Waste-to-energy plants can help
To the Editor,
Recent letters to the editor of The Swarthmorean regarding the waste-to-energy plant run by Covanta in Chester appear to have veered into the realm of propaganda rather than actual fact.
If you look at the location of Covanta’s plant on a map, you will see that the borough of Trainer’s boundary is extremely close to the Covanta property. I rode down to the plant and easily crossed into Trainer within a few blocks. Yet both Stefan Roots (opinion piece, 5/14 issue) and Will Richan (letter to the editor, 5/7 issue) tell us that the purported pollution of Covanta’s stacks falls mainly on the people of Chester. Does it not also fall as much on the people of Trainer? Maybe there’s a new directional physics involved that just affects the aerosols of Covanta’s exhaust gases, causing them to flow towards more economically depressed areas of our county, but I don’t think so. Come on Roots and Richan, let’s stand up for the people of Trainer too!
Both Richan and Roots present a lot of innuendo-based material which would have the reader think that the exhaust of the Covanta stacks is highly polluting and damaging to our lungs (or the lungs of the residents of Chester). Yet neither of them provides detailed evidence that the exhaust gases emanating from those stacks are actually harmful or exceed the concentrations allowed by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. I would suggest that both of these analysts go to Covanta’s website and view the daily published exhaust statistics. Publishing this information is a new development in an effort to help folks in the surrounding locales understand how much harmful gas comes out of their stacks. A story about this was published in Delaware County Daily Times on April 29. If Roots or Richan (or Swarthmorean readers) are interested in reading that article, it is readily available on the Daily Times website. I can also email anyone a copy.
For those brave enough to wander onto the internet to find out what has been accomplished by waste-to-energy plants in Europe, please Google “issy les moulineaux waste to energy.” You should find an example of a modern plant on the banks of the Seine in Paris that provides heat and electricity to surrounding residents. Apparently in France (and, I believe, in other European cities), people have figured out how to work with the science to effectively recycle their trash in ways that help their citizenry rather than burden it. Rather than denigrate Covanta in Chester with snarky comments and dark photos of exhaust stacks spewing out threatening pollutants, Richan and Roots should be working with the City of Chester and Covanta to make their plant more like the Europeans’. We might all be better off.
Rich Ailes
Swarthmore