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It’s called Blissville, Queens. Residents are in a battle over air quality.
By
Joe Hong
Published Jun 19, 2025
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Newtown Creek Alliance
By
Joe Hong
Published Jun 19, 2025
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Kim Dossin kept rearranging her bedroom, trying to avoid a smell that would waft through the window while she slept. For the past 30 years, she’s lived in Blissville, Queens, a small sliver of a neighborhood wedged between a section of Calvary Cemetery, the polluted Newtown Creek — a Superfund site — and surrounded by highways and heavy industry. If it ever was blissful in Blissville, that was ages ago.
In recent years, Dossin’s asthma has worsened, making it difficult to breathe. And she suspects that the area's poor air quality is the culprit.
“For the longest time I thought it was somebody smoking under my window,” she said. “It’s a heaviness that fills the air.”
From her doorstep, Dossin pointed to Green Asphalt, an asphalt recycling company just a few blocks away. Multiple days a week, Dossin said, plumes of black smoke gush out from the site at ground level, blanketing Blissville with odorous fumes.
The Green Asphalt facility, as seen from Newtown Creek.
Newtown Creek Alliance
After more than a decade of complaints from residents against the company sent to elected officials and community board members, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation delivered a letter to Green Asphalt last week requiring the company to double the height of its smokestack to 90 feet by December. The agency cited “numerous community complaints” about the odor coming from the facility and residents’ concerns about the potential health risks.
But local residents, lawmakers and environmental advocates aren’t fully satisfied. They want the state to shut down the company’s operations until the smokestack is raised. They also want air filters installed in the smokestack, and they want clarity on what the company is putting not just into the air, but also into Newtown Creek, located alongside the factory.
“With any environmental issue, just diverting to another area to avoid more direct exposure isn’t always the best solution,” said Willis Elkins, executive director of the Newtown Creek Alliance, a local environmental advocacy group. “We’d like to see a combination of remediation.”
A spokesperson for Green Asphalt declined to be named in this story. In a written statement, she said the company has never been cited for pollution and has only received a “nuisance violation” for the smoke and odor. According to the spokesperson, the company’s emissions are legal under its current permit from the state, which requires Green Asphalt to monitor sulfur levels and the amount of smoke going out of its smokestack at any one time.
The company’s method of recycling old asphalt into new emits less carbon dioxide than traditional asphalt plants, and it’s helping the city meet sustainability goals by using barges instead of trucks to transport asphalt. Each barge carries 48 trucks' worth of cargo.
The company’s spokesperson said it’s working to address the odor complaints and hopes to remain in good standing with the community.
But Assemblymember Claire Valdez, who represents Blissville, said she urged the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to collect more air samples to better understand the composition of the emissions.
“We’re heading into the summer months. People are going to be running their air conditioning and having their windows open,” she said. “So we need a lot more information about what’s going on, so people can stay safe.”
The Green Asphalt facility in Blissville, Queens
Newtown Creek Alliance
Blissville is tiny and is largely zoned for industrial manufacturing, resulting in a long history of polluted air and water. As residents like Dossin have watched surrounding neighborhoods develop and gentrify, Blissville’s landscape remains stagnant.
“The bulk of the money in this area goes to Long Island City,” Dossin said, referring to a part of the city that has received large infrastructure upgrades and investments. “We kind of get brushed aside.”
Federal data shows that in 2022, the 11101 ZIP code — which contains Blissville, Long Island City and Hunters Point — accounted for 17% of all the toxic releases by industrial facilities in Queens, despite only making up about 1.5% of the borough’s population.
Increased attention
Local community leaders raised concerns among each other as far back as 2014 about debris from Green Asphalt’s facility falling into the creek, which flows from the East River and forms a natural border between Blissville to the east and Greenpoint to the west. Green Asphalt’s spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether or not they received complaints before 2024.
Complaints about the odor and smoke emanating from Green Asphalt’s site have gained more attention recently, largely due to an online form launched last year by state Assemblymember Emily Gallagher, who represents Greenpoint. She and other local elected officials have collected images and videos of the smoke billowing from Green Asphalt.
In response, the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued the nuisance violation against Green Asphalt in January 2024.
The Green Asphalt facility on the Newtown Creek in Blissville, Queens.
Newtown Creek Alliance
In a written statement to Gothamist, Gallagher said the state’s new order for Green Asphalt to raise its smokestack was the result of ongoing pressure from residents and lawmakers in North Brooklyn and Western Queens.
She said the company’s emissions are preventing “healthy and livable” environments in the surrounding neighborhoods, and she said state regulations should be expanded to make it harder for industries like it to release emissions into the air, but that she has had difficulty doing so in the state Legislature.
“It is extremely difficult to change the regulation due to the oversized power of industry to control the conversation,” she said.
Gallagher, Valdez and five other elected officials issued a joint statement on Sunday asking the state Department of Environmental Conservation to cease Green Asphalt’s operations until the company completes work on its smokestack.
Elkins acknowledges the company’s virtues. It produces asphalt with up to 70% less carbon than conventional plants. He said the Green Asphalt has also donated to local efforts to restore Newtown Creek.
“We understand there are a lot of benefits in the way they operate,” he said. “We’re really just trying to find ways to address local environmental concerns.”
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Joe Hong
Joe Hong is the investigative data reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered K-12 education for several newsrooms across California. His reporting has led to local reforms in juvenile justice system as well as a state law requiring universal screening for dyslexia. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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