Expert: City’s BQE plan could bring dangerous levels of toxic pollution to Brooklyn Heights
Forget the traffic, noise, disruption and dust-filled air. The biggest danger from temporarily replacing the Brooklyn Heights Promenade with the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) will be invisible and insidious, says Laurie Garrett, former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning author on global public health, says that toxic particulate matter released by the 153,000 trucks and cars that travel the BQE daily could affect the health of Heights residents for years — including children who attend school in the neighborhood.
Tiny, airborne particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter are known as PM 2.5. According to the city’s Health Department, PM 2.5 particles are the most harmful urban air pollutant, small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, worsening lung and heart disease.
A Health Department report confirms high levels of particulates emanating from the BQE. The shape of the BQE can be seen in a map showing particulates collected by the city’s monitoring units.