NEWARK, N.J.—A super-sized swath of factories, warehouses and diesel trucks clog the Ironbound neighborhood, along with the state’s largest trash incinerator, the biggest sewage treatment plant, an animal carcass rendering facility, several power plants and the contaminated remains of an Agent Orange factory that is still a Superfund site.
And it’s all just a quick walk from a residential area that is home to some 50,000 people, who live, shop and work in a community long known as a haven for immigrants.
For decades, community members and activists have protested loudly about the perils to their health of this toxic mix of pollutants. But it wasn’t until 2020 that they finally felt a real sense of hope with the enactment of New Jersey’s landmark Environmental Justice Law. Surely, they figured, the new law would help protect the neighborhood from any future facilities that would potentially harm residents’ health.
But now, just four years later, the prospect of yet another power plant is looming large. And adding insult to injury for those activists who worked so hard to win passage of the environmental justice legislation, the proposed plant passed muster under a temporary order that lacked the teeth of the law, which is designed to protect communities already overburdened by pollution. So there is a profound sense of disappointment, frustration and even betrayal.
“It was a slap in the face to us,” said Vanessa Thomas, an environmental justice organizer for the Ironbound Community Corp., which provides educational, environmental and housing support to residents. “It completely undermines the environmental justice law as a premise and what it means to protect communities.”
Under the 2020 law, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) must consider the impact of certain projects—including power plants—on poor and minority communities that have already been disproportionately harmed by pollution. It requires state regulators to deny permits to any facility that cannot avoid adding pollution to an overburdened community unless the project will serve a compelling public interest.
Vanessa Thomas, Ironbound Community Corp. environmental justice organizer
The new plant, which is awaiting a final vote by the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, is designed to be used only as an emergency backup power source to a huge sewage treatment plant. Gov. Phil Murphy considers it vital to prevent a repeat of what happened when the wastewater plant lost power in 2012 and millions of gallons of raw sewage spewed onto streets and into the Passaic River and New York waterways during Superstorm Sandy.
“With all due respect, I don’t want sewage and other pollution in the streets of Newark the next time, God forbid, a Superstorm Sandy hits,” Murphy told reporters in July. The governor said he disagreed with those fighting the plant. “I have nothing but respect for these folks, but on this one, I’m going to say with all due respect, there’s two sides of the coin.”
The environmental justice law is an important part of Murphy’s plan to better prepare New Jersey for climate change. He is trying to shore up the state’s insufficient power grid, slow down growth in flood-prone areas and build the kind of legal infrastructure to turn the page on the state’s history as a haven for pollutants.
Already, the rules adopted in 2023 to guide implementation of the new law are under appeal by two industries. A decision is expected by early 2025. And there is talk of a legal challenge if the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission presses forward and gives final approval of the project.
The environmental law is considered the toughest in the nation. While some states require analysis and consideration of environmental justice issues, New Jersey’s law mandates that the state deny permits for projects unless they won’t add to the pollution level. New York passed a similar law that may ultimately be at least as tough, but it does not yet have rules in place for implementation.
A History of Pollution
New Jersey has long been known for its pollution. It has 114 Superfund sites—the most in the United States—and Newark is home to four of them, including one in the Ironbound, a former pesticide plant where Agent Orange was once manufactured. The Diamond Alkali Superfund site includes the plant, which was closed in 1969, and a 17-mile stretch of the Passaic River, where the cleanup of toxic waste is still ongoing.
The cumulative impact has harmed public health. About one in four children in Newark has asthma—a rate three times higher than the national average. Air pollution also has been linked to other respiratory and cardiovascular problems. And the smells, residents say, are downright sickening.
“I know exactly when they’re having a bad day because it reeks of sewage,” said Ana Baptista, a lifelong Ironbound resident whose parents live near the plant. Baptista, who is a professor in the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management program at The New School in New York, has long been part of the fight for environmental justice in the community – and she said it’s an ongoing battle.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Baptista.
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The neighborhood, named for the foundries, railroads and factories that rose up in the 1800s, was once a meadowland of marshes. But with its proximity to New York and nearby ports, it quickly grew into an immigrant hub for as many as 40 ethnic groups—German, Irish, Italians and Poles, followed later by Portuguese, Spanish and Central and South Americans, along with African Americans. Today, the neighborhood is still a multi-ethnic, working-class community of mostly Portuguese, Spanish and African Americans.
