Cleaning up New York’s dirty heating oil

In Harlem, one in four children has asthma.

That’s double the rate of the city as a whole, and four times the national average.

Although asthma attacks have multiple causes, air pollution from low-grade No. 6 and No. 4 heating oil is one trigger.

Just 1% of New York City buildings burn these fuels, but they put more particulate matter, or soot, into the air than all the city’s cars and trucks combined.

Fixing the problem

When EDF learned that Con Edison was laying a gas pipe to enable Columbia University to convert 70 buildings in Harlem from dirty oil to natural gas, we encouraged other buildings to convert as well.

We reached out to nearby landlords and, as a result, another 64 buildings could shift to the cleaner, more economical fuel. That would remove 25,000 pounds of soot pollution from the city’s air annually.

The Harlem project is an outgrowth of our campaign to clean up New York City’s heating oil.

Three years ago, EDF staff pinpointed 9,500 city buildings that burn No. 4 oil or the even dirtier No. 6 oil, which is basically unrefined sludge. We used that data to build an interactive online map showing these buildings’ locations, block by block.

Changing minds and changing lives

Isabelle Silverman presents Mayor Bloomberg with a sample of the polluting heating oil.

“When we learned that our building was on EDF’s dirty building list, we decided it made good business sense to convert to natural gas and stop polluting the air we all breathe,” says Jerry Cohen, a co-op board member on the Upper West Side.

Our campaign to clean up heating oil also caught the attention of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In 2011, after working closely with EDF and our allies, the administration announced new rules that will phase out No. 6 oil by 2015 and No. 4 oil by 2030.

The impact of that decision on illnesses such as asthma and heart disease could be “second only to our achievements in reducing the city’s smoking rates,” said Thomas Farley, the city’s health commissioner.

We’ve also worked with the mayor’s office to develop financing options that will help building owners convert to cleaner fuels more quickly.

“The clean air renaissance in Harlem is underway,” says EDF attorney Isabelle Silverman.