Essex County Trash Incinerator Unfairly Burdens Poor, Critics Say – Newark, NJ Patch
ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — To many of the people who pass Covanta’s waste-to-energy plant in Essex County on their daily commutes, it’s just another view from the New Jersey Turnpike. But to the people who live in its footprint – many of whom are low-income or immigrants – it’s a daily reminder of “environmental racism,” some critics say.
Last month, pink fumes wafted from a smokestack at the Covanta incinerator in the Ironbound section of Newark. The strange color was eventually traced to iodine unknowingly included in a payload from a client. It wasn’t a danger to the public, according to the company, which pledged to investigate the matter and prevent future incidents.
But members of the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC), Earthjustice and the New Jersey Sierra Club said the pink smoke seen on June 19 is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential dangers Covanta’s facility is posing to some of Newark’s most vulnerable residents.
“It’s kind of offensive that it only matters because people on the Turnpike saw it, as opposed to the people who live in the shadow of the incinerator,” said Maria Lopez-Nunez, director of environmental justice and community development with the ICC, a local nonprofit that has been a vocal critic of the plant for years.
“We don’t need to be the dumping ground for Essex County or New York City,” Lopez-Nunez told Patch. “There are real human beings that live here.”
2800 TONS OF GARBAGE A DAY
Currently, the Newark incinerator combusts 2,800 tons per day of municipal garbage and generates about 65 megawatts of electricity, making it New Jersey’s largest “energy-from-waste” facility. It burns garbage from New York City and all 22 municipalities in Essex County, converting it into enough electricity to power about 45,000 homes, Covanta states on its website.
The result of an arrangement between Essex County and the Port Authority of NY/NJ, the incinerator’s construction was financed in 1990 with tax-exempt public bonds in an attempt to keep trash out of landfills.
The location of the plant was a joint decision between the City of Newark, Essex County and the Port Authority.
Covanta took over operations at the facility in 2005. It operates 44 waste-to-energy facilities in North America, China and Europe, and maintains a global headquarters in Morristown.
In 2012, Covanta reached a deal with the Port Authority to run the facility through at least 2032, with an option to continue through 2052. As part of its deal with the Port Authority, Covanta installed a particulate emissions control system known as a “baghouse,” as well as a metal recycling system. The upgrade reportedly cost about $90 million; it was completed in 2016.
Since finishing the baghouse upgrade, Covanta’s Newark facility has reduced lead emissions by more than 90 percent and mercury emissions by more than 80 percent, a spokesperson told Patch last week.
Officials with the NJ Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker – who was serving as Newark’s mayor at the time – praised the upgrade as a big stepping stone for the community.
“This new baghouse filter represents a milestone in using advanced technology to protect public health and enhance the quality of life in Newark,” Booker said. “As a strong advocate for this upgrade, I am proud to be celebrating [this] major achievement with Covanta and everyone else who made it possible.”
However, despite assurances of safety from the company and praise from officials, Newark residents continued to protest against the facility and the chemicals coming from its smokestack.
In 2018, dozens of Newark students and their parents marched on the incinerator to demand cleaner air, arguing that a garbage incinerator should never have been allowed to be built within walking distance of an elementary school.
Lopez-Nunez of the ICC said Covanta’s Newark incinerator is also located near several large public housing complexes – Terrell Homes, Hyatt Court and Aspen River Park – which are home to a large population of low-income and Section 8 renters. Many are immigrants, she said.
These residents are affected not just by fumes from the incinerator, but from the hundreds of diesel trucks that dump trash at the facility, according to the ICC.
“It’s not an evenly distributed problem,” Lopez-Nunez charged. “It would be unheard of to place a garbage incinerator in Montclair or Short Hills… it’s the epitome of environmental racism.”
Earthjustice staff attorney Jonathan Smith said the Covanta incinerator emits many other pollutants that “poison the people of Newark,” but don’t cause colorful fumes such as the ones seen on June 19.
“For example, the incinerator emits more lead into air than any other incinerator in the country, and is one of the top lead emitters in New Jersey for all types of facilities,” Smith alleged. “It also spews out other dangerous pollutants into the Ironbound community of Newark, like carbon monoxide, particulate matter, mercury, hydrogen fluoride and pollutants that cause ozone [damage].”
“Covanta’s unpermitted burning of iodine shows that Covanta must implement better and more frequent inspection and removal of unpermitted waste, so that whatever anyone happens to throw into a trash can doesn’t end up burned there, and in the lungs of the people of Newark,” Smith continued.
