Opinion: Close Rikers, then turn that place inside out

Ossining, N.Y.: Re “City Hall considers abandoning plan to replace Rikers with borough jails” (May 3): Mayor Adams’ purported attempt to abandon the plan to close the jail on Rikers Island would be a step backward for all New Yorkers. In addition to ending the history of violence and mistreatment of incarcerated people and improving conditions for Department of Correction staff, the jail’s closure — which is mandated by law — will open the door for the single most transformative project of the 21st century for New York City’s air and water.

When Rikers closes, the island’s 413 acres could house enough solar power and battery storage to shut down asthma-causing fracked gas power plants in Hunts Point in the Bronx and Astoria. Alongside the energy infrastructure, a new state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant would save New Yorkers $10 billion and form the cornerstone for sewage pollution reductions that will restore waters across the city for fishing and swimming.

On top of these benefits, compost processing on the island could provide much-needed capacity for the city and move trucks out of communities of Black, Indigenous and other people of color and low-income neighborhoods. Each of these measures would provide well-paying jobs for local residents.

This Renewable Rikers vision is the consensus among those whose lives have been impacted by the jail along with leading environmental experts for how to best utilize the island to benefit all New Yorkers. It’s time to turn the page on Rikers from a place once described as “an affront to humanity and decency” to one that sustains life and health for generations to come.

Mike Dulong, legal program director, Riverkeeper