One in three New Jerseyans lives within a half mile of a mega warehouse.

Why does that matter?

Well, a new report from the Environmental Defense Fund and the coalition for Healthy Ports, New York, New Jersey, details how those affected are disproportionately people of color in poor communities who face a host of health risks as a result.

Here to explain is one of the report's authors, Sam Becker, project manager for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Sam, great to have you with us tonight.

So tell me in this report, what does it show in terms of who is most impacted by warehouse related really pollution?

A report finds that roughly one in three New Jersey residents lives within half a mile of a mega warehouse.

We found 3034 mega warehouses that generate at least 380,000 daily truck trips.

Each trip releases harmful pollution, and as a result of historic and ongoing racist and discriminatory policy decisions, Hispanic, Latino, Black, Indigenous, low income and limited English populations live near warehouses at rates that are higher than expected based on statewide statistics.

And Sam did that.

That also included schools.

As I read in the report, many of their schools are also located close to warehouses.

And so we know that this creates health disparities and that can have impacts long term.

Just detail what you found there.

Each jet, each warehouse generates up to a thousand daily truck trips, and each truck trip releases harmful pollution, meaning that communities near these mega warehouses and warehouse workers face higher rates of harmful air pollution associated with diseases like premature death, cancer, asthma, COPD and stroke.

These are diseases that disproportionately impact children and older people.

So it's one thing to point out this data, and I think that's an important, critical first step, but it doesn't look like the e-commerce industry is going anywhere.

If anything, probably poised to rise.

What are some solutions to these problems?

Because these warehouses exist kind of where they exist right now?

Do we spread them out?

What do we do here?

Currently, the harmful air pollution generated by the e-commerce boom that New Jersey has seen over the last few decades isn't regulated by New Jersey's new environmental justice law.

However, New Jersey could tackle this situation by implementing an indirect source review or ISR.

An ISR would regulate the emissions generated by trucks traveling to and from warehouse and other truck contracting facilities by regulating the facility as an indirect source of pollution.

The concept is similar to how power plants and factories are regulated as direct sources of pollution.

The bill, detailed in the report, implements an eyesore from New Jersey, along with additional provisions that would center equity, community input and transparency.

So a few key pieces of making sure that communities living close to warehouses are healthier include electrifying the vehicles that are coming to and from these facilities, making sure that these facilities have charging infrastructure to ensure that they can receive these electric vehicles.

And also making sure that there are other measures taken to ensure that the warehouse industry is doing its part to be a good neighbor, like putting warehouses on roofs.

All right.

Sam Becker, project manager of the Global Clean Air Team at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Great insight, great advice.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.