Mixed reviews for a $120M food-waste energy plant at Philly refinery, the city’s largest emitter of particulates

Nat Hamilton/WHYY
Philadelphia Energy Solutions is the largest oil refining complex on the Eastern seaboard and is the city’s largest source of air pollutants. The refinery announced a deal this month RNG Energy Solutions to host a commercial biogas facility. Nat Hamilton/WHYY
Catalina Jaramillo reports for StateImpact:
Making energy out of trash has great environmental appeal. Yet last week’s announcement that a commercial biogas plant is planned for 22 acres at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery complex in South Philadelphia — already considered the largest source of particulate emissions in the city — has tempered the local environmental community’s enthusiasm.
According to RNG Energy Solutions, developer of the proposed $120 million plant, it will have the potential to turn 1,100 tons of commercial food waste from the Philadelphia region that otherwise would be burned or sent to landfills into 22,000 to 24,000 gallons (3,000 dekatherms) of renewable natural gas daily, using anaerobic digesters.
RNG Energy president James Potter told StateImpact the agreement isn’t a Philadelphia Energy Solutions investment or even a partnership: RNG Energy will enter into a long-term site lease with PES, and the refinery will pay for the biogas plant’s total renewable natural-gas production.
Further details of the contracts were not revealed. According to the city, the facility would receive no public financial assistance, although it will be eligible for state and local tax credits because it would be located within a Keystone Opportunity Zone.
Clean-air advocates, environmental activists, and city officials said they needed more information about the potential environmental impact of the Point Breeze Renewable Energy facility before making judgments.
“Overall, it’s positive,” said Christine Knapp, director of the city’s Office of Sustainability.
Philadelphia needs renewable-energy sources to meet its clean-energy and carbon-reduction goals — Mayor Jim Kenney recently confirmed its pledge to meet a 100 percent clean-energy goal as part of the city’s clean energy vision plan to reduce emissions 80 percent by 2050. Natural gas from the RNG Energy facility could potentially fuel both the city’s and SEPTA’s fleet. Decomposition of organic material in landfills liberates carbon dioxide and large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 30 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2.
“[But] we want to make sure that it’s done appropriately, taking into consideration the neighbors and respecting their concerns. We also want to make sure that it does fit in with our carbon and energy goals — which it does look like it aligns, but there’s still more research we have to do to make sure it does,” Knapp said.
Matt Walker, advisory director of the Clean Air Council, a nonprofit that has continuously opposed PES, said that residents need more information about the project, and that state and city agencies must give them the opportunity to engage in the permitting and decision-making process.

Mixed reviews for a $120M food-waste energy plant at Philly refinery, the city’s largest emitter of particulates Read More »

NJ economic development bills in committee Thursday

The Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee will meet on Thursday, September 13, 2018 at 2:00 PM in Committee Room 16, 4th Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ.

The following bills will be considered:

A1700 (Dancer / Vainieri Huttle) – Specifies vacant shopping malls and office parks as eligible for designation as areas in need of redevelopment.

A2926 (McKeon) – “New Jersey Transit Villages Act.”

A3075 (Quijano / Pinkin) – Encourages development of public electric vehicle charging infrastructure in redevelopment projects.

A3797 (Jasey / Chaparro) – Permits municipal land banking in conjunction with online property database development.

A4023 / S446 (DeAngelo / Addiego / Madden) – Provides preferences for certain businesses applying for workforce development grants.

AJR150 (Johnson / Conaway) – Designates October 8 of each year as “Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day” in NJ. (pending intro and referral)


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Dog, cat and honey-bee bills, too, in NJ Senate committee

Senate Environment and Energy Committee
Thursday, September 13, 2018
10:00 a.m. Room 10, 3rd Floor, State House Annex

S1707 Exempts governmental entities acquiring lands for open space located in a deed-authorized common interest community from paying community fees if, at time of acquisition, community has never been formed or has been dissolved or discontinued.
S2511 Changes title of DEP “conservation officer” to “conservation police officer.”
S2553 Provides corporation business tax credit to taxpayers that develop qualified native pollinator habitat on undeveloped property.
S2554 Provides corporation business tax credit to public utilities that develop qualified native pollinator habitat in their rights of way.
S2826 Requires institutions of higher education to offer cats and dogs no longer used for educational, research, or scientific purposes to animal rescue organizations for adoption.
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No surprise: Cuomo Bridge opening delay gets political

Naveen Dhaliwal reports for ABC 7
Saturday’s planned opening of the second span of the new Mario M. Cuomo Bridge over the Hudson River was delayed after a piece of the bridge it is replacing became destabilized and threatened to fall, officials said.

 Matthew Driscoll, the executive director of the New York State Thruway Authority, said “a potentially dangerous situation” developed Friday when a piece of the old Tappan Zee Bridge became destabilized during the process of being disassembled.

