Write a letters to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and comment on the following plans:
- incorporate a daily precessing limit condition using steam flow (pounds of steam produced) instead of the current permit limit of burning 2688 tons per day of trash.
- change the maximum acceptance limit from 4350 tons per day to a six day average of 4350 tons, with the average to be calculated Mon-Sat of each week. They want to increase the daily maximum limit to 5800 tons of trash per day. They also want to be allowed to increase trash on the tipping floor from 10,752 to 14,500 tons.
- have additional residual wastes to be added to its Residual Waste permit, including water treatment sludge, paint, tank bottoms, rubber elastomer, wood wastes, virgin petroleum fuel contaminated soil, burnt demolition debris, cosmetic wastes, pharmaceutical waste, photographic waste, leathers, finished wood wastes, styrofoam, tire chips, oily sludge, etc.
- to incinerate facility generated (20 gallons per day) of used oil.
If you’ve already done the above actions, here are some other things you can do.
- Find out where the waste goes from your home, your school or your place of work. If you’re at a university or other institution that generates medical waste, find out where that waste goes as well. Once you find out what company or what specific community your waste goes to, contact us at and let us know. Even if you’re waste isn’t heading to Chester, chances are that it’s going to a community where the local citizens aren’t too happy with receiving your wastes. We’ll help you network with these communities and work on ways to reduce the waste you or the institution you’re involved in are generating.
- If you’re in Pennsylvania, call your state representative and ask them to sponsor and help pass legislation like the Environmental Justice Act, House Bill 2321 from the 1995-1996 legislative session.
- Contact the Governor!PA Governor Ed Rendell: http://www.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Governor/govmail.html)Tell the esteemed governor that:
- You would like him to personally look into Chester and the way that the Department of Environmental Protection evaluated the plants in Chester.
- You expect him to personally issue a moratorium on further waste processing facilities and any additional permits for environmental pollution in Chester.
- You would like him to support legislation like the 1995-1996 session’s HB 2321, an act establishing a program to ensure nondiscriminatory compliance with environmental, health, and safety laws, and providing for equal protection of the public health. This bill will make the state reevaluate the way it permits it gives to facilities and most likely make them look at the true environmental impacts of the plants and ensure that situations like Chester don’t happen in the future.