NEWARK, NJ — More than 200 residents and activists joined a “March for Clean Air” on Wednesday, Nov. 10, to protest proposals for two projects in Newark’s Ironbound.
Aries Clean Technologies is looking to build an industrial facility to process human waste and the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, a state agency within Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration, is proposing to build a new fracked gas power plant as part of a resiliency project to power the facility when the commercial electricity grid is down.
“We’re thankful Gov. Murphy has been re-elected and we expect him to deliver on his promises of protection and dignity for our community” said Maria Lopez-Nunez, deputy director of advocacy and organizing at Ironbound Community Corporation. “It is a disgrace to have a proposal for a third power plant in an overburdened neighborhood at a time when we’re trying to step away from fossil fuels and discrimination of black and brown people in the state of New Jersey. Gov. Murphy must say no to the PVSC power plant, no to the Aries sludge plant and no to anything else that threatens the health of our community.”
The march began at the Ironbound recreation center and started off with several speakers. Then community members and activists marched more than a mile to the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission’s wastewater treatment plant, where the commission has proposed to build the new fracked gas power plant.
“We support the goal of building resilient wastewater treatment systems, but we simply cannot get there with more polluting fossil fuels that are causing the climate crisis,” said Matt Smith, N.J. director of Food & Water Watch. “The pollution from a new fracked gas power plant would harm the health of millions in the region and contribute to more frequent and ferocious weather events like Ida. It’s time for the governor to reject this dirty and dangerous proposal and direct PVSC to redesign the project with clean renewable energy.”
The Ironbound community in Newark is one of the most pollution overburdened communities in the country. After decades of inspired grassroots organizing and advocacy, state representatives last year enacted S232, landmark environmental justice legislation designed to protect communities like the Ironbound from increased pollution. But the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has yet to implement the environmental justice law, and final rules to make it operational aren’t expected until sometime in 2022.
“Being from an environmental justice community, you see and experience the impacts of pollution on a daily basis. It’s hard to ignore the incinerators in the skyline or the industrial facilities around the corner from your house, nor how race, class, gender and ability play a deep role in the environmental injustices our communities experience. This is a vivid representation of the layers of historical systemic inequities that have disenfranchised low-wealth communities of color,” said Chris Tandazo, operations assistant at New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance. “The attempt and initiative to place yet another two industrial facilities, Aries’ sludge facility and PVSC’s power plant, in the Ironbound of Newark, represent the continuous political act of choosing profit over a community’s health and well-being. NJEJA is showing up today in solidarity with the Ironbound community to say no to more industrial facilities in our communities. We are firmly against these two facilities. The Ironbound community has had enough and will not be sacrificed for fossil fuels and profit.”
Local community members and organizations have been organizing informational forums, conducting outreach to directly impacted communities, speaking out at public board meetings and working to get local councils to pass resolutions against the project. So far three municipalities — Jersey City, Hoboken and Livingston — have passed resolutions opposing PVSC’s proposed fracked gas power plant and in support of a renewable energy alternative.
“Newark residents have enough, no new industrial smokestacks poisoning our lungs and making the climate crisis worse. We already get everyone else’s sewage, garbage and so much more — adding this frack gas plant would really be adding insult to injury. And it conflicts with the governor’s actions earlier today. We can’t follow the science, protect public health, get environmental justice, and cut climate emissions 50 percent by 2030 as his executive order calls for by permitting new smokestacks that emit climate pollution,” said Kim Gaddy, national environmental justice director of Clean Water Action and founder of Newark’s South Ward Environmental Alliance.
Photos Courtesy of Matt Smith
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