Consider the community: Community and experts ask state committee to empower DEP (Daily Times – 3/4/25)

House committee meets at Widener about legislation

By Kathleen E. Carey | [email protected] | delcotimes.com

UPDATED: March 4, 2025 at 6:15 PM EST

You can access the original article here

The state House Environmental & Natural Resource Protection Committee held a public hearing Tuesday at Widener University on House Bill 109, which involves permitting of industrial polluters. (HOUSE DEMOCRATIC COMMUNICATIONS)

Advocates, experts and community representatives told members of the Pennsylvania House to ask communities to be considered when the state Department of Environmental Protection is considering permitting of polluting industries in environmental justice communities.

“We are asking the legislators to do their part,” Zulene Mayfield, founder of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, said. “We need a little help here. Pass this deal. Give our kids just the chance at being able to breathe.”

On Tuesday, the state House Environmental & Natural Resource Protection Committee held a hearing at Widener University on House Bill 109, which would require permit applicants to submit a cumulative environmental impact report, and DEP would be given the authority to deny an application based on this report’s findings.

This bill would also require DEP to hold public hearings in the community being impacted.

“Giving the Department of Environmental Protection an actual tool to deny a permit based on cumulative impact is real,” state Rep. Greg Vitali, D-166, of Haverford, who also serves as the committee’s chair, said.

Versions of the bill have been considered in other sessions but failed to pass from labor opposition. Vitali said he would use recommendations expressed Tuesday to modify the bill as he expects to have a committee vote in the near future.

Mayfield explained that CRCQL was formed in 1992 as a trash-to-steam plant was being built in Chester.  A year later, they petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do an assessment of the city.

The results were published in 1995 and found various health impacts, including kidney and liver disease and respiratory problems exceeded acceptable EPA levels.

“The only thing that has changed is that we are dying more, our children literally cannot breathe and the Pennsylvania Legislature and DEP has done nothing, nothing to protect my community, the people that I love and given our kids a chance just to survive,” she said.

She said from 2002 to 2021, adults in Chester had rates higher than the national average of liver cancer, Hodgins disease, lung and stomach cancer and more.

“Many adult cancer rates in Chester are rising,” she said. “They are rising. And I am having a hard time … because every month I get a call that somebody I know has died from cancer.”

One thing Mayfield asked the committee was to change the language involving DEP’s ability to deny a permit based on the cumulative environmental impacts.

“It should say DEP shall deny a permit based on cumulative impacts,” she said “It should not say ‘may’ or ‘could’, it should say ‘shall.’ “

‘We are begging you’

Chester Health Commissioner Dr. Kristen Motley said the legislation could be applied to rural areas with coal mines and pesticides as easily as it can be with her home city.

“We are begging you … to move it to the next step,” she said to the committee. “We are late. Let’s get caught up.”

Chester Mayor Stefan Roots compared the situation to golf and basketball.

Right now, he said it’s a golf game, where the individual players or companies play and DEP sets up the rules in terms of how much they’re permitted.

“Each player is on the honor system,” he said. “They keep their own score. Do they always tell the truth? … All we learn at the end of the game is how they perform according to the limits, but what we want to know is how much pollution is in the air.”

Roots said it should be more like a basketball game, where all the players or companies have their results tallied to see what the cumulative impact is.

“That final score is the true measure of the level of pollution,” the mayor said.

“I’m so sick of hearing about jobs, I really am,” he continued, adding that existing “polluters” in the city are not hiring Chester people.

If the industry had such a great impact on the city, Roots added, it wouldn’t be in bankruptcy.

“Stop playing games with Chester,” he said. “Make the rules fair.”

Besides, he said, allow Chester to recognize its potential.

“We want to enjoy the waterfront like other communities enjoy their waterfront,” he said. “It can be the economic engine that drives Chester into the future. We have to try to do something different. Industry hasn’t saved it … Save our waterfront for something different.”

Talkin’ trash

Walter Tsou of the Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania said emphasis needs to also be on reducing the trash sent to the Reworld Resource Recovery Center, formerly known as the Covanta incinerator, in Chester.

“If we don’t renew the Reworld permit, what are we going to do with all of this trash?” he asked, after adding, “Couldn’t we be smarter about plastics in our state? Maybe we should tax plastics.”

Tsou received applause for that comment as well as his statement, “Ever so slowly, we need to close Covanta.”

Delaware County Health Director Lora Werner said House Bill 109 could address the gap as DEP issues permits for facilities in isolation of one another. Chester, as in other places throughout Pennsylvania, has multiple industrial facilities within its environs.

Dr. Marilyn Howarth of the University of Pennsylvania said although the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania has among the highest air toxicity in the state, the current DEP regulatory structure would not prevent another facility from being built in Chester.

She also said that information about an application should be made public at the time of the filing so that the public can be adequately informed.

In addition, Howarth suggested that the bill include a uniform enforcement strategy with quantifiable metrics so that there are objective standards applicable across the board.

Originally Published: March 4, 2025 at 6:14 PM EST