A category of air pollution all its own, particulate matter, or PM, is among the most damaging things a person can inhale. The smaller the PM, the greater its ability to lodge deep in the most sensitive parts of the lung, where it can inflict maximum damage. The most dangerous PM are those bits less than 10 microns in diameter, known as PM10, and worse yet, those under 2.5 microns, known as PM2.5 - exactly the type of particles produced as a byproduct of diesel exhuast. The list of consequences as a result of severe acute and chronic exposure to PM is long - including increased mortality from cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer, and impaired pulmonary function and development. It is these developmental effects that are particularly troubling in light of a proposed warehouse construction project in Mansfield, NJ.
The developers behind the proposed Margolis Warehouse Distribution Facility - effectively a 200 acre campus of loading docks and idling zones in Mansfield Township NJ - claim that they have "no intention of trying to hurt anybody" despite the fact that the proposed site would be moving in next door to...wait for it...Liberty Lake Day Camp, a summer getaway for 600 4-to-14 year olds.
What we are left with then, is a classic environmental health policy quandary, pitting developmental and economic interests against those trying to protect public health. There are sticky questions of zoning involved as well, which even the owners of Liberty Lake acknowledge may mean that the eventual siting of a warehouse was always an inevitability. Maybe the better question then is why the camp was built within coughing distance of the NJ Turnpike in the first place...still, that's no reason to make a less than ideal situation that much worse. Won't someone think of the children?!?!?
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