Delco Residents, Activists Support Proposed Environmental Justice Bill
More than 80 people from all over the area turned out March 4 to support the passage of PA House Bill 109, which would require the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to impose additional requirements when considering permitting requests from polluting industries in environmental justice areas.
The hearing, held at Widener University in Chester, was chaired by Representative Greg Vitali, (D. Havertown), chair of the House Environmental and Natural Resource Protection Committee and the main sponsor of the bill.
HB 109 defines an environmental justice area as one characterized by an increased pollution burden on a vulnerable population based on demographic, economic, health and environmental data. Chester is widely recognized to be an environmental justice area, and in fact, it brought, but lost, the first environmental justice lawsuit against the federal government more than 30 years ago.
“Nothing has changed since then except that the population has become sicker,” said Zulene Mayfield, chair of the Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living.
“Every month I get a call that somebody I know has died of cancer. We know these residents who are dying. We know them,” she said. “We need a little help here by passing this bill and giving our kids a chance to breathe.”
‘Cumulative Impact’
The bill would require all applicants for permits for new pollution-generating facilities or for major expansions of existing facilities in an environmental justice area to submit a “cumulative impact” report assessing the environmental impact of the new facility together with the cumulative impact on the environmental justice area when taken together with existing pollution sources.
The report would be made public and a public hearing would be held in the environmental justice area at least 60 days before the DEP makes a decision whether to issue the permit. The department may require additional conditions or mitigation measures before approving the permit and it may reject the permit altogether, barring the construction of the proposed project, according to the bill.
Vitali said the bill would give the DEP an “actual tool” to mitigate cumulative pollution. He said he would bring the bill to a committee vote quickly and urged the public to keep the pressure on lawmakers and opponents.
All of the speakers at the hearing strongly supported the bill, arguing that the cumulative pollution from Chester’s many polluting industries has never been accurately measured or considered when issuing permits for new facilities, but that it has a major effect on the area’s human population.
Residents of the Chester-Marcus Hook industrial corridor have significantly heightened risks of cancer, respiratory illnesses and cardiac conditions than people in other parts of the state, several speakers said.
Chester Mayor Stefan Roots likened the issue of cumulative impact to the difference between golf and basketball. In golf, the players (the polluters) report only their own scores, which are not added together, while in basketball, the points of each player on the team are added together and determine the outcome of the game.
It’s the same with cumulative impact, he said. The cumulative pollution of all the industries added together has a direct impact on human health. Those sources of pollution include Reworld (Covanta), the largest trash incinerator in the country, and DELCORA’s sewage sludge incinerator in the City of Chester.
To the south of Chester is Monroe Energy’s jet fuel refinery and the Marcus Hook industrial complex, an LNG export terminal. To the north is Philadelphia International Airport with both air and noise pollution from planes taking off and landing, and flanking the city are Interstate 95 and the CSX railroad tracks, both emitting significant noise and air pollution 24 hours a day.
The cumulative impact of all these sources must be combined with the effects of non-chemical pollution, such as poverty, poor-quality housing and inadequate health care, according to the speakers.
Is an LNG Export Terminal Coming?
Rep. Vitali pointed out that a major obstacle to passage of the bill is the opposition of the building trade unions, which are afraid it will stand in the way of constructing a proposed LNG export terminal somewhere along the Delaware River, either in Philadelphia, Delaware County or Gibbstown, New Jersey. It was that opposition that kept the bill from reaching a floor vote in the Pennsylvania House in the last session, he said.
President Joe Biden placed a moratorium on the development of any new LNG terminals, but President Donald Trump has lifted that moratorium, impounded funding for major clean energy projects, scrubbed government websites of any climate change information and promoted the fossil fuel industry, all raising fears that a new proposal for an LNG export terminal will soon emerge despite strong community opposition.
“Jobs. I’m so tired of hearing about jobs,” said Roots. “Anyone who argues that another polluting industry will bring in more jobs to Chester is just lying,” he said. Employees of the current polluters don’t live in Chester, but rather in a 30-mile radius of it, Roots explained.
Chester Health Commissioner Dr. Kristin Motley pointed out, with the help of slides, that state legislators should support the bill because Chester is not the only environmental justice area in the state. In fact, there are 1,965 of them throughout the state, in the fracking and coal mining regions as well as here. Chester is just the most densely populated of them, she said.
The DEP’s Environmental Justice Office has published a map of the entire state and assigned scores of 1 to 100 to each area. Scores of 80 or above are recognized as environmental justice areas.
While Chester scores 98 on pollution burden, Piney Township in Clarion County, northeast of Pittsburgh (pop. 402 in 2020), scores 92 and is subject to pollution from coal, hazardous waste, flooding and traffic, she said.
Roots asked that the bill be made even stronger by substituting the word “shall” for “may” in the enumeration of actions the DEP could take when deciding on permitting, and Motley pleaded with the committee to establish objective criteria for measuring cumulative pollution. The Clean Air Council is currently installing monitors along the industrial corridor to begin collecting data on cumulative pollution.
By Jodine Mayberry for the Clearinghouse