In Newark’s Ironbound, Mothers Are Fighting for the Air Their Children Breathe
In Newark’s Ironbound, Mothers Are Fighting for the
Air Their Children Breathe
On any given day in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood, children are called in early from recess, and parents shut their windows against the air. The smells can be chemical, heavy, and sometimes sickly sweet. For many of us, they are not just unpleasant. They are a warning.
These odors can trigger asthma attacks that send children to the emergency room or keep them home from school. In a city already facing high rates of chronic absenteeism, the air itself has become a barrier to learning, development, and daily life. For parents and caregivers, especially mothers, this is a daily concern in maternal and child health. This is what many of us in the Ironbound navigate every day as we try to protect our children.
Now we are being asked to accept even more.
The Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC), one of the largest wastewater treatment systems in the Northeast, has proposed building a new fossil fuel gas plant in the Ironbound. This would be the fourth in a four-square-mile neighborhood already burdened by an incinerator, industrial facilities, diesel truck traffic, port activity, rail lines, major highways, and Newark Airport. Framed as “resilience” after Superstorm Sandy, the project instead represents continued exposure and cumulative harm.
In 2012, after Superstorm Sandy, the PVSC lost power, and flooding brought contaminated water into surrounding streets and homes. FEMA provided PVSC with resiliency project funding. Instead of investing in clean infrastructure, PVSC proposed a fossil fuel gas plant in 2021.
“A disaster meant to teach us how to protect communities is now being used to justify further harm,” says JV Valladolid, a representative of the Ironbound Community Corporation, a lifelong Newarker and a new parent who has spent more than five years organizing against the proposed plant. JV spoke at a PVSC Board of Commissioners meeting while in the earliest stages of labor, just days before giving birth, a moment that underscores how inseparable environmental decisions are from maternal health and childbirth in communities like ours.
For families like JV’s, the stakes extend into pregnancy and early development. Exposure to fine particulate matter has been associated with preterm birth, low birth weight, and long-term respiratory impacts. In communities like the Ironbound, those risks accumulate before a child’s first breath.
For a new generation of parents, this is not only about what children will breathe growing up, but what they are exposed to before they are born. The fight against another fossil fuel gas plant is a fight for maternal, prenatal, and early childhood health as much as environmental protection.
The proposal advanced during a gap in policy. In 2020, New Jersey passed the Environmental Justice Law to prevent additional pollution burdens in overburdened communities like the Ironbound. While the law was passed in 2020, its implementing rules were not finalized until 2023. PVSC submitted its proposal in 2021. While communities fought for protections, industry moved faster than the law.
At the same time, Newark has been attempting to chart a different path. The city has passed an ordinance prohibiting public investment in fossil fuel infrastructure and is considering zoning changes aimed at preventing further expansion of polluting facilities. As Dr. Leah Z. Owens, PhD, Ports and Policy Analyst with the South Ward Environmental Alliance, explains, “these policy tools are critical for aligning municipal decisions with environmental justice goals while also strengthening community-led advocacy efforts against continued fossil fuel dependence.”
For many parents, the consequences are visible in children’s health and in patterns that repeat across generations.
“Multigenerational respiratory illness is not just genetics; it is the environment. Decades of exposure to pollution from diesel trucks, port activity, waste facilities, and industrial operations have created conditions where respiratory illness is passed down through families. Public health research continues to show that both family history and long-term environmental exposure play a critical role in asthma risk. Multigenerational asthma should not exist in a place with the resources to prevent it. The solutions are here. What has been missing is the political will, and that is exactly what parent advocacy is building. Because when parents organize, we don’t just raise awareness. We change outcomes. In Newark, and throughout New Jersey, that means fighting for a future where clean air is not a privilege, but a right, and where family legacy should not be shortness of breath”, shares Erica Beverett, Lead Organizer, Parents Engaging Parents, Inc.
In Newark, public health data show children experience asthma at rates higher than the national average, with hospitalization rates also substantially higher than in many other communities.¹ These patterns reflect sustained exposure to environmental pollution.
For many mothers, the fight begins even earlier, before a child takes their first breath. It begins during pregnancy, in prenatal care, and in the quiet calculations about what risks can and cannot be avoided.
“When a grandmother has asthma, and her daughter has asthma, and her granddaughter is born into the same polluted air, that is not a coincidence. That is policy. Soot pollution from fossil fuel gas plants is so fine that it reaches babies in the womb, found in placentas before a first breath is ever taken. The science is clear: prenatal exposure raises the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and lifelong respiratory illness that disproportionately impacts Black and Brown families. We stand with families who have carried this fight across generations, because the people most harmed by these decisions have always been the ones most qualified to lead them”,¹ states Liz Hurtado, Senior Manager with EcoMadres & Moms Clean Air Force.
Health professionals have echoed these concerns. In a letter signed by more than 130 health care professionals, they warned that a fossil fuel gas plant would worsen air quality and harm Ironbound residents, a community already facing disproportionate exposure to pollution and underlying health inequities. They emphasized that children are uniquely vulnerable and that additional pollution would deepen existing health burdens.
The resistance to this project is not new. Since the 1970s, Ironbound residents, many of them foreign-born mothers, have organized to protect their families from toxic exposure.
“In Newark, environmental justice was not invented in policy rooms; it was built in kitchens, living rooms, and community centers by mothers protecting their children”, says Francis Nunez, Director of Advocacy and Organizing at the Ironbound Community Corporation.
Opposition to the PVSC fossil fuel gas plant has mobilized across Newark and beyond. Residents have submitted hundreds of public comments. Newark’s mayor has publicly opposed the project, and a broad coalition remains united in opposition.²
The legal fight is now underway. The Essex County Superior Court paused construction of the proposed plant as it reviews the lawsuit filed by Earthjustice on behalf of the Ironbound Community Corporation and the City of Newark’s lawsuit. The cases argue that PVSC failed to adequately consider health risks and community opposition. The pause remains in place while litigation continues.
Families in Newark have spent decades organizing for clean air and healthier futures for our children. That work continues today, led by parents advocating not only for their own families but for generations to come.
The science is clear, and so are the lived experiences. Protecting maternal and child health requires decisions that reduce exposure, not expand it. The choices made now will shape whether children inherit cleaner air or the same preventable harms.
– Written by JV Valladolid
Citations
¹ Health outcomes, environmental exposure, and maternal/pregnancy impacts
EPA Region 2 Community Air Monitoring Data
https://19january2017snapshot.
Newark Chronic Absenteeism Report (asthma-related school absences)
http://acnj.org/downloads/
Moms Clean Air Force EcoMadres (maternal/pregnancy exposure science)
https://www.momscleanairforce.
² Policy, EJ Law, opposition, litigation, and local governance context
New Jersey Environmental Justice Law overview and implementation context
https://njdep.maps.arcgis.com/
Ironbound Community Corporation campaign and advocacy materials
https://ironboundcc.org/fight-
Earthjustice litigation (ICC + City of Newark v. NJ agencies)
https://earthjustice.org/
NJ Hospital Association Vulnerable Communities Database
https://www.njha.com/
Earthjustice. Newark, NJ leaders introduce historic ordinance to protect community health and climate. https://earthjustice.org/
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