On the recordMarch 10, 2014
I guess what makes me emotional, I have to say, is I do not need to imagine what the future will be like because I have seen it in the urban area I have represented for the last 7-plus years. Let me go a little bit deeper into what I mean. We wanted to do urban gardening. We were told by environmental regulators in our State that we couldn't dig into our soil because the soil in my city was toxic. Not one of my residents did it, not the folks who had been living there for generations. It is toxic because folks put things in the soil. We have the biggest urban gardening city, Newark, NJ, but they are planting in beds above ground. I already talked to you about the air quality. This is why so many cities in New Jersey now are working very hard--and I am proud--on two items, and one of them is we have epidemic asthma rates. Go to urban places around the country and you will see that. Now we are separated from the air, separated from the soil. Go to your river. It used to be, if you were poor, you could just go to the river and get some shellfish. Go fishing, eat a meal. But somebody took that away, and now you cannot do that. Now you have to find money and see if you can buy something from the store that nature used to provide in the safe river. So you are separated from your water. So the collateral damage all through the populations, I do not have to see what it is going to be, I see it now.
