Environmental Injustice in Prince George’s County, Maryland

Prince George’s Coun­ty, MD is the wealth­i­est black coun­ty in the nation.  Fit­ting the nation­al trends, cer­tain pol­lut­ing indus­tries not desired in white com­mu­ni­ties are over­rep­re­sent­ed in the county.

VICTORY! In August, 2016, the coun­ty pulled the plug on the “waste-to-ener­gy” con­tract we’ve been fight­ing (described below). See our arti­cle on the vic­to­ry. We’re now work­ing on get­ting the coun­ty’s plans for zero waste to be done right.

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“Waste-to-ener­gy” pur­sued by Prince George’s Coun­ty: poten­tial trash incin­er­a­tor near Upper Marlboro?

Upper Marl­boro sits between two land­fills to the north­west, burn­ing tox­ic land­fill gas that counts as renew­able ener­gy in MD and, to the south­east, the sewage treat­ment plant (with the state’s only sewage sludge incin­er­a­tor). The sludge incin­er­a­tor, at the sewage treat­ment plant, has been around since 1971 and burns up to 12 tons of sludge a day.

New trash incin­er­a­tor?  The sludge incin­er­a­tor site is also the like­ly site of any new incin­er­a­tor or trash pel­leti­za­tion plant the coun­ty is seek­ing through the RFQ they put out in late 2014. This is to replace the land­fill on the oth­er side of Upper Marl­boro, which is sched­uled to fill up in 2021.

Instead of expen­sive and pol­lut­ing “waste-to-ener­gy” schemes, the coun­ty ought to reduce, reuse, recy­cle and com­post at least 90% of its waste. Any remain­der should be digest­ed and shipped to area landfills.

Incin­er­a­tion is the dirt­i­est and most expen­sive way to man­age waste (far worse than land­fills). It is also the dirt­i­est and most expen­sive way to make ener­gy (worse than coal).  Incin­er­a­tors turn trash into tox­ic ash and tox­ic air pol­lu­tion, harm­ing com­mu­ni­ty health, caus­ing asth­ma, birth defects, can­cer, heart attacks and many oth­er health problems.

TEN TIMES as many jobs can be cre­at­ed with a “zero waste” approach that max­i­mizes reduc­ing waste, repair­ing and reusing things, recy­cling and composting.

Get in touch to receive updates, as we add con­tent to this page and alert res­i­dents about meet­ings and oppor­tu­ni­ties to get involved.  Email Don’t Burn Prince George’s or call 301–836-1405 to get plugged in with local com­mu­ni­ty envi­ron­men­tal leaders.

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Gas-fired pow­er plant clus­ter in Brandywine/Waldorf area:

There is already one large gas-burn­ing pow­er plant in Brandy­wine, and a large coal and oil-burn­ing pow­er plant in Eagle Har­bor (the south­east­ern cor­ner of the coun­ty).  On top of this, there is a gas-fired pow­er plant under con­struc­tion in near­by Charles Coun­ty plus two more gas-fired pow­er plants planned in Brandywine.

These are all in an area where air qual­i­ty is already con­sid­ered unac­cept­able, as the EPA has declared the coun­ties to be in “non-attain­ment” for ground-lev­el ozone pol­lu­tion.  This pol­lu­tion will be made much worse by hav­ing more pow­er plants in the area.  Breath­ing ozone can trig­ger a vari­ety of health prob­lems includ­ing chest pain, cough­ing, throat irri­ta­tion, and con­ges­tion. It can wors­en bron­chi­tis, emphy­se­ma, and asth­ma, accord­ing to EPA’s page on ozone health effects.

The Brandywine/Waldorf region is being tar­get­ed for a clus­ter of 5 fos­sil fuel pow­er plants. They are:

1. The exist­ing 289-megawatt gas-fired Brandy­wine Pan­da plant behind Regency Furniture
2. The exist­ing 2,647-megawatt Chalk Point coal/oil/­gas-fired pow­er plant (burn­ing 72% coal, 27% gas and 1.5% oil)
3. The 661-megawatt gas-fired CPV St. Charles plant under con­struc­tion in Wal­dorf (approved in 2012) [PSC Dock­et #9280]
4. The pro­posed (and per­mit­ted) 755-megawatt gas-fired Keys Ener­gy Cen­ter in Brandy­wine [PSC Dock­et #9297]
5. The pro­posed 990-megawatt gas-fired Pan­da Mat­ta­woman plant behind the cur­rent Brandy­wine Vol­un­teer Fire Sta­tion [PSC Dock­et #9330]

Click on the map for details and like the “Stop 2nd Brandy­wine Pow­er Plant” Face­book page to stay in the loop (and check “get noti­fi­ca­tions” under the ‘like’ button).

To get involved, get in touch with Clean Air Prince George’s.  To learn more, see our pow­er­point and fact­sheet about gas pow­er plants, and explore our page on nat­ur­al gas.