Camden trash plant is criticized
Many at a permit-renewal hearing urged tougher pollution controls. But officials defended the site.
Environmentalists long opposed to pollution in the southern part of Camden returned to an old fight last night at a hearing on a permit renewal for a trash incinerator.
The Camden Resource Recovery Facility, also known as a trash-to-steam plant, annually emits hundreds of tons of nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, and sulfur as it converts solid waste into electricity.
Just as they opposed construction of the facility 18 years ago, environmental activists and nearby residents are now reuniting to urge Gov. Corzine and the state Department of Environmental Protection to strengthen air-pollution limits and encourage recycling, which would reduce waste sent to the incinerator.
"Our homes are filled with soot. Our yards are filled with lead," said Lula Williams, president of South Camden Citizen Action, who believes the pollution hurts children physically and mentally. "We sleep with it and breathe it and live it."
But the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection say the incinerator meets requirements and its permit, which expires at the end of this year, should be renewed through 2014.
Additionally, the Camden County Pollution Control Financing Agency, which operates the facility, said it exceeded requirements.
"We're well below all of the limits that the state has established as health-based or environmentally based standards," said John Londres, deputy director of the agency.
In addition, he said, the agency was working with the state on stricter nitrous-oxide restrictions.
Each year, the incinerator on Morgan Boulevard burns 350,000 tons of solid waste, which comes from all Camden County towns except Gloucester Township, and turns it into electricity that is sold to utility companies to power 25,000 homes.
Richard Harrington, project manager at the site, said that the plant accepted more waste from Camden City than from any other municipality, and that it was a good neighbor - adding $2 million to the city's coffers beyond property taxes each year.
But opponents said children's health wasn't worth compromising for money. They want the state to prevent certain kinds of waste, such as batteries, from coming into the plant. They said that trash from outside Camden County should not be burned there, and that municipalities that sent their waste to Camden should face strict recycling requirements.
Many noted that the Waterfront South neighborhood also was exposed to the county's sewage plant, to trucks coming from the South Jersey Port, and to fumes from rail lines and highways that ran through the community.