Chester-Marcus Hook partners get $37,000 Grant to Install Air Monitors
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has awarded the Delaware County Planning Department $37,000 to install up to 50 air quality monitors to measure particulate emissions throughout the Chester-Marcus Hook area.
The project study area is southern Delaware County. The area spans roughly 7 miles from west to east, from Delaware County’s border with the State of Delaware to the eastern border of the City of Chester. The southern border is the Delaware River.
Six municipalities are fully within the study area, including Chester City, Chester Township, Upland Borough, Trainer Borough, Marcus Hook Borough, and Lower Chichester Township. The southern portion of Upper Chichester Township is also included.
Gina Burritt, director of the Delaware County Planning Department will be working with Dr. Marilyn Howarth of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Peter DeCarlo of Johns Hopkins University, Sean Greene of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, Horace Strand of the Chester Environmental Partnership, Joanne Craig of the Foundation for Delaware County.
The monitors will be measuring Particulate Matter (PM1, PM2.5, PM10), limited Ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrogen oxide (NO2).
The Clean Air Council, Marcus Hook Area Neighbors for Public Health, the City of Chester and other local organizations have been recruiting residents to allow the monitors to be installed on their property as well as public property within the study area. Ten percent of the monitors will be installed outside the study area to provide background information.
“Using particulate matter (PM) as a surrogate for a larger pollutant set, this project aims to gather critical data to help federal, state, and local partners identify sources of air pollution, clarify their relative contributions and develop mitigation strategies to improve health outcomes for the people who live and work in the Environmental Justice communities along the waterfront in Delaware County,” the grant agreement says.
The monitors will only be measuring “criteria air pollutants,” pollutants for which the Environmental Protection Agency has set standards for allowable pollution. The grant agreement noted that the monitors are similar to ones that Johns Hopkins University has already been using to monitor the same area. Together, the data from both Johns Hopkins and from this project will provide a good overall picture of air pollution in southeastern Delaware County, the DEP says.
The study area is home to many industries, including ReWorld (formerly COVANTA), the Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Center (trash-to-steam facility); Delaware County Regional Water Authority (DELCORA) wastewater treatment plant, Exelon Generating Station; Evonik Corporation; Dee Paper; PQ Corporation; Kimberly Clark of PA LLC; Community Light and Sound, Inc.; PA Department of Corrections SCI Chester; Monroe Energy LLC; Braskem America Inc.; and Sunoco LLC., the Marcus Hook Industrial Center that now serves as a shipping hub for natural gas products.
Additionally, this area lies in the flight path of the Philadelphia International Airport (less than 7 miles away) which averages 500 flights daily and is crossed by I-95, a major transportation corridor.
In 2010, the last time the Pennsylvania Department of Health made city-specific data on asthma available, Chester had an asthma prevalence of 38.5% in children. Childhood asthma hospitalization rates are more than three times higher than the rest of Pennsylvania.
The community believes that there is an increased rate of asthma, stroke, and cancer. The fetal/infant mortality rate among non-Hispanic Black women is 3 times higher than that of non-Hispanic White women, largely due to low birth weights. These health disparities are all negatively impacted by air pollution, the grant agreement says.
More recently, Johns Hopkins completed an environmental health assessment of the Chester-Marcus Hook area, using community members as both subjects and participants. That assessment showed that the community is plagued by excessive and constant foul odors, air pollution and noise from both the various polluting industries and the traffic generated by trucks serving those facilities.