The Port of Providence in Rhode Island is a busy place for marine shipping, connecting with the industries in the area that rely on ships. As such, it's a hotspot of pollution — but local residents have pushed back, GBH News reports.
For example, take Monica Huertas, who moved to the Washington Park neighborhood in 2015. While she and her husband had the house that would be their first inspected, the professional assessment didn't cover air pollution affecting the area.
"You want to open your windows because it's a beautiful day and let the fresh air in," Huertas said, per GBH News. "And then it's that disgusting pungent gas, oily-like smell. So you close the windows again and then you're sad."
According to Huertas, there are more than smells to worry about. Her family of six all have asthma, a known health risk related to methane gas as well as other types of pollution; one son suffers from a childhood heart condition called Kawasaki disease. "Look at the cumulative impacts," she said. "What does tar, cement, oil, gas ... trucks in and out, idling, do to us? How does that affect all of us?"
So, Huertas and others got to work, starting with rallying the neighborhood to get support for their initiatives. "What we do is old-school door-knocking," she said. Per GBH News, her first question to each resident is whether they have asthma.
"And then the second thing is, 'When you open your windows or when you walk out of your house, do you smell something?'" she said.
And it has made a difference. "The amount of activism we've had ... and the politicians and folks that have been brought into the conversation around the port of Providence, it's almost impossible to ignore as a problem," Rhode Island Sen. Tiara Mack said, per GBH News.
Through the efforts of Huertas and her fellow activists, the area has started to turn around. There is now an app to report unpleasant smells and related health symptoms, and Providence and Rhode Island officials have conducted two air quality projects in the area.
Officials have also started to tally all the truck traffic and have hosted community meetings about air pollution. The community even put a stop to the expansion of a liquid petroleum gas facility and had a cordoned-off beach reopened to the public.
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