The reason why I'm here today, in part, is because of a dog: an abandoned puppy I found back in the rain, back in 1998. She turned out to be a much bigger dog than I'd anticipated. When she came into my life, we were fighting against a huge waste facility planned for the East River waterfront, despite the fact that our small part of New York City already handled more than 40 percent of the entire city's commercial waste: a sewage treatment pelletizing plant, a sewage sludge plant, four power plants, the world's largest food distribution center, as well as other industries that bring more than 60,000 diesel truck trips to the area each week. The area also has one of the lowest ratios of parks to people in the city.