EnviroPolitics Blog

Study finds incinerators in Camden, Chester among nation’s most polluting

Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility at 10 Highland Ave, Chester, Pa. (Google Maps)

Catalina Jaramillo reports for WHYY

Until very recently, Philadelphia burned its recyclable plastic at an incinerator in Chester, one of Pennsylvania’s poorest communities. The city still sends about 30% of its trash to what are known as waste-to-energy facilities, including the one in Chester.

More than 4 million people in the United States live next to such incinerators, which emit lead, particulate matter, mercury, and other pollutants that can cause several diseases, according to a report published this week by The New School in New York City. Eight out of 10 such facilities are located within low-income neighborhoods, among communities of color.

“We wanted to show the reality of how these dirty incinerators are largely concentrated in environmental-justice communities, which is what community residents and activists on the ground have suspected all along,” said Adrienne Perovich, assistant director at the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School and one of the authors of the study.

“And it turns out that 79 percent of the incinerators in the country right now are located in environmental-justice communities.”

Two of the country’s most polluting incinerators are in poor cities near Philadelphia, the study says. The Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility in Chester emits more particulate matter than any other such facility in the country, the study says, releasing in 2014 over 200,000 pounds of PM2.5 — very fine particles that are less than 2.5 microns in width. The Covanta Camden Energy Recovery Facility is the second largest emitter of lead among incinerators nationwide, at 380 pounds in 2014, the study says.

Zulene Mayfield chairs Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, a group fighting against the city’s incinerator. In an interview Thursday, she said the city’s rate of child hospitalization due to asthma is more than three times the state average.

“It’s literally killing people,” said Mayfield. “The City of Brotherly Love chooses not to incinerate their trash within their border, they don’t mind poisoning our children.”

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PETA is trying to sink aquarium planned for Woodbridge Center Mall in N.J.

By Cassidy Grom | NJ Advance Media For NJ.com

Animal welfare activists are asking New Jersey officials to block an aquarium from coming to the state.

SeaQuest, which runs “interactive” aquariums in five other states, will open a site at Woodbridge Center Mall this fall, it announced last month. However, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling foul on the company, saying it has a track record of putting animals at risk — an allegation the company refutes.

“SeaQuest is losing permits left and right, and it should be chased out of any town where it tries to set up shop,” PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet said. “PETA is urging New Jersey officials to take a close look at the risks to animals and to the public that this sleazy petting zoo would bring to the Garden State.”

PETA sent a letter to the NJ Department of Fish and Wildlife on Wednesday, urging it to consult with wildlife officials in other states about the aquarium.

“SeaQuest is not ‘losing permits left and right.’ In fact, we are successfully operating six facilities from the west coast to the midwest and continue to provide an incredible, educational and safe guest experience,” company spokesperson Elsa MacDonald said. She added the company is working closely with state officials to provide a safe experience for animals and humans alike.

NJ Department of Fish and Wildlife officials did not immediately return requests for comment from NJ Advance Media.

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Murphy: Give me a millionaires tax or I may not sign the state budget

Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance MedGov. Phil Murphy is pictured in Trenton in March.

By Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Gov. Phil Murphy all but said Thursday he won’t sign another state budget unless it includes a tax hike on those who earn more than $1 million a year in New Jersey.

Murphy declared he’s done “stumbling” from one budget agreement to another each year as he put his foot down for a tax increase on the state’s top earners to help pump more money into education, transportation public-worker pensions and property taxes.

If he sticks to his position, the Democratic governor sets the stage for a state government shutdown if the top leaders of the Democratic-controlled state Legislature continue to oppose the millionaires tax by the July 1 budget deadline.

“The bigger point is that I’m not managing the state from May to June or the typical, you know, stumbling to June 30 to barely get over the goal line just so we can do it again next year,” Murphy said at an event in Burlington County about free community college tuition for poorer New Jerseyans. Murphy commercial on N.J. millionaires tax now being blasted by both top Dems in LegislatureSenate President Stephen Sweeney blasted Murphy’s pro-millionaires tax ads on Wednesday. He was joined Thursday by Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin.

“We’ve got to get to a higher and better place in this state and manage ourselves with a fiscal discipline and responsibility that we have not done in the past couple of decades,” Murphy said.

Asked if that meant a millionaires tax is “a line in the sand” and that he’d refused to sign a budget by the end of next month without one, Murphy responded: “The line in the sand is without question: Enough of the old stumbling ways of putting Band-Aids on our fiscal house, so there is a line in the sand for that.”

Murphy then pointed out how Democrats sent former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, a millionaires tax five times in the eight years he served as governor prior to his tenure. Christie vetoed them each time.

