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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On today's show, Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic on her new cover story, The New Propaganda Wars. It's about Russia and China and the MAGA right in this country trying to discredit democracy in a different way than China and Russia used to try to do so in the 20th century Cold War. It's really fascinating in that respect. It starts with a quote from President Bill Clinton in 2000, who was sounding very optimistic about the spread of democracy and this new thing called- what was it called? Oh, the internet. We'll play the clip and discuss what has happened since with Anne Applebaum.

Also today, Democratic Party organizer, Luis Miranda, with his new memoir, Relentless, which has 50 years of history of its own, his contact with New York City mayors and movements and all kinds of things. Yes, if Miranda sounds like a name you've heard once or twice, well, there's a lot of Miranda's in the world, but the book does have a foreword by his son, Lin Manuel. That's coming up. We'll have a call-in at the end of the show today that asks does TikTok know you better than you know yourself.

We're starting today with our climate story of the week, which we do every Tuesday on the show. This week we're talking about mosquitoes in Queens. Well, not just Queens. If you're asking yourself what do mosquitoes have to do with climate change, well, climate change is causing longer and hotter summers, obviously, and in many places, we're experiencing more flooding than we ever have before. More flooding and more heat means more standing water where mosquitoes can lay their eggs.

There are just a lot more mosquitoes out there, and they're more than just an annoyance. In past years, the number of mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus in New York City has been on the rise. Not every neighborhood is experiencing this equally. Historically, Black neighborhoods across the US are often at a higher risk for flooding and extreme heat, including here in New York. In this case, that means more mosquitoes.

Joining us now is Roxanne Scott, an independent journalist working on a series with the NY Amsterdam News about climate change in Southeast Queens. She reported on the mosquito problem in one neighborhood and its roots as an environmental justice issue. Roxanne, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Roxanne Scott: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: In your piece, you focus on the Queens neighborhood of St. Albans. Can you describe the problem there?

Roxanne Scott: Yes. There is blocks of houses, row houses, and so to get access to driveways and what have you, they have alleyways. The problem is that after it rains, the water just sits there and it ponds. Of course, when water ponds, that attracts mosquitoes. That's a magnet for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes love standing water because they can lay their eggs there. Mosquitoes start their lives in water, and then they fly off. That is attracting mosquitoes, and of course, mosquitoes are vectors for diseases such as West Nile virus.

Brian Lehrer: Are we seeing it yet already this year? Technically mosquito season begins in April.

Roxanne Scott: Yes. I walked around St. Albans last month. We had a lot of rain in April, and I was able to see ponding in a lot of these alleyways. The ponding is already happening, and of course, the mosquitoes are here already.

Brian Lehrer: Here we go again in the next couple of days if the weather forecasts are accurate. As I mentioned in the intro, this is an environmental justice issue. You start the piece writing about redlining. I'm sure most of our listeners are aware of basically what redlining was or is, but do you maybe want to give us a quick summary to make sure we're all on the same page, and then tie it into mosquitoes in 2024?

Roxanne Scott: Of course. There were maps made in the 1930s by the Homeowners Loan Corporation under a federal agency to describe neighborhoods and their desirability of living in those neighborhoods. Of course, green was the most desirable, then there was blue, and then you get into neighborhoods and areas that were yellow and red. Yellow meant declining, and red meant, of course, hazardous. What that would mean is that, unfortunately, neighborhoods that had high Black populations or high immigrant populations were considered declining or hazardous.

These maps also, along with describing these neighborhoods in racist terms like, for example, in St. Albans, it would just say that there's a threat of Negro encroachment from north of the borough, for example, they also did a good job describing environmental threats in these neighborhoods. For a neighborhood like St. Albans, that meant little to no sewers, or being near the railroad industry, or poor transportation options as well, or being in a low-lying area.

Brian Lehrer: It's, to some degree, a story of unequal services being provided by City Hall, right?

Roxanne Scott: Yes. What followed after redlining is that there would be less resources sent to these neighborhoods because they were "declining or hazardous." These neighborhoods would get less funding or resources to fix a lot of these infrastructure issues that today, now they're on the front lines of these issues such as more flooding, or increased risk of air pollution, or sewer backups even.

Brian Lehrer: I said people probably know the basics of the term redlining, but you also threw the word yellow in there, in addition to red, red-lined or yellow-coded. I think St. Albans was in that yellow-coded category for a long time. I wonder if that's worth talking a little bit more about, yellow-coding and how it went with redlining.

