Dan's Papers - June 20, 2008 - Something in the Air

The late, great Gilda Radner, in one of her rants as Roseanne Roseannadanna, kvetched about a woman who "wore a polyester blouse that smelled like New Jersey."

Last Tuesday night, every resident of the East End must have been wearing polyester blouses.

It started out as a typical, late night here at our Bridgehampton offices. Publisher Kathy Rae went out to her car at about 8:30, and came back complaining about a terrible smell. I had an idea what it was, even though I hadn't left the building since 10 a.m.

Editorial offices face the parking lot. Before air conditioning season, we had gotten new rubber mats for the ramp in the back and whenever the window was open, it smelled like we were operating inside Southampton Tire. "It's the mats," I said. "They're new and they smell like tar and rubber."

Anyone who knows Kathy knows she's a take-charge kind of gal. Ten minutes later, she and Art Director Kelly Merritt were dragging the huge, heavy mats through editorial into the basement.

An hour later, Advertising Director Richard Swift came into my office and said it smelled like an old bar with stale beer. I didn't take it personally.

At 10:30, I left for the day. It was the last of the oppressively hot nights we just experienced. I was hit with the humidity, heat - and the smell.

The most evocative sense for humans is smell. It can take us back in a sniff to a time, place or feeling. This smell took me to August nights in the city when the air is heavy with humidity and pollution. Looking across the Hudson, you would see the orange glow of industry from New Jersey.

Living in the city, you learn where to hold your breath in the summer when everything ferments: entering certain subway stations, passing overflowing garbage cans the day before collection; walking on West 23 Street near the School for the Blind (the scoop law doesn't apply to seeing eye dogs). But in the Hamptons, you can breathe freely - literally and figuratively. That's part of what attracts people to spend millions of dollars on homes here. Just as important as the stunning sights are the calming scents: the fresh smell of the sea and mist south of the highway. The intoxicating sweetness of the rugosa roses at the beach in late summer. Running and biking out here are enhanced by wafts of pine, or blooming Russian olives, Scottish broom, honeysuckle and viburnum. The last thing you expect to smell out here is New Jersey.

But last Tuesday night, looking west from Bridgehampton, the moon was behind that same burnt orange scrim and the air had the same acrid smell. And in fact, earlier that day there was a two-alarm fire in Jersey City that generated a lot of smoke, which moved east. Fire departments from Westhampton to Montauk were getting calls from worried homeowners who smelled smoke.

East Hampton Natural Resource Director Larry Penny (yes, he still answers the phone at that office) was aware of the smell that night and corroborated the Jersey City fire story. "The Southwesterlies were blowing our way," he said.

Other conditions exacerbated the situation. In addition to the fire, it was reported that by Monday/Tuesday, we were experiencing an "inversion," which is a thick layer of warm air that acts as a lid, preventing the rise of cool air, thus trapping pollutants below. A hazy sky and a reddish sunset are good indications that an inversion is happening in the lower atmosphere. On Monday and Tuesday the DEC had issued an air quality health advisory for New York State, as a result of air pollution from cars affecting the ozone, and "out-of-state emissions." On Monday the index was 124, and Tuesday it was 122. Both those numbers fall within the "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" category, which comes with the warning: "People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion." Once the index hits 151, there's the addendum, "Everyone else should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion."

Fortunately, after the dramatic windstorm late Tuesday night, the air was clear. By Wednesday the quality was in the 51-100 "moderate" range, and by Thursday in the 0-50 "good" category.

Penny never blamed Jersey as the source of all the air problems on the East End. "The atmosphere movement is west to east, and that's the scary thing," he said. "Solid waste, mass burning facilities (facilities that burn garbage) in mid-Island create smoke that comes our way. I remember back in the 1980s when there was a huge fire in the south. The whole of Long Island was covered in smoke. It came up along the coast."

As it turns out, according to Penny, the pollutants we breathe also come from far more exotic and much more surprising locales than Jersey City and states below the Mason-Dixon line. "We get stuff from China," he said. "Rain and snow start from particles of dust or dirt. If that particulate matter blows over from China, and it rains, it falls on our soil."

An article in the Times Sunday said China leads the U.S. as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, increasing output by eight percent in 2007 which "accounted for two-thirds of the growth in the year's global greenhouse gas emissions." The article went on to say that it's bound to get worse, since, "China ... has seen its most rapid growth in some of the world's most heavily polluting industrial sectors: cement, aluminum and plate glass."

They say the truth can set you free, but putting together the information from Roseanne Roseannadanna, the DEC, New York Times and Larry Penny isn't exactly liberating. I have anything but a free and easy feeling now that I know which way the wind blows.