 He said the opening of the eastbound span of the new bridge, named after former New York governor Mario Cuomo, would be delayed “out of an abundance of caution.”

 The issue arose hours after Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the late former governor’s son, held a grand opening ceremony for the new bridge span. Joined by one-time Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Cuomo said Friday that the new bridge “shows the world that we’re capable of dreaming big and delivering results for the people of this state.”

Cuomo’s rivals suggested that he had opened the new span prematurely to garner positive coverage ahead of Thursday’s primary election.

“A ribbon-cutting ceremony should not have been held if the bridge span was not yet safe,” Cuomo’s primary opponent, actress Cynthia Nixon, said in a statement Saturday. “There are real, reasonable questions about whether this bridge span opening was accelerated to aid the governor’s campaign.”

 Nixon is expected to visit the bridge Sunday afternoon and is calling for an investigation, saying Cuomo rushed the opening of the bridge.

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 Related: Cuomo Bridge: ‘Dangerous situation’ on Tappan Zee halts opening of new Westchester-bound span

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Cuomo Bridge: ‘Dangerous situation’ on Tappan Zee halts opening of new Westchester-bound span

Matt Coyne and
Thomas B. Zambito
report for The Record:

A piece of the old Tappan Zee Bridge became destabilized Friday, creating “a potentially dangerous situation,” which caused state officials to call off plans to open the Westchester-bound span of its replacement, the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge.
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Matthew Driscoll, the executive director of the New York State Thruway Authority, said engineers disassembling the Tappan Zee feared the destabilized piece of the old bridge could fall.

DEMOLITION: Tappan Zee Bridge demolition timeline

“Given its proximity to the new completed span, out of an abundance of caution, motorists will remain in the current traffic configuration until a thorough evaluation by Tappan Zee Constructors is complete,” Driscoll said Saturday morning.

It’s unclear when the new eastbound span will open.

“The second span is finished and ready to open to traffic as soon as the Thruway Authority is assured there is no risk to the new span,” he added.

The discovery prompted the Coast Guard to close the navigational channel under the bridge and the traffic shift already underway was canceled late Friday.


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After NJ sets limits for PFNA in drinking water, EPA is pressured to regulate PFAS chemicals in all states

At a congressional hearing, advocates say the federal government needs to address contamination worries

Jon Hurdle reports for NJ Spotlight:

Clean-water advocates and U.S. lawmakers pressed the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to set an enforceable national health standard for the presence of toxic PFAS chemicals in drinking water.

At a congressional hearing, advocates for tighter curbs on the chemicals said the government should address growing concern by establishing a level for each of the chemicals that would help state and local officials and private water systems protect public health.

Two days after New Jersey became the first state to regulate one of the chemicals, PFNA, an environment panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a three-hour hearing on how government can respond to increasing signs of contamination around the country.


The persistence of PFAS
Speakers accused the EPA of dragging its feet on setting strict limits on the chemicals, which have been used in products including nonstick cookware, flame-retardant fabrics, and firefighting foam, and have been phased out by U.S. manufacturers but are present in most people’s bodies and persist in some water systems.

Unless the federal government sets national standards that apply to water suppliers and provides scientific assistance in how to detect and treat the chemicals, state governments will not know how to regulate them, and the public will remain confused over whether their water is safe to drink, advocates said.

“Without Federal leadership, states are left on their own to make the tough decisions on whether and/or how to address PFAS in drinking water,” said Lisa Daniels, director of the Bureau of Safe Drinking Water at Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection and president of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators. Daniels urged Congress to direct all appropriate federal agencies to develop a unified voice on PFAS as soon as possible; to list the chemicals as hazardous substances under the Superfund law that provides federal funds for cleaning up hazardous waste sites; and to require PFAS reporting under the government’s Toxic Release Inventory.

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Divisions within the federal government over safe levels of PFAS in the environment emerged into public view this year when the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry recommended health limits for two of the chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, that were seven to 10 times lower than those advocated but not required by the EPA.

The conflicting advice led one federal official to warn of a “public relations nightmare” if officials had to explain the difference to the public, according to emails obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists ahead of the ATSDR release.


EPA working closely with other agencies

Peter Grevatt, director of the EPA’s Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water, told the committee that the EPA is working closely with other federal agencies on the PFAS issue, but offered no update on the agency’s previously announced plan to look at whether to regulate the chemicals.
He said the EPA is working on a national management plan for PFAS, due for publication by the end of 2018, that would include its conclusions on whether to set “maximum contaminant limits” (MCLs) for PFOA and PFOS, two PFAS chemicals that are the focus of most regulation so far.
New Jersey set its first MCL by regulating PFNA (perfluorononanoic acid) at a level that is far stricter than the EPA’s health advisory. The state is implementing similarly tough limits on two other PFAS chemicals and has become a national leader in the field.

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