the New
Jersey Environmental Federation the Sierra Club of New Jersey and Green
Faith.
More Information On Ballot Questions #2
A
‘yes’ vote on Ballot Question #2 would lessen the serious toll soot
pollution has on the health of New Jersey residents. A report by
Boston-based Clean Air Task Force attributed over 800 premature deaths
to diesel soot pollution every year in New Jersey. It also reported
that diesel soot pollution is to blame for over 1,300 heart attacks and
17,000 asthma attacks. New Jersey has the second highest cancer risk
rate from diesel soot pollution in the nation.
School
buses especially pose a threat to children’s health because school
children spend an average of over an hour on the bus each day, and the
bus cabins act as diesel exhaust incubators, as soot pollution from the
exhaust and the engine floods inside at each bus stop. Clean Air Task
Force and Purdue University researchers, studying diesel school bus
emissions in three cities, showed that school children face diesel
concentrations up to 10 times the amount of outside air quality, which
is already at unhealthy levels.
Though
the diesel clean up plan was signed into law this November, approval
for its funding must go to the state’s voters because it draws from
existing revenue in the Corporate Business Tax earmarked for
environmental programs. Approval would shift 17% of these funds from
site remediation spending, as well as allow a kick-start appropriation
of up to $10 million from an $80 million surplus for underground
storage tanks. The clean up plan will cost roughly $15.5 million over a
10-year period.
NJPIRG
has made raising the public’s awareness of the ballot question a
priority for months. This summer, NJPIRG canvassers visited over 150
towns across the state and spoke to over 150,000 citizens about diesel
pollution.
While
Ballot Question #2 is an important first step to cleaning up diesel
pollution, New Jersey must do more to make the air healthy to breathe
again. Research from the Clean Air Task Force recommends that diesel
particle emissions be reduced by 75 percent by 2015 and 85 percent by
2020 to restore the air to healthiness. New Jersey should adopt these
aggressive, yet attainable standards. NJPIRG has called upon the
candidates to adopt health-based standards for regulating soot
pollution in the state if elected.
