Camden for Clean Air formed in May 2020 to stop plans to keep the Covanta Camden trash incinerator alive by having it serve as the power source for a proposed microgrid. The proposed microgrid would keep the power going for the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) sewage treatment plant in Camden so that it stays operating in case the power goes out, avoiding sewage backups. We support that idea, but did not like that powering it with the trash incinerator would enable Covanta to roughly triple their electricity sales revenue, making the aging plant more economically viable, and likely to stay operating for more years than it normally would.
VICTORY! After nine months of our applying pressure, it was announced in early March 2021 that the microgrid would not be powered by the trash incinerator, but by solar, digester gas, and batteries! See our press release below for details.
THE NEW THREAT: In April 2022, Covanta proposed a new way to monetize their unprofitable incinerator. Now Covanta wants to burn liquid industrial waste, and are dangling money in front of community groups in the form of a Community Benefits Agreement that include their installing the missing pollution controls as part of the agreement, even though Covanta committed to installing these, regardless. In July 2020, Covanta answered our question about whether they are committed to install the missing baghouse filters even if they do not get the microgrid deal. Covanta responded, in writing, that…
“Installation of the baghouse is not contingent upon the microgrid project moving forward. Covanta is committed to installing the baghouse at our Camden facility. In our recent sustainability report, we committed to the implementation of five (5) projects by 2023 to further reduce emissions in Environmental Justice communities. The Camden baghouse project is one of those five projects.”
Microgrid Documents
- Our 2-page Covanta microgrid factsheet
- NJ Board of Public Utilities’ Microgrid program
- Dec 2018 Camden Microgrid Feasibility Study (which looked only at Covanta’s trash incinerator as a power source, but could have looked at solar and energy storage, aiming to benefit from the NJ BPU’s Pilot Project funding for community solar microgrids)
- May 28, 2020 Phase II Design Application for the microgrid. Page 23 (3-9) admits that “the reinvestment in Covanta’s class II facility preserves and extends the plant’s useful life.” This statement is from the same county whose officials have lied to the public and denied that the microgrid scheme would extend the Covanta trash incinerator’s life. It will do so by enabling Covanta to roughly triple their electricity sales revenue, as revealed in the feasibility study.
Background
Covanta’s trash incinerator in the City of Camden, New Jersey is the largest air polluter in the city, and in all of Camden County, responsible for half of the industrial air pollution in the county. See the factsheet on Covanta Camden’s emissions for details, based on the latest data from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Covanta’s trash incinerator is the second worst in the nation for toxic lead emissions, and never had the modern air pollution controls for particulate matter (called a “baghouse”). Covanta has pitched the microgrid scheme as being necessary for them to have the money to install the long-missing baghouse filter system. They have also stated that this is a corporate priority for them and that they would install it regardless of whether they got the microgrid deal. We’re still waiting for them to even file an application with the state to actually do this. After getting a permit, it would take three years to install — one year for each of their three boilers. As of March 2024, Covanta’s incinerator is 33 years old. Most incinerators don’t make it to their 40th birthday, and the average age of the 51 incinerators that closed between 2000 and 2024 was just 24 years. It’s unlikely that Covanta (or their new owner, EQT) will really choose to invest in new equipment at a plant that could close before these controls have even been in service for long.
A study by a professor of environmental medicine at New York University has found that just one pollutant released from the Baltimore trash incinerator causes an estimated $55 million in annual harm to human health across several states (including New Jersey), mostly attributable to lives cut short. This pollutant is fine particulate matter, also known as “PM2.5” (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns). An April 2020 Harvard study found that very small increases in this PM2.5 pollution in the air are enough to cause a 15% increase in death from COVID-19. We also know that in New Jersey, as in Maryland, black residents are dying from COVID-19 at the highest rates. In NJ, it’s nearly double the rate of white residents.
While the Camden incinerator is less than half the size of Baltimore’s, the Camden incinerator has higher emissions of fine particulate matter (PM2.5): 46,174 lbs of PM2.5 in Baltimore when the study was done… compared to 51,320 lbs of those emissions in Camden in 2017. That, combined with the higher population in the Philadelphia area means that we can expect Covanta Camden is causing MORE than $55 million in annual health damage just from that one pollutant.
You can find a lot more info at our webpage on trash incineration, including info on incineration and human health, and how incineration compares to landfills.
Pollution and Health
- Camden is the 3rd worst in the nation for industrial air pollution near public schools.
- The Covanta Camden trash incinerator is the largest industrial air polluter in Camden County, by far, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accounting for half of the county’s industrial air pollution, including 81% of the nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution and 89% of the lead pollution.
- Trash incineration is the most polluting way to manage waste or to make energy.
Asthma
- Asthma is a leading cause of school absenteeism.
- Asthma costs our nation $82 billion a year, including $3 billion in missed school and work days, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s Asthma Capitals 2021 report, which also names our metropolitan area as the nation’s 7th worst asthma capital (down from 4th in 2019).
- One in three Camden students is diagnosed with asthma, nearly four times the state average.
- Camden residents are four times more likely than New Jersey residents as a whole to visit an emergency department or be hospitalized for asthma.
