NYC NOW - March 14, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Some Elected officials and legal organizations are publicly denouncing Governor Hochul's decision to deploy 750 National Guard troops into the city's subway system. Also, the city’s medical examiner has ruled the deaths of 5-year-old twins as homicides. And finally, a look at how New York City is addressing fires caused by lithium-ion batteries in e-bikes and scooters.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNMIC. I'm Sean Carlson. Some elected officials and legal organizations are publicly denouncing Governor Hokel's decision to deploy 750 National Guard troops into the city subway system. Donovan Tavares is a program director with El Puente, a South Williamsburg-based social justice organization. She says an increasing police presence would only harm residents of Congress. It's backwards and it's dangerous. To say that this is a public safety plan is a complete disregard of the facts. NYPD stats show crime on subways has been trending down in recent weeks, but MTA chair,

Jan O'Leiber, has said many subway riders do report feeling safer when they're more police. Hokel announced the deployment after a recent string of high-profile crimes in the transit system. Nearly three months after the NYPD said no criminality was suspected in the deaths of five-year-old twins in the Bronx, the city's medical examiner is ruling their deaths, homicides. The chief medical examiner says both children were smothered. The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on the medical examiner's update. Police have said the sibling's mother called 911 on the morning of December 18th after finding the boy and girl cold and not breathing in her bed, where they usually slept in their apartment on East 175th Street.

Coming up, we look at the growing problem of e-bike battery fires in New York City. Stick around. fires caused by lithium-ion batteries in e-bikes and scooters are on the rise in New York City. The number of deaths from battery fires increased in 2023, tripling to 18 from just six the previous year. But a lot of delivery workers rely on e-bikes and e-scooters for work. An advocacy group for app-based delivery workers called Los Deliveristas Unitos says they want safe working conditions, but not over-regulation. So if you need an e-bike to work, how do you do it safely? I recently sat down with Councilmember Joanne Ariola, who heads to the New York City Council Committee on Fire and Emergency Management, and Bobby Eustace, Vice President of the Uniform Firefighters Association.

Bobby started by explaining why some lithium ion batteries are prone to catching fire. Part of the problem is they're black market batteries. They're made cheaply, similar to when we had space heater fires that were plaguing a lot of different places that were made with cheap extension cords or, you know, cheap, cheap material. It's the same thing going on with the lithium ion batteries. right now. There's even YouTube videos to make them. And people want to be inexpensive. So they're taking the cheap way out. Unfortunately, these are very, very dangerous. Bobby, what is the first thing you would tell an e-bike user when it comes to safety? I would tell them to make sure that they have a real battery. Make sure it has a UL label on it. Because when these things explode, and that's pretty much

what they do, it's one of the fastest burning fires, hottest burning fires we experienced. And there's not a lot we're going to be able to do in the initial stages to put this fire out. It's a very, very difficult fire to fight. What is the most common safety mistake you see from e-bike users? Unproper storage. You know, you want to keep these things outside. You don't want to keep them inside. You know, bad charging. We had a fire on the Lower East Side where one person was running a dozen extension cords and was charging people to charge the batteries and had about two dozen charging stations in there. And that fire apartment lit up like a wall of fire.

And it was extremely, extremely dangerous. There's actually video of people that were scaling down the drain pipes on the outside of how hot this fire was. Councillor O'Ola, can you talk about what the City Council has done so far to try to decrease the number of fires triggered by these batteries and have any of those bills passed? A number of bills have passed, especially one that I'm proud to co-sponsor, which is to prohibit the sale of any lithium ion battery that is assembled or reconditioned using cells removed from. other batteries. The seller could be fined if they're found selling, you know, black market batteries, they must sell certified batteries from their stores and outlets. The other part is education. Many council members have passed legislation about educating deliveries to companies, educating the stores that utilize deliveries to so that they can be safer. Provide. Provide. Provide.

information about places where they can trade in their black market battery for a battery that is certified at low or no cost. These are all the things that we're looking at and have passed. Some of those things have passed at the city council level. Certified batteries may be less affordable than secondhand batteries for some who rely on those batteries to do their jobs. What do we do about that, if anything? Well, we do have council member Keith Powers has a bill that was voted on that would cause the city of New York to provide at low cost or no cost certified lithium ion batteries to those who wanted to trade in their black market batteries. So that would be one way to possibly do it.

I mean, look, it's an enormous task. There are 10,000 of e-bikes out there utilizing these batteries. So we're trying to do everything we can legislatively to make it inexpensive or no cost and educate anyone who is utilizing mobility devices that need a lithium ion battery. Councilmember, if somebody wanted to get rid of their e-bike or a battery, what should they do? So the mayor's looking into all of the abandoned newsstands that are around the city of New York and opening them again, and those would be lithium-ion battery exchange locations where you could exchange a battery instead of charging your battery at home. A battery has to be charged twice a day for the delivery's length of day that they're at work. So they could bring it to one of the charging stations, change it out, and this way they're not charging it at home.

Mostly, we're trying to give them places to purchase at low cost or no cost, but we're trying to educate the delivery system. But then there's another component where we have to hold the restaurants and the companies who are utilizes. deliveries and just saying, well, the onus is not on us. We're using a third-party service to do these deliveries of the food that we provide or the service that we provide. So, you know, we're constantly in discussions with restaurant owners and educating them as well as, you know, grub hub and all those delivering companies. You know, you mentioned how, you know, well, people just want to take the most affordable option. And I think what the council member was talking about is you have to educate everybody fully on the dangers of this. It's not just the fire. It's also the chemicals

that come off of this. We have to decon our gear after a lithium ion battery fire, you know, because of the toxins that come off of this. And we're still studying the long-term effects that are going to be, you know, to our members from the off gases that come out of this. So it's kind of like telling someone, hey, you know, I have this paint, right? It's lead and it's asbestos. It's a lot cheaper than the regular paint. Do you still want it? That's kind of the equivalent. You're telling someone, do you want the black market battery or not? And now people say, no, I'm not taking the lead asbestos paint. I'm going to do, I'm going to pay for the non-lead asbestos paint. We just had a fire in the Bronx yesterday with a member injured from a third alarm fire with a lithium atom, you know,

a bike, e-bike fire. So these are almost on a daily basis. We're now getting these fires. And we don't even know the long-term effects, but we do sure know the short-term effects. The final question is for the both of you. Bobby, you can go first. What more would you like to see the city enforce when it comes to e-bike safety? I don't know if it's the city as much as it's just it needs to have higher regulations. I think almost maybe federal government regulations because, you know, like I said, the comparison that I used was for the, you know, space heaters. It needs to not be coming into the country. You know, we've supported legislation at the city level and at the state level. But unfortunately, one of the fines was $25.25 fines not moving the needle on a lithium ion battery. So if you don't have any real repercussions for this, then they're going to continue to do that. Member Ariela, what do you think the city could be doing?

I think the city could enhance enforcement. You know, the fines should be stiffer. And I also agree that we need to speak to our congressional and Senate, you know, U.S. congressional and Senate. leadership to pass some heavy legislation where, you know, it really has more teeth than we can pass on the city level. That was Councilmember Joanne Ariola, who heads the New York City Council Committee on Fire and Emergency Management, and Bobby Eustace, the Vice President of the Uniform Firefighters Association. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNMIC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Sean Carlson. We'll be back tomorrow.