“The only thing that has changed is the governor,” Murphy said. “If it was a good idea then it’s hard for me to see why it’s not a good idea now.”

His comments come after both state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, condemned a new marketing push by a pro-Murphy group meant to rally support for the governor’s insistence the next budget include a millionaires tax.

Both men still oppose Murphy’s push for the hike.

The state narrowly avoided a shutdown over the issue last year after the leaders struck a deal to increase taxes on people who earn more than $5 million a year, as well as on corporations.

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In NJ, enviros slam pipeline compressor expansion and Gov. Phil Murphy

Environmentalist protest expansion of a natural gas compressor station in Roseland, NJ>

Joanna Gagis reports for NJTV News

It started with singing and ended with two under arrest, as environmentalists gathered in a last-ditch effort to stop the expansion of a compressor station in Roseland, part of a larger gas pipeline expansion run by Oklahoma-based Williams Companies.

The protesters said the expansion is unnecessary because the current compressor is only operating at 10 percent and that it has the potential to harm surrounding wetlands and puts local residents’ health at risk with events like “blowdowns.”

“A blowdown is when, temporarily, they have to release all the pressure in this facility. So that means they’re releasing huge quantities of not only natural gas, but any chemical additives or other harmful gases that are in the facility,” said Matt Smith, organizer of Food and Water Watch.

Williams denies that saying, “There were no noxious gases released, only methane, which is a nontoxic and naturally occurring gas that is much lighter than air and dissipates into the atmosphere when vented.”

Roseland resident Cassandra Worthington isn’t convinced. “I have asthma, and since I moved here, I’ve been having asthma attacks more than I’ve ever had in my whole life. This affects us personally. It affects the community, this affects our environment,” said Worthington, a Food and Water Watch volunteer.

Company claims ‘…virtually zero impact’

Williams Companies spokesperson Chris Stockton said they have designed the project in an environmentally responsible manner.

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Time for a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects in New Jersey

R. WILLIAM POTTER | MAY 23, 2019

Calling on the governor to order a freeze on pipeline and power-plant projects ‘while we still have a chance’ to mitigate worst impacts of climate change

For anyone even remotely concerned with the clear and present dangers of global warming and climate change — catastrophic sea-level rise, a million species extinguished, extreme weather rendering some areas uninhabitable — there is a must-read report focused on the New Jersey impacts and what we must do at least to mitigate these apocalyptic forecasts.

The report is “Fighting Climate Change in NJ: The Urgent Case for a Moratorium on all Fossil Fuel Projects,” which gives the lie to the myth that anything written by a committee will be a stylistic mess. Not this one. Researched and composed by a “gang of nine” on behalf of a “growing coalition of more than 50 environmental and grassroots groups” called “Empower NJ,” the report makes a powerful and readable case for stopping the eight natural gas pipeline/compressor station projects, and four gas-fired power plants, currently in various stages of development in New Jersey.

The Empower NJ report opens by reciting the irrefutable fact that it will be impossible for New Jersey to achieve Gov. Phil Murphy’s directive in Executive Order 28. That order commits the state to “achieving 100% clean energy [by 2050] and directs the adoption of an updated Energy Master Plan … detailing how this goal will be achieved.” But it clearly can’t be achieved “if these fossil fuel projects, transporting or burning natural gas mined from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania are completed and become operational.”

The two scenarios cannot be reconciled. We can increase dependence on currently cheap natural gas that emits both carbon and methane — which is 86 times as damaging as carbon in the short term — or we can advance upon a 100-percent renewable energy future. But we can’t have both.

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Google acquires another Chelsea office building

Aaron Elstein reports for Crain’s New York Business

You can call Chelsea “Googleopolis.”

The tech giant already owns or rents nearly all the property between West 15th and West 16th streets from Eighth Avenue to the middle of the Hudson River on Pier 57, and Wednesday it announced ownership of another property in the neighborhood, acquiring the Milk Building at 450 W. 15th St. from Jamestown Properties for an undisclosed sum.

Jamestown was represented by Doug Harmon, Adam Spies, and Kevin Donner at Cushman & Wakefield, and Google was represented by Darcy Stacom at CBRE.

The building is connected by a bridge to Chelsea Market, which Google also owns after acquiring it from Atlanta-based Jamestown last year for $2.4 billion.

Google plans to occupy three of the Milk Building’s eight floors.

“This purchase will help us meet our short-term growth needs in Chelsea-Meatpacking,” said William Floyd, Google’s director of external affairs. “We are excited by this investment and are committed to continuing to contribute to the vibrancy of this amazing neighborhood.”

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