Chester, PA Residents Air Concerns over Covanta Trash Incineration Plan

UPDATE: despite strong orga­niz­ing efforts, an out­pour­ing of com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion and strong research we’ve com­piled to show how awful this plan is, city coun­cil vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly on Aug 13th to approve Cov­an­ta’s plan that allows 30 years of New York City waste to be brought by train to Chester for incin­er­a­tion.  In fact, it’ll go through Chester to Wilm­ing­ton, DE, then will be trucked back into Chester, with five more trucks than they’d nor­mal­ly need since rail box­es are small­er than nor­mal trucks.  It’s an insane plan and we’ll con­tin­ue to fight it.  See Chester Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice for details.

-  by Vince Sul­li­van, July 24, 2014, Delaware Coun­ty Dai­ly Times

[[{“type”:“media”,“view_mode”:“media_large”,“fid”:“237”,“attributes”:{“alt”:””,“class”:“media-image”,“height”:“272”,“style”:“width: 255px; height: 145px; mar­gin: 3px 10px; float: left;”,“title”:“Photo: LancasterOnline.com”,“width”:“480”}}]]Dozens of city res­i­dents attend­ed Wednes­day night’s coun­cil meet­ing to voice their oppo­si­tion to a pro­pos­al that would allow the country’s largest trash incin­er­a­tor to con­struct addi­tion­al build­ings on its property.

Covanta’s Delaware Val­ley Resource Recov­ery Facil­i­ty, locat­ed in the first block of High­land Avenue, is seek­ing to con­struct a 16,000-square-foot build­ing that would enable the facil­i­ty to han­dle a dif­fer­ent kind of truck traf­fic. The com­pa­ny recent­ly entered into a 20-year con­tract with New York City to incin­er­ate up to 500,000 tons of munic­i­pal waste each year. The waste would be brought from New York to Wilm­ing­ton, Del., via train and then the rail box­es would be put onto trac­tor-trail­ers to be trucked to Chester.

A Cov­an­ta vice pres­i­dent attend­ed two plan­ning com­mis­sion meet­ings where he explained that the incin­er­a­tor is not seek­ing to increase its trash-burn­ing capac­i­ty, which is reg­u­lat­ed by the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, but said the trash from New York would replace oth­er munic­i­pal waste sources. He added that because more trash wouldn’t be com­ing into the facil­i­ty, the num­ber of trucks dri­ving to the incin­er­a­tor would not increase. The rail box build­ing would enable the box­es to be removed from the trucks and emp­tied onto the tip­ping floor.

The pro­pos­al also calls for a 1,000-square-foot office build­ing. The Chester City Plan­ning Comis­sion rec­om­mend­ed that city coun­cil deny the application.

Coun­cil­man Nafis Nichols, pre­sid­ing over the coun­cil meet­ing because May­or John Lin­der was late, said that coun­cil would not be vot­ing on the appli­ca­tion Wednes­day night because coun­cil mem­bers need­ed more information.

“We want to ensure that we move in the best direc­tion for the city,” Nichols said of the pro­pos­al, which has gar­nered much atten­tion from the pub­lic. Nichols said coun­cil mem­bers have received dozens of calls and emails from res­i­dents about the proposal.

“We are on a fact-find­ing mis­sion as a coun­cil and may not have the answers to some of the ques­tions the pub­lic may have,” Nichols said.

Coun­cil­man William A. Jacobs said coun­cil had already spo­ken with Cov­an­ta rep­re­sen­ta­tives and that he was eager to see a pre­sen­ta­tion pre­pared by the Chester Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Orga­ni­za­tion. That group has been respon­si­ble for drum­ming up pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed project by dis­trib­ut­ing fliers through­out the city and also made an hour­long pre­sen­ta­tion to the plan­ning com­mis­sion before it made its rec­om­men­da­tion ear­li­er this month.

“We have met with the Cov­an­ta peo­ple and heard what they have to say,” Jacobs said, urg­ing the orga­ni­za­tion to set up a time to relate its issues with the proposal.

Res­i­dent Sharon Hyland voiced her oppo­si­tion to Covanta’s appli­ca­tion, say­ing that test­ing need­ed to be done on the incinerator’s emissions.

“Lives are real­ly at stake here,” she said, refer­ring to the fil­ter­ing mech­a­nisms used to scrub the emis­sion from the facility’s 245-foot smoke­stack. The plant uti­lizes two fil­ter­ing sys­tems — a dry scrub­ber sys­tem and a fab­ric fil­ter bag house sys­tem, with six of each sys­tem. Oth­er plants in the region use addi­tion­al fil­ter­ing sys­tems, Hyland said, to pre­vent mer­cury and diox­in release into the atmosphere.

“We’re real­ly seri­ous about them not oper­at­ing here,” she said, indi­cat­ing that oth­er indus­tri­al sites in Chester were also con­tribut­ing to the air pol­lu­tion in the city. “Cov­an­ta came up first, so we’re deal­ing with them first. Get the air, water and soil test­ed so you don’t have to take our word or Covanta’s word.”

Don New­ton said he want­ed to make sure that coun­cil was con­sid­er­ing the appli­ca­tion with an eye toward how it will affect the res­i­dents’ well-being.

“Giv­ing the out­pour­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty, you are hear­ing the voice of this city,” New­ton said. “I want to make sure that the pri­ma­ry con­cern … is the health and well-being of the peo­ple. There ain’t no amount of mon­ey in the world that comes before that.”

Lin­der, who arrived after attend­ing a region­al meet­ing of gov­ern­ment lead­ers, said coun­cil will con­sid­er many things as it delib­er­ates about what to do with the application.

“We have to take into account what our respon­si­bil­i­ty is in this sit­u­a­tion,” Lin­der said.

He explained that there are many legal issues that sur­round every coun­cil action, and elect­ed offi­cials have to be aware of that.

Ques­tions arose dur­ing the pub­lic com­ment por­tion of the meet­ing about the payment’s that Cov­an­ta makes to the city in lieu of tax­es. A $5 mil­lion host-com­mu­ni­ty fee is paid by Cov­an­ta annu­al­ly, and one res­i­dent want­ed to ensure that coun­cil didn’t get hung up on finan­cial issues when decid­ing on the application.

“You should have a greater con­cern for the people’s lives than the $5 mil­lion,” said Farid Rasool.

He implored coun­cil to think about how approv­ing the pro­pos­al would impact future generations.

“You and me will be dead in the ground and some­body else will be pay­ing for the deci­sion you make,” he said to a round of applause from the audience.

Lin­der respond­ed that every­one on coun­cil is a Chester res­i­dent and the deci­sion they make will affect them, too.

“Our deci­sion is not only about mon­ey,” Lin­der said. “We all live in the city and breathe the same air, so we are aware of that.”

Nichols explained that the $5 mil­lion pay­ment is part of a long-term agree­ment with Cov­an­ta and is not a part of their application.

One woman that lives in the Crum Lynne sec­tion of Rid­ley Town­ship said council’s deci­sion will impact more than just the peo­ple in Chester.

“I live on the out­skirts of Chester so every­thing you bring in to the city, I’m going to breathe it, too,” said Joan Turner.