In Bridgeport, residents of the P.T. Barnum Apartments are pushing against the expansion of two wastewater treatment facilities.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s former reporter Jaden Edison to discuss his article, “Bridgeport apartment complex residents fight for health, and a say,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. You can read his story here.
WSHU: Hello, Jaden. Let’s talk about PT Partners. How did they come onto your radar? And why did you decide to dig deeper into the organization?
JE: Yeah, so it was post-2023 legislative session, really just looking for opportunities to kind of get into areas of justice coverage, having to do with low-income communities, you know, people who are disproportionately affected by decisions at the state level, how the decisions made at the Capitol, as it pertains to, it can be voting rights, it can be the environment, and in this particular instance, it is the environment. But my approach was, how can we find more stories that kind of convey the effect of said decisions and debates and discussions that are made at the policy level?
And so, that kind of led us on this journey of environmental justice; you have communities who reside in environmentally hazardous areas, whether it be industry or wastewater treatment plants, as P.T. Barnum residents are. And so, where can we find that kind of human impact? And so that was kind of the initial kind of thought. We did not know we would end up with PT Partners. But ultimately, it did after kind of asking people around about different things going on, as it pertains to environmental justice, and so spoke with them very early on, and was very intrigued by common kind of the more recent battles that they’ve been having with some of the industry, you know, in their community. And so it just started the journey from there.
WSHU: Okay, now talking about PT Partners, they’re very involved with the fact that they have two wastewater treatment plants in the proximity of the housing complex. How are they dealing with this? And these plants have been there for years. P.T. Barnum was built in the 1940s. I’m sure the waste treatment plant has been there for the past 50 years or more. So just tell us a little bit about it. Because actually, there’s a situation of an eight-year-old, who lost his life in one of those waste treatment plants a few years ago, Gary Crooks. Could you just tell us a little bit about the history of this and why we are where we are today?
JE: Yeah. So it is really fascinating, right? Like, I mean, I will start with the fact that this is a community that, in addition to the wastewater treatment plants, is just surrounded by so much like if you go to the neighborhood, it’s like you would almost be astounded by just looking around. And it’s so you know, from plastic fabrication companies to I mean, I-95 is literally right there inside. Right. And, and obviously, the wastewater treatment plants, as you mentioned, right, which has a particular history.
WSHU: We’ve also got asphalt plants across from there.
JE: Exactly. And so I mean, let’s look at Gary Crooks, for example, an eight-year-old child who died after drowning and one of the settling tanks at one of the wastewater treatment plants, which, in many ways, kind of mobilized the community around the environment and the conditions. And so you look now where we are in 2024, this is a community that has been through a lot and this is also a community that wants to have a say, in the conditions and around their health. And so particularly with this, right, you’ve had the WPCA (the Water Pollution Control Authority, right, which operates the wastewater treatment plants) which was ordered to expand by the state, who said, ‘Hey, you’re polluting the Long Island Sound, and so we need to make these changes.’
There haven’t been any major facility upgrades since the 2000s. So we need to make these changes to address the problem. Well, what seems to have gotten lost in that was the residents, you know, who by their account, you know, haven’t been involved at all in the early processes of any kind of renovation plans. And so effectively, what you see in practice now is a community that just wants to have a say, in what’s going to happen. Like, this has been here, you know, we’ve gotten these terrible smells that have, you know, that are most prevalent during the summertime, right? We know that many of our residents, even though we don’t have statistics, we know anecdotally that many of our residents struggle with asthma and other health-related problems. And we know that the industry surrounding us at least plays some role in the health of our community. And so we want to have a say, and we should have a say, given our proximity to, you know, the plants.
WSHU: So PT partners have a say now, yeah, they’ve been able to get there.
JE: Yeah, it’s been a struggle. And I should clarify, too, that PT Partners itself, the organization is somewhat different from P.T. Barnum residents. So, you have a number of P.T. Barnum residents who make up PT partners.
WSHU: But also the partners are involved in the three housing complexes?
JE: Right. But obviously, P.T. Barnum is kind of, in many ways, kind of the home base, right? Many of the residents, you know, they’re the people who kind of keep the ship afloat. And so I think, you know, since engaging with the Water Pollution Control Authority in 2021, I think they have had some success in terms of, you know, here are our demands and the WPCA and response working at least somewhat to implement some of those things. But I think, you know, what the residents will say is that it’s been a struggle, right? And they feel that there has been a situation where they’ve had to unnecessarily over-explain why they should have a say, in our health in our community, and that there has, in from their belief, been a misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, in some cases of why they’re asking, you know, and why they’re fighting for what they’re fighting for.
So I think you’ve seen some successes, and you’ve gotten the recognition that people,? you know, who around you know, we have, you know, local city councilman Scott Burns, we talked about kind of how, you know, P.T. Barnum has really been great in terms of advocating for itself, right. And let me get so you know, you know, credibility in the community, right. And that’s a byproduct of the work in the mobilization that they’ve done. So, the short answer, again, is that I think they’ve had some wins, but maybe not at the pace that they would like to see. I also think that they would like a lot more to happen at a faster pace.