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Harrisburg
Incinerator Campaign
 Incinerator
Update
The Harrisburg Incinerator, a 30 year old combustor
of municipal trash, has been a frequent violator of environmental
laws and regulations and has been identified by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency as perhaps the largest air
pollution source of dioxin in the nation. Despite the efforts
of the city to keep the incinerator open, the EPA ordered
it to be shutdown when the national large municipal waste
incinerator standards took effect on Dec. 19, 2000. The
city of Harrisburg, the EPA, and the Pennsylvania Department
of Environmental Protection (DEP) later negotiated a deal
to allow the facility to reopen on January 13 as a "small"
waste incinerator by installing a computer system and new
exhaust fan to prevent the facility from burning more than
490 tons of garbage per day. The effect of this deal is
that until June 18, 2003, the incinerator can continue to
pollute at a level twenty five times higher than the dioxin
standards that other large incinerators must meet.
Prior to the negotiations the incinerator was capable of
burning 720 tons of garbage per day, but in reality the
average amount of garbage burned in the facility was approximately
460 tons per day in 2000. So despite the City and the DEP’s
claims to the contrary, a restriction on the incinerator
to only burn 490 tons per day had the clear potential to
increase actual pollution being spewed into central Pennsylvania
air. Wind currents carry the pollution to the Northeast
U.S. and Canada; the incinerator has been linked to pollution
as far north as the Arctic Circle.
The incinerator is also a financial nightmare for the city
of Harrisburg. To perform the upgrade to the incinerator
required to meet the new standards in 2003, the city has
estimated needing another $50-60 million. The city authority
currently is carrying a $55 million debt on the incinerator
that costs $4.5 to $6 million just in accumulated interest
per year. Not surprisingly, the incinerator often loses
money, including seven out of the last eight fiscal years.
The Council has attempted to raise local awareness of the
dioxin problem to try to prevent the re-permitting of the
facility. The night that the incinerator restarted its burners,
Clean Air Council sponsored a midnight candlelight vigil
with local activists outside the facility to protest the
decision to recommence operations. In February, the Council
sponsored a lecture by Dr. Paul Connett, a professor of
chemistry at St. Lawrence University. Dr. Connett is an
expert on the effects of dioxins and heavy metals due to
municipal waste incineration. In March, Clean Air Council
invited Lois Gibbs, executive director of the Center for
Health, Environment, and Justice, to speak to the public
about environmental justice and organizing communities to
oppose dioxin sources. Gibbs was the lead organizer for
the citizen campaign in Love Canal, N.Y. which forced the
federal government to evacuate a community built on a toxic
waste landfill. These events had strong public turnout and
each were preceded by press conferences organized by the
Council which received excellent coverage by network television
and print news media in the Central Pennsylvania region.
Recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer did a major piece on
the incinerator in which the Council was quoted.
Clean Air Council maintains the position that the city of
Harrisburg must bring its incinerator into compliance with
current Clean Air Act standards or shut the facility down.
Clean Air Council is awaiting its opportunity to comment
officially to DEP on the facility’s long delayed permit.
10/17/00 For the Patriot-News
"As I See It" Column
While heading for Harrisburg on the South Bridge on a clear
night, one can enjoy the beauty of the modest skyline and
shimmering lights on the waters of the Susquehanna. Cast
an eye to the right, though, and the image is often marred
by a plainly visible, dark plume of smoke from the Harrisburg
incinerator. The pollution drifts ominously to the North,
not rising but settling back down onto city neighborhoods,
at times diffusing into a haze. What's in that cloud?
Nothing good. The incinerator, or the Harrisburg Materials
Energy Resource and Recovery Facility, as it's officially
known, releases a whole stew of harmful chemicals into the
air including: dioxin, mercury, lead, cadmium, acid gases,
particulates and carbon monoxide. It releases these chemicals
at levels that would never be tolerated by the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection or U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency in new facilities. Because the nearly
30-year-old plant pre-dates many Clean Air Act requirements,
it is far dirtier than more modern municipal incinerators
in York and Lancaster counties.
The Harrisburg incinerator is so dirty, in fact, that it
is has a notorious history of permit violations involving
fugitive emissions (raw pollution released without pollution
control treatment) and visible emissions (dark smoke containing
particulates and other pollutants) as recent as this summer.
Most notorious of all is the incinerator's record on dioxin,
a powerful carcinogen which can have tragic developmental
and reproductive system consequences. Just weeks ago, a
study commissioned by the North American Commission for
Environmental Cooperation found that dioxin from the Harrisburg
facility was contributing to contamination of the Canadian
Arctic. While city officials were quick to reject the report's
conclusions, there is no denying that this industrial relic
is one of the top emitters of dioxin among municipal incinerators
in the entire nation.
