For 23 years now, Chester has been home to the nation's largest trash-burning plant at Front and Highland, now owned by Covanta. This incinerator has the fewest pollution controls installed of any of the six in the state, or in Covanta's fleet of 39 incinerators.

Claiming it'll cost too much, Covanta's incinerator lacks the pollution controls they use elsewhere to remove the nitrogen oxides (NOx) that cause asthma. Chester's rate of child hospitalization due to asthma is more than three times the state average, in large part because Covanta is one of the worst NOx polluters in all of eastern Pennsylvania. Covanta is also one of the worst polluters in the region for mercury, lead, dioxins and other toxins that contribute to cancers, birth defects, learning disabilities and more.

It's unacceptable to help this polluter in our community stay open for another three decades, as other major polluters are shutting down, including coal power plants (like the coal burning in Eddystone) and waste incinerators.

Only 1.5% of the waste Covanta burns in Chester is from Chester. Covanta thrives on making Chester the burning ground for waste from Delaware County, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey and many other states. Currently, they aim to bring in trash trains from New York City, to increase the amount burned from New York from a current rate of 200,000 tons/year to at least 500,000 tons/year -- for the next 30 years. This plan is outlined on page 144 of a 700-page contract Covanta signed with New York City in July 2013. Since Covanta is not operating at full capacity so far this year, this DOES help them burn more waste and pollute Chester more.

Their current proposal before the Chester City Council must be rejected, as the Planning Commission unanimously recommended at their July 9, 2014 meeting.

Covanta's trash-by-rail proposal helps them lock in 30 years of waste supply from the wealthiest part of New York City, bringing another 15 million tons of trash to be burned in Chester.

It also gives them the infrastructure to make Chester a regional trash transfer hub where extra trash (more than they can burn) can be brought in by rail and trucked out to feed their many other incinerators within the region. Covanta is increasingly getting into the trash transfer business and this proposed waste transfer hub could live on beyond the life of their incinerator.

Disapproving the trash-by-rail plan in no way will jeopardize the $4-5 million in host community fees that are collected by the City of Chester. The city's reliance on host fees is not a reason to approve this plan.

Here's why:

1. This revenue is not at risk of going anywhere soon. Covanta cannot pick up and relocate, like a McDonalds could. No other community would accept an incinerator -- especially the nation's largest. No new incinerator has been sited and built in the U.S. in 17 years. It would also be illegal to build a new incinerator like they have, that operates without the pollution controls now required. Any threats of lost city revenue are hollow scare tactics.
   
   
2. Chester's health is not for sale. Chester residents suffer from abnormally high rates of asthma, cancers and other health problems that are caused and aggravated by industrial pollution. Premature deaths caused by Covanta's pollution rival the number of gun deaths in Chester each year. The financial costs of premature deaths and disease caused by Covanta's pollution far exceeds $5 million per year. Even if it were the same, the city cannot morally justify revenue obtained from harming health and shortening lives of Chester residents.
   
   
3. Approving the plan assumes the incinerator will be around for 30 more years, and helps ensure it. In fact, the trend is that the largest polluters, mainly coal power plants and trash incinerators, are closing down as air pollution regulations become stricter over time. Many have closed in recent years and more will follow.
   
   
4. In 2008, former Mayor Butler wrote a scathing rejection of a huge proposed tire incinerator (smaller than Covanta), stating: "regardless of their job creation claims and their alleged charitable benefits, [they are] not aligned with the future direction of the City of Chester." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has recently made it clear that local governments have a legal duty to protect our constitutional right to clean air.