Roxanne Scott: Yes. Areas of St. Albans weren't exactly red like other parts of Southeast Queens such as Jamaica, South Jamaica, and Laurelton. These were clearly red areas, which were defined as hazardous. St. Albans occupied the space where it was yellow, so it was declining. There were these "threats" that the maps would outline that could turn it into red such as Black people moving into the area, a high immigrant population moving into the area. It was never "red", but it was defined as declining.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, help us report this story. Help Roxanne Scott from the Amsterdam News report this story. We're especially interested in hearing from listeners in St. Albans, but it doesn't just have to be St. Albans. It could be other neighborhoods that are prone to flooding. Have you noticed more mosquitoes in your neighborhood over the recent years, as the climate has been getting warmer, the rains have been heavier? The flooding leads to ponding, as Roxanne was describing, and the ponding leads to mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes lead to West Nile and perhaps other viruses. 212-433-WNYC, on our climate story of the week. 212-433-9692. If you prefer to ask a question, you can do that. 212-433-9692, call or text.

Do you, in your reporting, Roxanne, get into a data crawl at all as to how much more ponding there is, and how many more mosquitoes and how much more West Nile virus?

Roxanne Scott: I was not able to see how much more ponding is happening, but I did contact local elected officials that represent St. Albans. Though they didn't get back to me to answer some questions, they did acknowledge that- one, in particular that they have seen more complaints from their constituents about the ponding, particularly in alleyways.

While I don't have a data crawl of how many alleyways are in New York City and how much are affected by ponding, I did get acknowledgment from residents that the ponding is happening more, and then also from elected officials that they are getting more complaints about this issue.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe this is obvious, but do more mosquitoes automatically mean more viruses?

Roxanne Scott: It can. It increases the chances. To truly decide or determine if these mosquitoes in the ponds have West Nile virus, you'd have to monitor them, pull them, test them, take them to a lab. If there's increased risk from flooding due to the ponding, and that's attracting more mosquitoes, and on top of that climate change is affecting the way mosquitoes breed, extending mosquito season, there could be a potential increase in vector-borne diseases, including mosquito-borne diseases.

Brian Lehrer: I think we've got a story coming in from a caller not too far from St. Albans. Sharon in Hollis, Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sharon.

Sharon: Hi. I've had two floods in my basement due to the government. I don't know who's responsible, the City. The City used to go around when we first moved out here. They would clean the sewers. They had this big clumpy thing that would go down and pull sewage out. Now, with the people in my neighborhood-- I have a gardener, which I pay a lot of money for, but some people just sweep their leaves in the sewer and it clogs up.

The sewer drainage is horrible in Hollis and St. Albans, has always been. I always hesitate when it rains to even leave my house because I pray that it will go down, plus a lot of people in our community or new homeowners and they don't know about the problem of sewage and backups. They're not accustomed to making sure that you don't put anything in the sewer because nobody cleans them anymore.

Brian Lehrer: Roxanne, talk to Sharon.

Roxanne Scott: Hi, Sharon. Nice to meet you, and thank you for calling. Yes, I am very much familiar with this problem, unfortunately, with sewer backups in neighborhoods like yours, neighborhoods like mine where I live in Rosedale. There's a particular problem also in South Jamaica of these sewer backups happening. Many say that these backups have increased because it's raining more as well.

Southeast Queens is not the only problem. There's also problems in places, like there's been great reportage in Elmhurst where people have similar issues, Regal Park with sewer backups. St. Albans, Hollis, Southeast Queens is like a microcosm of this issue of sewer backups and flooding, and Black and brown communities facing these problems more.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get right with Sharon on the line. What can be done about it? Does your article in the Amsterdam News get into that, Roxanne?

Roxanne Scott: Yes. What you'll hear as far as- and why this story particularly interested me is because when you see standing water, you're supposed to call 311. Someone's supposed to come and get rid of the issue.

When you have this issue, when it's happening on homeowners properties, for example, in an alleyway where you can't necessarily throw the water out, you can't take your Tupperware and throw out water in an alleyway, there's this kind of push and pull between, "This is a homeowner's problem, it's happening on your property" versus, "It's a public health hazard because it can potentially attract these mosquitoes." You're supposed to call 311, but if you're a homeowner, it's calling 311 on yourself.

Other cities and counties across the country, they have some free mitigation tools. You can do a mosquito dunk, this round tool where you can throw it in the water and it's insecticide so it'll kill the baby mosquitoes. The Department of Health told me that they don't have those free mitigation tools. Yes, there's this kind of push and pull of what do you do as a homeowner when you are responsible for standing water on your property, but because of the climate crisis, ponding and rains and floods can potentially increase and so you can't easily get rid of that water in your alleyway because it's a pond.

