As the new home of NJPIRG's environmental work, Environment New Jersey can be contacted regarding this news release.
New Jersey PIRG is a citizen-based
advocacy group that represents over 20,000 citizens across New Jersey, lobbying
for stronger environmental and consumer issues. The testimony this evening that
has and will be presented will talk about this incinerator is an environmental
and consumer problem—a facility that contributes to an air toxic cauldron
and a facility that violates environmental justice principles. NJPIRG would
like to talk about the impact of existing pollution levels in the area on the
health of residents.
New Jersey PIRG, along with
NJEF and the Sierra Club, has just concluded a massive campaign to reduce air
pollution across the state by passing Clean Cars legislation to ensure that
cars sold in the state have stronger emissions standards. However, the work
of this effort is undermined if we do not have the same resolve to lower emissions
from direct air toxic polluters like the incinerator.
This is a public health
issue of the highest proportions. Camden County has made a dubious distinction
as ranking in top 20 counties in the nation for poor air quality.
Under the federal Clean
Air Act, the EPA has set maximum levels of these chemicals that it deems safe
for humans to breathe. Residents of Camden County breathe levels of air toxics
that are 2,200 times higher than this federal health standard. Only Hudson County
has higher levels, and Camden County alone has a cancer risk from these pollutants
equal to approximately half of the rest of South Jersey (Atlantic County, Ocean
and Cumberland Counties) combined. The EPA estimates, that in absence of other
factors such as smoking or genetics, a little over 1,100 residents of Camden
County will develop cancer if exposed to current levels of air toxics. We can
extrapolate that this rate will be increased in the immediate vicinity of the
incinerator.
Camden County has smog monitoring
stations in Camden and Ancora, which 19 and 17 violations of the federal health
standards respectively during the summer months of 2002. Residents of the slightly
more polluted western half of Camden breathed the second highest level of smog
pollution in the state, even more than the three monitoring stations near Newark
and Jersey City. Camden is setting a statewide precedent with its number of
smog days, which are directly linked to impacting the most vulnerable populations—children and the elderly. Smog is directly linked to aggravating and even
causing pediatric asthma. In 1998, there were 7,468 registered cases of pediatric
asthma in Camden County. These children are joined by 22,432 adults with asthma
who must always be vigilant about air quality. Our elderly citizens in the county
are vulnerable as well, especially the 16,087 citizens who suffer from chronic
bronchitis and 5,244 who suffer from emphysema. These are people who are told
by medical professionals that breathing the air outside is unhealthy on one
out of three summer days.
These are real people with
real health problems. The threat they face is a constant one and it should be required that they have the strongest reductions possible of emissions from the
incinerator because of the health risk faced by surrounding residents. Too often,
right now in this country, there is a regulatory willingness to look the other
way, as the rollback of New Source Review exemplifies, or a business mindset
to quiet opposition, even if it requires a utility to buy out a whole town as
recently happened in Ohio. The Clean Air Act requires this review of this facility,
and this should not be merely an academic exercise—these health threats
should be acknowledged and this facility should be required to improve its emissions
record.
