For Immediate Release

Permits for Polluting Newark Plants Move Forward while Gov. Touts EJ Success

As Governor Murphy and DEP staff prepare to speak at a NJ Spotlight News virtual roundtable the recently signed Environmental Justice law (S232), two facilities in Newark have applied for critical permits. These facilities include Aries Newark Sludge Processing Plant and Darling Ingredients Inc. Today, they both submitted an air pollution control permit application to NJDEP.

“While Governor Murphy touts the Environmental Justice law, two major polluting facilities in Newark have recently applied for critical DEP permits. The new sludge processing plant and food processing plant will mean more toxic air pollution in the middle of an Environmental Justice Community. Under the EJ law, DEP is supposed to evaluate the environmental and public impact of these types of facilities. The department is required to look at the cumulative and secondary impacts and prevent harmful facilities in areas overburdened by pollution. However, DEP is dragging their feet on adopting rules to regulate GHG’s and climate impacts quick enough. Which means low-income and minority communities in Newark and at the mercy of polluters,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “The DEP should pull these permits until the EJ law goes into effect. The Murphy Administration is too busy attending press events instead of actually doing what they are supposed to be doing. While they tout about their EJ law, they are letting two major polluting facilities in Newark move forward with their applications.”

According to their application (see attached), Aries Newark Sludge Processing Plant includes a Fluidized Bed Gasifier, sludge receiving and storage units and Biosolid loadout units. Emission controls include a single control for CO, NOx and PM, Thermal Oxidizers and additional PM controls. The location of the facility is 400 Doremus Ave, Newark, Essex County, NJ 07105 and will be built on an existing site on the Passaic River. The Plant will consist of truck unloading and receiving stations for sludge, sludge storage, sludge dryers, dried biosolids storage, a fluidized bed gasification unit, producer gas combustion and heat recovery system, emissions control system, aqueous ammonia unloading and storage, hydrated lime unloading and storage, and truck loadout facilities for dried biosolids, spent sorbent, and biochar by-products.

“Aries sludge incinerator will cause more harmful air pollution in Newark. When you try to combust or incinerate these waste materials, it produces fine particles that can be laced with toxic metals such as Lead and Zinc. Dioxins can also be released into the air during combustion such as Persistent organic pollutants POPs that are carcinogenic and a serious health threat,” said Tittel. “Mercury also results in incinerating waste, this compound is hazardous even at very low concentrations in both on land and water and can bio accumulate in our food chain. This mean the Passaic River will be severely impacted by Mercury contamination.”

Darling Ingredients Inc. sent in its application to the NJDEP for air pollution control permits. Their facility is located at in the Ironbound section of Newark at 825 Wilson Ave, Newark, Essex County, NJ 07105. The facility consists of rendering plant and converts food processing byproducts into animal and vegetable derived proteins and fat ingredients. The applicant is proposing the following changes in the application: to replace strip chart recorders for recording scrubbing medium flow rate with data acquisition system. In September, New Jersey filed a lawsuit against the plant due to multiple community complaints of “putrid” and nausea-inducing odors, including “animal carcass odors.” DEP discovered 320 permit violations from September 1, 2018 to June 8, 2019, and found additional violations in inspections conducted since June.

“Darling Ingredients has created a toxic nightmare for the Ironbound section of Newark. Unbearable odors coming from the facility are so bad that people living nearby can’t open their windows or walk outside. What’s even worse is that have had over 300 permit violations in less than a year. It’s good that New Jersey is finally holding this company accountable with a lawsuit, however we believed the DEP and Health Department should have shut this plant down two years ago. Now they are moving forward with a critical permit application to continue their operation. This is just downright wrong. DEP must reject its permits. It has already created a health disaster in an EJ community,” said Tittel.

In September, Governor Murphy signed S232 (Singleton) into law and will go into effect 18 months after the signed date. The legislation requires that a person seeking a permit for a new facility, or for the expansion of an existing facility, that is located in a burdened community meets certain additional requirements. The DEP will be required to deny a permit for a new facility upon a finding that approval of the permit, as proposed, would, together with other environmental or public health stressors affecting the overburdened community, cause or contribute to adverse cumulative environmental or public health stressors in the overburdened community that are higher than those borne by other communities within the State, county, or other geographic unit of analysis as determined by the DEP.

“While Murphy is touting the EJ law and doing events on it, its busines as usual for permitting permits for harmful facilities in one of the polluted areas in the country. If the Murphy Administration is really serious about protecting EJ communities from polluting facilities, they need to reject the sludge facility and food processing facility in Newark. The DEP must also reject the air permit for the proposed NJ Transit fossil fuel power plant. We are in the middle of a health pandemic that is getting worse. These are the wrong projects in the wrong place at the wrong time. New Jersey cannot continue to let these facilities come in a cause serious environmental and health issues to EJ communities. That is why the Legislature worked to get a bill signed by Governor Murphy to prevent this,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “The EJ law does not go into effect until the rules and standards are in place which can take 18 months or longer. Meanwhile there are permits after permits for harmful facilities coming into EJ communities that will be grandfathered in. That is why Governor Murphy should put a stay on these permits until the law goes into effect. Otherwise these facilities will undermine the law and the health of these communities.”