Brian Lehrer: Right. I want to come back and follow up for a minute because you're talking about individual solutions. I want to talk about policy solutions because I don't think we can leave this on the back of every homeowner or building owner. I know you don't want to do that. Sharon in Hollis, what would you like to see the government do, City government especially? We're not going to stop climate change in its tracks before the ponding continues and the mosquitoes continue to multiply.

By the way, we've got a mosquito expert calling in who's going to be our next caller and talk more about the connection between climate change and ponding after rainstorms and West Nile virus. Sharon, have you petitioned the government and what would you like the community to demand of it?

Sharon: Listen, I have called the Queensboro president's office. I'm an advocate. I get on the phone and I talk to all these politicians that I have, call Marie Natasha Williams. What I do is I become a nag and they keep saying to me-- I pay high taxes, first of all. Lots. The community services that we have in my community have lessened. I've lived here since I was six years old, and I'm a 70-year-old woman. I don't understand, all of a sudden, why nobody wants to clean the sewers. That's your problem.

I had a pipe burst. They told me, "No, we can't do anything. That's on your property." I paid $5,000 to have that pipe fixed. You know what? If I'm paying all these taxes and I'm putting these people in office, I just get on the phone and keep calling them, telling them, "Listen, we pay enough taxes. What are you doing?" This is a problem not just for me. I know. I'm not from another country and just moved here. I know this has been a continuing problem and redlining is a thing.

Brian Lehrer: Sharon, the righteous nag from Hollis. Have you seen- one more follow-up question- deterioration of the sewer system in the many years that you've lived there?

Sharon: Of course. Not everything breaks down. There used to be a people that come with this big clump and they would clean the sewers. I haven't seen that in years. They could care less about whether the sewers are clear or not. They think it's a big problem of restructure. It's a maintenance problem.

Brian Lehrer: Sharon, keep calling us and keep calling your elected officials. Thank you very much. Well, there's a follow-up story for you, Roxanne, if you haven't done it already, the deterioration as at least one homeowner sees it, of the maintenance of the sewer system in Queens. Are you on that angle yet?

Roxanne Scott: I'm not on that angle, but this is a very good idea. I've read this in other places, other parts of the country but this is definitely a very good angle.

Brian Lehrer: Carly in Forest Hills, who I see as an entomologist. Listeners, an etymologist is somebody who studies language. Entomologist is somebody who studies bugs. Carly, you are on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Carly: Hi. Can you hear me all right?

Brian Lehrer: Can hear just fine.

Carly: Hi. Long-time listener, first-time caller. Yes, I've lived in the city for about 10 years now, so I've always been a renter up until recently.

Recently, me and my husband bought a house in Forest Hills, Queens, just north of the park and we noticed very much the same thing. There's a shared alleyway, and the alleyway floods and ponds like nothing else, even in these relatively minor storms. Every time I go out there and I stare at this giant pond, I'm freaking out because I know what is exactly growing in very small amounts of water. Given a large pond like that, that takes days to drain, it's mosquito heaven.

Not only is this happening in the alleyway. It's also happening on the street. Arguably, the street and the sidewalk, you can make the argument that the City should be taking care of that but with these alleyways, I've gone up and down the shared alleyway, I've talked to neighbors, I've tried to figure out has anyone tried to address this before. There's a lot of lack of clarity over whose responsibility it is to maintain these alleyways, especially when there are multiple homeowners sharing the same communal alleyway.

When it's a shared communal alleyway, and many of the folks on my blocks are renting from landlords, renting these single-family attached homes from landlords, there's a lot of concern that if we all have to come together communally to fix this issue, it's unlikely that an offsite landlord is going to want to handle that issue.

What happens also is that there are drains in the alleyway and those drains are feeding into sewer systems. It's unclear if the maintenance of those drains and the pipes that lead to them are the responsibility of the local homeowners, or the City itself.

Certainly, as an entomologist, and with an eye on climate change and an eye on the increase in mosquito-borne illnesses- which is ironically something I tell my students about in our last lectures about climate change, about how we're going to see the return of diseases in the northeast that historically weren't ranged down here. Certainly, that's a bigger problem in the Southeast as well. I would love to see greater clarity on who is supposed to be handling this. Is this solely the homeowner? Is this something the City gets involved in? Like was suggested by an earlier segment, the only thing I can think of right now is to neurotically go outside after every storm and just mosquito dunk the heck out of it.

Brian Lehrer: How do you mosquito dunk, just for listeners who may be worried and wanting to do something themselves the next time they get one of these storms and this pond?