- Air polluted by nitrogen oxides (NOx) is well known for triggering asthma attacks.
Toxic Lead, Learning & Behavior
- Toxic lead pollution reduces a child’s ability to learn and contributes to anti-social behavior.
- Covanta Camden is the second largest air emitter of toxic lead in the entire trash incineration industry in the U.S.
- There is no safe dose of lead.
- The brain damage caused by lead exposure is permanent and irreversible.
Covanta’s Violations
Covanta has a long history of law-breaking, as evidenced by this 93-page compilation of their violations through 2006. Covanta didn’t take over running the Camden trash incinerator until 2013, so their violations aren’t reported until this more recent compliance history through June 2018. See page 6 for violations at the Camden plant.
Environmental racism
Camden has a long history of activism against environmental racism, and was part of a major environmental justice legal case in the 1990s. Learn more about environmental justice and environmental racism. Trash incinerators are an environmental racism issue, as the largest incinerators disproportionately impact Black people the most. Around Covanta Camden, specifically, you can find the demographic data at various distances available in the EJ analysis at the top of the Covanta Camden page in our mapping project.
Covanta’s Propaganda
Covanta has much to say about how healthy and safe they are, despite clear evidence that they’re a major air polluter. They have “white papers” on health and emissions. See our responses to these PR pieces on health studies and their air emissions claims.
Victory Announcement & Next Steps
Press Release 8/3/2021:
Camden for Clean Air Announces Next Steps Following Victory Over Incinerator-Powered Microgrid Scheme
Camden for Clean Air won its first major demand: to stop a proposed microgrid in Camden City, NJ from being powered by the county’s largest air polluter, the Covanta trash incinerator. It was announced on March 5, 2021 that this proposed microgrid would instead be powered by solar, digester gas, and battery storage. The group will now proceed with its effort to close the incinerator for good.
Camden for Clean Air was formed in May 2020 upon learning that the proposed microgrid was being used as a life extension strategy for Covanta’s trash incinerator. If allowed to proceed, it would have enabled Covanta trash incinerator to roughly triple their electricity sales revenue. Project proponents admitted in writing that the microgrid would “preserve and extend the plant’s useful life,” even while denying this in public meetings.
This victory was the result of relentless pressure and advocacy from our group and others applied for nearly a year on city, county, and state level officials.
Despite this positive development and top ask of our group being granted, many unresolved issues remain with both the proposed microgrid and with environmental justice issues at-large in the City and County of Camden.
Some of these questions include:
- Will the Covanta trash incinerator’s exclusion from the proposed microgrid plan be formalized in writing, or via city or county ordinance or contract?
- Will the Covanta trash incinerator still be installing their missing baghouse filtration system and, if not, will Assemblyman Moen and Spearman move forward with their legislation requiring this?
- Will the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) still be building a pipeline of sewage effluent to the Covanta trash incinerator for them to use as cooling water, possibly extending the incinerator’s existence in the city?
- Will the ten small gas-fired power plants proposed in the Phase II microgrid plan still be installed around the city as related “nanogrid” operations?
- Will Holtec, Eastern Metal Recycling (EMR), Georgia Pacific Gypsum, and other polluting, largely property tax-exempt companies still be microgrid customers, or will this microgrid mainly serve public purposes as initially promised by the plan’s originator, former CCMUA and Environmental Justice Advisory Board Member, Andrew Kricun?
- Will the city and county reactivate their long-vacant environmental commissions and empower them to have a real say over environmental projects and environmental justice issues in our region?
- Will the community be assured that no other forms of incineration (so-called “waste-to-energy”) other than anaerobic digestion will be used to power the microgrid? [It is important to note that EMR originally proposed to incinerate auto shredder residue, but canceled it for lack of utilities which could be installed as part of the microgrid project.]
Possibly the most important question for local officials is will they publicly condemn the existence of the Covanta trash incinerator in the city of Camden and commit to ending the county’s waste contract with the facility?
Given that incineration is the most expensive and polluting way to manage waste, it is clear that the age of dirty energy production via trash incineration has come to a logical end in the state of New Jersey. The Covanta facility in Camden is reaching end of life, it does not use state of the art pollution filtration or even industry standard equipment such as baghouse filters, and it is the #2 top emitter of toxic lead in the entire trash incineration industry in the United States. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Camden Spruce Street air quality monitor located close to Covanta trash incinerator routinely scores the highest annual particulate matter level averages in the entire state of New Jersey. These high levels of particulate matter directly contribute to the extreme respiratory health disparities in the city of Camden.
Recent policy and state government reports are making it clear that trash incinerators are being phased out in New Jersey such as:
- Covanta’s Warren County, NJ incinerator closed in 2019.
- Covanta Camden routinely delays their baghouse filter installation.
- The state of NJ explicitly cites their intent to phase out power from waste incineration, coal, and landfill gas by 2050 in their recently published Global Warming Response Act 80 x 50 Report.
The next step is for Camden County to stop contracting to burn its trash. We also will be looking for the state Assembly to end its classification of trash incineration as a “renewable energy” source in the state’s renewable energy mandate, causing ratepayer dollars to flow to incinerators instead of clean energy sources like wind and solar.