According to the Ironbound Community Corp., a quarter of the residents live in poverty, with 26 percent of households making less than $25,000 per year and more than half of adults without a high school diploma.
Thomas said residents are worried about the impact of the pollution. “People are concerned for their health. They’re concerned for the health of their children,” she said.
But it was a time for jubilation when the environmental justice bill finally passed.
A Watershed Moment
Murphy came to Newark in September 2020 to sign it into law—and he was surrounded during the ceremony by the triumphant community activists and political figures who worked for more than a decade to make it happen.
“This law will bring with it a sea change in how government looks at its ultimate responsibility to ensure the rights of its people to clear air and clean water, to a better quality of life,” said Murphy.
The idea for a backup power plant at the sewage plant, which is located on 145 acres of land just off the New Jersey Turnpike, arose in the years after Superstorm Sandy. The plan calls for a gas-fired plant that will operate for up to 960 hours a year, in the event of up to 10 storms, or, if the existing power structure remains intact, about an hour a day to test and ensure it will properly function if and when needed in the event of another giant power outage.
Baptista, who stood directly behind Murphy at the bill signing, said enactment of the new law was a “huge moment” in the fight for environmental justice—but it took nearly three years more to develop the actual rules for how the law would be implemented.
The result was that the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) filed its permit request under a temporary order that was not as strong as the new law—a decided advantage to the authority, she said, because state regulators “didn’t have the ability to say no.”
The result was a limited approval from the DEP in July.
Environmental activists and state regulators had pushed for renewable power sources such as solar and battery backup. The Passaic sewerage authority said such power sources would not work given the height and space limitations of the huge but packed site along Wilson Avenue.
DEP’s approval came with special conditions, including use only in the event of an emergency outage and requirement of some solar and battery capacity and higher-quality equipment to reduce air pollution.
State DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said the new plant will actually result in less overall pollution, even with emissions from a new backup plant. “That is how we further the promise of environmental justice,” he said in July.
Community members are not persuaded.
Baptista said natural gas is not known as a good backup power source. “It’s very frustrating to see a utility like PVSC being so backward in their thinking,” she said.
And so the fight continues.
“It’s like a defenseless community. It’s really tragic.”
— Brendan Da Silva, local real estate agent and Ironbound resident
More than 800 people have fired off emails to the PVSC, the Ironbound Community Corp. says, asking the sewerage commission to call off its plan. Public officials in Newark and beyond also have voiced opposition, including two members of the nine-member commission. Health-care professionals have weighed in against the project, and in September, more than 70 religious groups called on the commission to change course.
“Our fight against this plant is part of a broader struggle against environmental racism and the prioritization of profit over people,” the religious leaders, who are part of the Faith in New Jersey coalition, wrote to the PVSC. “The residents of the Ironbound have made their stance clear—they do not want or need another source of pollution in their neighborhood. This is not merely a matter of preference but of survival and dignity. They have already endured too much.”
Brendan Da Silva, a local real estate agent who lives in the Ironbound, was among about 30 Ironbound residents who spoke against the project at a DEP hearing in October. In an interview, he said he worries about the health of his family—he has one small child and another baby on the way—and others who live so close to the industrial zone.
The neighborhood, he said, has a lot of poor residents, many of whom are undocumented migrants and thus reluctant to speak out.
“It’s like a defenseless community. It’s really tragic,” said Da Silva.
Luis Nobre, 53, the owner and manager of the Sol Mar restaurant in the Ironbound, said he’s been a Newark resident for more than 20 years—and the environmental challenges have always been a concern. He said he is not optimistic that the new power plant can be defeated. “The powers that be want it, so that’s a problem,” he said in an interview at his restaurant.
But the activist community is not budging.
“How ironic is it that they want to build a plant that is going to contribute to climate change to prepare for the effects of climate change,” said Thomas. “It makes absolutely no sense.”
Baptista said activists, who were so happy the day the law was signed, didn’t actually celebrate until six or eight months later, delayed by the Covid pandemic. One night, they gathered for a meal at a Brazilian restaurant in the Ironbound to mark what they’d achieved. In retrospect, she said, “I feel like we should have partied a little harder.”
It took a long fight to get there, and the power plant proposal is a reminder to Baptista that the battle must go on. “It’s generational work,” she said. “You have to plant the seed today to see it come to life decades later.”
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