Carly: Oh, yes. If you go on Amazon or you go to Home Depot, you will find that it is sold either in pellet form, sort of a shaker, these mosquito pellets that you can put in any standing water or you can get these more hockey puck type things. Basically, they are just going to kill mosquito larvae. Certainly, that is good to do in these big pondings that occur. As we get up into gardening season, I'd also say just watch for any standing water accumulating on your garden, on your porch, on your balcony. Even very small amounts of water are breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Brian Lehrer: That's so interesting. Roxanne, since you're the journalist on this beat, is there anything you want to ask our entomologist caller who even knows about the connections between mosquitoes and viruses?

Roxanne Scott: Yes [laughs]. I'm so glad. I'm so glad that we're connected. I would ask you, how do you protect yourself from mosquitoes? I know what the City of New York, the Health Department says as far as wearing long clothing and things like that, but how do you protect yourself, or how do you tell your students how to protect themselves from mosquitoes?

Carly: It's funny because I take students out into the field out on Long Island. For me, the grand concern is always ticks. It's not an insect but insect adjacent. For me, it's always been like long clothes, tuck your pants into your socks. If you're going on hikes in any of the parks, whether that's Kissena, Alley Pond, Forest Park, be wary ticks are out there, not in nearly the numbers.

As far as mosquitoes, still certainly, long clothing. I'm a big proponent of insect repellent. I go heavy on the DEET. I respond very poorly to even your standard mosquito bite. I'm a big proponent of putting DEET on your body using fairly strong mosquito spray.

Of course, you want to wash that off and take a shower when you go home and you're done for the day. You don't want to get that on your sheets and stuff. Regular and consistent application of insect repellant is what I have found to be the most effective. I know some folks like the citronella, more natural things, but for me, as someone who's slogging through the forest and the field, I got to go for the heavier stuff.

Roxanne Scott: Got it.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, Carly, some wise guy just texted us. "People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words."

Roxanne Scott: [laughs]

Carly: I've heard that one before.

Roxanne Scott: [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: I thought I was being so clever reading that text. "No, I've heard that one before." Carly, thank you very, very much for your call.

Carly: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Call us again. Roxanne, these two callers, one piece of connective tissue there is this vague line between what is the individual's responsibility and what's the City's.

Roxanne Scott: I got into this story because of- even with past sewer backups, you hear this line a lot that yes, there's a lot of homeowners in Southeast Queens. Yes, the responsibility is on homeowners to make upgrades or whatever to their home, but again, when you have these public health hazards that are happening like backups, where can government actually step in to make sure that people are safe, whether it's mosquitoes, whether it's flooding, whether it's ticks, or what have you?

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes, "I live in St. Albans. Regarding sewer backups, there needs to be more advertising because people are throwing wipes, baby and cleaning wipes in the toilet, causing a huge problem in the sewers." They don't really mean advertising. They mean public service announcements, which I don't know how much of the cause of the sewage backups that was causing the ruptured pipe in that previous homeowner's call connecting to this climate story, but it's a whole other piece of our environmental realities today, right, Roxanne? We throw away so many things. We used to use paper, not necessarily these more substantial wipes that might clog things up, and somehow these things all get connected.

Roxanne Scott: Yes [laughs]. Municipalities, local governments across the country are very much considering, including in New York City, about what we throw down in our toilets and what is causing these backups. We call them, I think-- What is the term? Fatbergs that collect into these mushy things.

If you don't want to be grossed out, definitely, do not report on sewer backups, but there is an element of more public service announcements needed, public awareness needed as far as what you put down in your toilet. Then there's other infrastructure issues that cause these backups as well.

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes, "Hi, there. What about Dengue? It's happening in Latin America, South America, and also California. Lots of mosquitoes around due to too much flooding. Have an American who got it," I guess they know an American who got it , "while in Buenos Aires. Any worry dengue will come to New York City, not just West Nile?" Any reporting on that, Roxanne?

Roxanne Scott: I haven't really looked into Dengue, but some people that I did speak to, scientists that I did speak to are concerned about, actually, malaria. Last year in Florida, there were some high-profile cases about malaria transmission within the country. Usually, when you hear about malaria in this country, maybe someone traveled somewhere else and they brought it here and it came back with it.

That is a concern that a specific mosquito called the anopheles mosquito, that's been expanding it's range. I think it started in the India, Middle East area, and it's making its way over here. A lot of scientists are concerned that this particular mosquito that carries malaria or that can spread malaria could make its way to the Americas if it's not already here.

The big concern with that mosquito is that it's resistant to what we use in public health today as far as insecticides. That's a big concern. I'm not sure. I think the mosquito expert that was on before could answer this. I'm not sure if New York has the temperature for Dengue, but I would love someone to fact-check me on that.

Brian Lehrer: It's not just Southeast Queens, but the nearby south shore of Nassau County. Charles in Merrick, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charles.