Smith said the facility’s pollution limits must also be lowered, and the pollution should be monitored on a continuous basis.
“Right now, the facility is operating under pollution standards that are over 20-years-old,” Smith said. “It must test for emission violations for most pollutants once every year or once every five years only – so emission violations the other 364 days of the year go undetected and unfixed.”
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said that incinerators have been “dumped” into low-income and minority communities all across the country.
“A recent study showed that nationally, 80% of the incinerators are in EJ communities,” Tittel said. “In New Jersey, that figure is 100% for our four incinerators in Newark, Camden, Rahway and Westville. The Newark incinerator emits the greatest amount of lead in the country.”
Tittel said incinerators are “poisoning” families and children who live near the facilities.
“The lead is not only in the air, but in the soil and ground children play on,” Tittel said. “On top of that, particular matter, toxic ash, cyanide and more are coming out of the incinerators. These harmful chemicals have already caused health problems such as heart diseases, increased asthma rates and elevated blood levels.”
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‘MANAGING THE WASTE SOCIETY CREATES’
Covanta Director of Corporate Communications James Regan disputed many of the allegations from the plant’s critics.
“The Essex County facility is not the largest emitter of lead and mercury in the country,” Regan told Patch. “The facility performs well below the allowable state and federal limits that have demonstrated protection of human health and the environment. Study after study has shown that these facilities do not pose unacceptable health risks to local residents.”
“We are committed engage with and support the communities in which we operate in addition to operating in the safest, most environmentally sound manner possible,” Regan added. “We do our very best to manage the waste that society creates and minimize the impact from it.”
People need to view the impact of emissions from the Newark facility in context with overall risk factors in the state, Regan pointed out. For example, in 2017, the facility represented only one-tenth of one percent of New Jersey’s lead emissions.
“It’s important to note that air emissions of lead are but one of many pathways for human exposure to lead,” Regan elaborated. “In addressing lead exposure, public health officials have focused on other sources, including exposure to lead paint in homes, contaminated soil and dust from historic industrial emissions and use of leaded gasoline and drinking water.”
The same holds true for mercury emissions, Regan claimed.
“Recent research completed by Columbia University demonstrated that waste-to-energy facilities, like the one in Essex County, are a relatively minor, man-made source of mercury air emissions in the United States, representing less than 1% of the total,” he said.
According to Regan, emissions that can be monitored on a continuous basis are done so “24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
“After passing through a state-of-the-art emissions control system, [more than] 99.9% of what comes out of the stack are normal components of air, including water vapor, nitrogen, oxygen and CO2,” Regan said. “The remaining constituents are well below allowable limits set by state and federal regulators that have demonstrated protection of human health and the environment.”
It’s also important to focus on what the incinerator brings to Newark… jobs, Regan said.
“We employ 83 fulltime employees and temporary labor,” Regan said. “$1.2 million goes to employees that are also residents of Newark. We provide advancement opportunities for temporary workforce and support Newark businesses and services with approximately $1 million a year. We also pay a significant host fee to the City of Newark which is approximately $5 million a year.”
In addition to monitoring its emissions and contributing to the city’s coffers, Covanta is attempting to be a good corporate neighbor in other ways, Regan claimed.
For example, the company is trying to discourage the use of diesel trucks at its Newark facility, installing a natural gas fueling station in 2013. Covanta is also talking with the ICC and Newark city officials about making a transition to electric trucks, Regan said.
In the past, Covanta Essex has partnered with local groups to hold electronic waste collection events in Newark. The company has also partnered with Covanta Warren and New Jersey Audubon to restore nesting habitats for Chimney Swifts and Common Nighthawks, and has teamed up with the NJ Department of Consumer Affairs to help destroy unwanted prescription drugs as part of the Project Medicine Drop program.
But according to ICC Executive Director Joe Della Fave, Covanta’s attempts to be a good corporate citizen are little more than window dressings.
“This is an incinerator that nobody in this community ever wanted,” Della Fave told Patch. “Hundreds of people marched in the streets when it was first proposed… it’s never been a welcome industry in this community.”
While the lack of garbage incinerators in places like Montclair and Short Hills is an eye-opener, it’s not just a NIMBY matter, Della Fave added.
“It’s a public health, equity and justice issue,” he said.
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