Why purple smoke spells trouble in an iconic N.J. neighborhood – NJ.com

In the Ironbound, purple smoke spells trouble.

The violet-colored plumes emanate in the iconic Newark neighborhood from an incinerator, officially called the Essex County Resource Recovery Facility.

Every day, the facility operated by Morristown-based Covanta burns 2,800 tons of waste from around Essex County and New York City, generating enough power for 45,000 homes. When the incinerator is running smoothly, emissions from the facilities stack are white or clear. It’s only when iodine — a chemical element that doesn’t belong in the incinerator — is burned that the purple cloud appears.

The facility built in 1990 has long been the target of the Ironbound Community Corporation and other advocacy groups, who have repeatedly raised concerns that the incinerator threatens local air quality in a community that already has a plethora of other pollution sources.

So when it looks like a Prince concert above Blanchard Street, near the Turnpike and the banks of the Passaic River, people notice — and worry.

“When purple plumes have happened, we’ve gotten a big response from the community of fear,” said Maria Lopez-Nuñez, the ICC’s deputy director of organizing and advocacy.

That’s why the ICC, represented by Earthjustice and the Vermont Law School’s Environmental Advocacy Clinic, sent a letter to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General on Tuesday asking the state to ensure that Covanta is following air pollution regulations.

If the state doesn’t take action by June, the ICC warns it will have no choice but to sue.

But on Thursday, the state said that it has the situation under control, with the help of Covanta. And the DEP added that a longterm solution is coming.

Air pollution is a big deal in Newark, where one in every four children has asthma. It’s a problem that is possibly more important now then ever before; a recent Harvard study found a link between long-term air pollution exposure and higher COVID-19 death rates.

While purple plumes may be alarming and are a violation of DEP standards, they are not a cause for increased health concern, according to DEP Chief of Staff Shawn LaTourette.

Even when the incinerator is running normally, it degrades the area’s air quality. The facility is one of the largest single sources of nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution — a key ingredient in smog — in Essex County.

Covanta said that while the facility is a major single source of emissions, it is dwarfed by pollution from vehicle emissions, which are the state’s largest source of air pollution.

“It very well may be one of the largest stationary sources,” said Covanta spokesperson James Regan, of the Newark incinerator. “But it’s not the largest source of emissions overall.”

Purple discharge at the Newark incinerator have long been a point of tension.

A Covanta investigation of the April 7 purple plume concluded that the problem was caused when waste from the Troy Corporation, a chemical company with a facility in Newark that makes products containing iodine, was improperly burned by the incinerator.

Covanta went further in the report, attributing multiple purple plumes dating back to 2018 to waste from Troy.

Covanta’s report said that waste from Troy is no longer being accepted in the Ironbound, and is instead being sent to a Waste Management facility in Elizabeth, which is not an incinerator. The DEP said it is working to verify Covanta’s findings.

“We’re pleased that we believe we found the source, and we hope that these instances don’t happen again,” Regan said.

Troy did not respond to NJ Advance Media’s request for comment.

DEP and Covanta both cautioned that while they’re optimistic that the source of the purple plumes has been dealt with, other sources could cause future incidents.

The ICC remains concerned not just with the occasional purple smoke, but with the incinerator’s contributions to local air pollution. In January, the DEP fined Covanta $65,600 for multiple air pollution permit violations during much of 2018.

The DEP said it is currently finalizing a compliance order to address the purple plumes and other air pollution violations that have occurred at the Newark incinerator dating back to May 2019. The order is expected to be issued to Covanta in coming weeks, LaTourette said.

“We will ultimately end up in a place where we have a compliance order that integrates the plume avoidance mitigation efforts that we’re working out with Covanta, and to which the environmental justice community is contributing,” LaTourette said.

Concerns in Newark come as the DEP have U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signaled for relaxed environmental enforcement during the coronavirus pandemic, issuing grace periods in reporting information for certain air quality monitoring requirements. LaTourette said such grace periods are meant to give facilities flexibility to operate under social distancing guidelines during the global crisis, and would be granted on a case-by-case basis.

Lopez-Nuñez worries that with looser rules, the companies like Covanta will have the opportunity to keep the public in the dark about potential air pollution problems.

“[The DEP] can’t just be worried about [the facilities] being able to operate,” Lopez-Nuñez said. “They need to worry about who they’re impacting.”

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com.