Readers of the Patriot News will recall EPA's enforcement
against the incinerator for wildly high dioxin readings
in 1997. Under a consent agreement, Harrisburg must regularly
report its dioxin levels, which continue to be hundreds
of times higher than tested levels at the York and Lancaster
facilities.
DEP has a Plan for Municipal Waste Combustors (MWCs). Under
the Plan and the permit to operate which the Harrisburg
incinerator holds, the facility must shut down by December
19. That is the date when strict, new federal standards
for old and new large municipal waste incinerators will
take effect. The standards will cover all the major pollutants.
But the City apparently has other ideas. Rather than accept
the fact that this investment has not been profitable, it
is doing everything possible to keep this horrendous polluter
in operation. That will likely involve nearly $1 million
in imminent adjustments so the plant can remain in operation,
circumventing health protection regulations by qualifying
for "small" MWC status with EPA. That loophole
will run out in a few years, however, so Harrisburg intends
to spend as much as $70 million more of the taxpayers' money
to fully retrofit the plant to meet coming EPA maximum emissions
standards. Total debt for the facility would approach $120
million. In the meantime, the City continues to seek more
trash to feed the beast.
Where will the trash go? If the incinerator closes, trash
will be sent to Pennsylvania landfills or even to cleaner
municipal incinerators in neighboring counties. Maybe now
there will be greater incentive to expand and improve Harrisburg
area recycling and waste reduction programs.
People in the low income, and minority communities near
the incinerator have had to contend with this foul, dangerous
neighbor for way too long. It's time to chalk it up to experience
and shut it down.
Michael Fiorentino, Esq.
Harrisburg Director
Clean Air Council
NOVEMBER 22, 2000 CLEAN AIR COUNCIL
APPLAUDS EPA'S REJECTION OF HARRISBURG INCINERATOR PLAN;
EPA ORDERS SHUTDOWN
HARRISBURG -- In a decision consistent with longstanding
policy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today indicated
it would not accept the City of Harrisburg's proposed changes
to the Harrisburg Incinerator and ordered a shutdown by
December 19, 2000. The City's proposal would have allowed
the facility to continue operating without a retrofit needed
to meet new federal standards.
The Harrisburg Incinerator has a long history of environmental
violations and its shutdown on December 19 will yield an
immediate improvement to air quality. The facility releases
acid gasses, particulates, heavy metals and dioxins in amounts
many times higher than most municipal waste combustors.
"This is a powerful victory for the environment and
the people of the Harrisburg region who have waited a long
time for relief from this astonishingly dirty incinerator,"
said Joseph Otis Minott, Executive Director of Clean Air
Council. "Had an EPA approval occurred, the incinerator
could have continued polluting at current levels for as
long as five years."
The City proposed to avoid the new federal regulation by
making minor, computer-based control changes at the incinerator
which would limit capacity to below 500 tons per day, the
threshold amount requiring environmental improvements. EPA
wisely recognized that the City's proposal would not result
in a permanent change in the facility, a fundamental prerequisite
for a capacity-reduction approach to the regulation which
is known as a "derate."
The letter from EPA Region III Administrator Brad Campbell
indicated that the Harrisburg Incinerator is one of only
two in the entire United States not prepared to meet the
federal regulations taking effect in December.
"Harrisburg officials knew this day would come for
many years but have done very little to prepare," said
Michael Fiorentino, Esq., Harrisburg Director of Clean Air
Council. "One would hope that a municipality, acting
in the best interest of its residents, would seek early
compliance with clean air laws. Unfortunately, that has
not been the case here."
EPA's Letter to DEP Secretary James M. Seif provided several
reasons for the decision to reject the City's proposal and
noted missed opportunities since 1991 to modernize the facility.
"It's difficult to have sympathy for an incinerator
which has continually delayed any real effort to clean up
its air pollution," said Minott. "It's not surprising
that EPA identifies the Incinerator as perhaps the greatest
single source of dioxins/furans in the Nation."
The costs of a full retrofit have been assessed at $60 to
70 million and would result in a 720-ton per day facility.
City waste disposal needs are only a small fraction of that
amount. "The residents of Harrisburg should take a
very close look at whether this would be money well-spent,"
Fiorentino said. "Improved recycling and waste reduction
with disposal in well-managed, existing landfills with ample
capacity may well be a better deal economically, and it
is undoubtedly better environmentally."
The Council has been outspoken in its opposition to the
incinerator by organizing local citizens, activists and
environmental organizations, addressing City Council and
the Harrisburg Authority Board, and publishing a guest column
in the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
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