Charles: Hey, good morning. Is it still morning? Yes. Brian, first-time caller, long-time listener. Great program. We have the same problem as some of your callers have been pointing out that the sewers get clogged because of leaves and other street refuse. I mentioned to the call receiver that I live in the house I grew up in, and as a kid, not just my parents, but everybody in the neighborhoods would rake all the refuse into the street in the fall, and the town of Hempstead, where we live would come with the trucks and they would pick it up.

Even before that, my dad would burn the stuff in the street. Burning is no longer permitted. The town of Hempstead, and I'm sure in other localities, the towns don't come pick the stuff up. You're required to bag it up and put it out, and it ends up in plastic bags in landfills. Our taxes, I mean in Nassau County, I believe were ahead of the five boroughs as far as property and school taxes go, and the services just get less and less. The taxes just go up and up. I just want to--

Brian Lehrer: Charles, thank you for that connecting anecdote. Please call us again. I think Aaron in East Meadow on the island wants to connect it back to the history of redlining. Aaron, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Aaron: Hey, Brian. I had actually wanted to speak about a solution to the standing water problem, and-

Brian Lehrer: Please.

Aaron: -that's using plants as a way to slow the rainwater and reduce standing water in our cities. I am a horticulturist and arborist. I'm familiar with a technique called green architecture, or green roofing, where instead of having a rooftop with nothing but blacktop over it or shingles, you are actually planting greenery and plants on top of a rooftop, which can trap rainwater and use it for something productive. Instead of going into the sewers and flooding them, or sitting on the street on the blacktop, it will actually provide greenery on top of the buildings.

Brian Lehrer: Great tip. Thank you for weighing in as an arborist and horticulturist, Aaron. Appreciate it. I said that was going to connect back to redlining. That was a connection my producer made as they were telling me about Aaron's call and the way I think it connects back, and she thinks it connects back, Roxanne, is that there's traditionally less tree cover in redline, low-income urban areas, right?

Roxanne Scott: Yes, exactly. That leads to other health effects such as the urban heat island effect. There has been great coverage by a colleague at the Amsterdam near Salina settlement about specifically heat. I won't get into that, but less tree coverage can lead to this heat island effect, which can lead to adverse effects of extreme heat, including death. Black New Yorkers are disproportionately impacted by extreme heat and actually neighborhoods like St. Albans, including St. Albans and the surrounding neighborhoods around it, Jamaica, South Jamaica, have you, they're ranked the highest on the City's heat vulnerability index.

Brian Lehrer: Now, St. Albans, before you go, does have, I believe, a higher percentage of homeowners than most other New York City neighborhoods. People from not around there may not realize that. They may think lower income, significantly Black area, it's going to be dense apartment buildings, but it's really in many ways more middle-class, single-family homes, in certain ways, more like Northeast Queens. That would typically come with a decent amount of political power. I wonder if St. Albans community activists like our first caller today, though she was in Hollis, are affecting how the City is addressing the issue.

Roxanne Scott: Well, you'll hear that Southeast Queens because of the population, yes, that it's a reliable Democratic voting block. Some frustration that I hear from some residents, not everyone I spoke to, is that many of the elected officials here are also Black. They often live here, obviously, as well.

Brian Lehrer: It's certainly Eric Adams' territory if any place is.

Roxanne Scott: Yes [laughs]. You hear a lot of frustration about this kind of interaction of what happens with these environmental issues like we heard with the first caller from Hollis, that there is some decent political power here, yet some of these environmental issues just seem to go on for decades. You'll hear people talk about flooding for decades.

I lived in Rosedale. I'm in my 40s now, and I remember as a kid flooding all the time. You see that rub as well, some political power here, but some of these problems just seem intractable.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, as we close out our climate story of the week for this week, so often we talk about how to prevent climate change, converting to electric rather than fossil fuel energy sources, all of that stuff.

The other big piece of it, which we do talk about a fair amount is the mitigation because climate change is real to the extent that it's already happening, it's baked in already to a certain extent that it's going to happen more even if we were to stop all the carbon emissions today, all the methane emissions, everything else. It's the mitigation stories that also need to be discussed. That's what we were doing today with Roxanne Scott, independent journalist doing a series with the Amsterdam News about climate change in Southeast Queens. Can people see it on, AM News website?

Roxanne Scott: Yes, it's on the AM News website. It was published last week as well on the front page and so, yes, go to the AM News website and you'll find this deep dive on mosquitoes, redlining, and environmental health in Southeast Queens.

Brian Lehrer: Roxanne, thanks so much.

Roxanne Scott: Thank you.

 

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