Residents Have Had Enough: Environmental Racism and Injustice in Southern Delaware County
Along the Delaware River in the southern part of Delaware County refineries and incinerators have been poisoning the air for decades, negatively impacting residents’ health and quality of life.
On Saturday, June 26, residents of Chester, Marcus Hook, and surrounding Delaware County communities welcomed participants of the “Walk for Our Grandchildren” into their neighborhoods to draw attention to local environmental justice and public health issues. The Walk for Our Grandchildren included several dozen grandparents walking from Scranton, PA to Wilmington, DE over the course of a week to highlight the impact of the fossil fuel industry on local communities, and to call on the Biden administration to take stronger actions to address climate change.
Members of the Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL) group greeted the walkers at the gate to the polluting Covanta waste incinerator in Chester. There, community leaders from Chester shared their personal stories, including being forced to abandon their homes adjacent to the facility, the persistent noxious odors, and high rates of asthma, particularly among children. CRCQL leader Zulene Mayfield, who has been fighting environmental injustice in Chester for decades, shared the history of how the toxic Covanta facility was deliberately placed in Chester, a predominantly Black community.
“We welcome the support of the Walk for Our Grandchildren to highlight the issues that we have been facing here in Chester for years,” Zulene Mayfield stated, “The toxic Covanta incinerator is one of the most egregious examples of environmental racism in the country, and we call upon the Delaware County Council to end its contract with Covanta so that our children and families can breathe.”
The grandparents then traveled to Marcus Hook municipal park overlooking the Delaware River, where they had a clear view of the INEOS ships transporting ethane from the processing plant in Marcus Hook to Europe to be manufactured into single-use plastics.
Members of Marcus Hook, Trainer, and Chichester Residents for Public Health spoke to the many impacts to public health and safety that have resulted from the Sunoco / Energy Transfer Mariner East pipelines and the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex. Residents expressed a need for more information, education, and community wide awareness of the links between pollution and health impacts.
“Our fight in Marcus Hook is to make residents aware of the health issues and what they can do about them,” said local resident Lorraine Daliessio, “We have an Environmental Advisory Council made up of both residents and refinery representatives but many residents are not aware of the part they can play, or even that the EAC exists. We need awareness.”
Residents in both Chester and Marcus Hook, as well as surrounding communities such as Trainer and Upper and Lower Chichester bear the brunt of the pollution impacts from the refineries and incinerators along the Delaware River in the southern part of the County. In all of these communities, residents are holding out hope that the newly formed Delaware County Health Department will help to analyze the impacts of pollution on public health in these communities, and that change may finally come after decades of injustice and harm. The Clean Air Council has been supporting these community organizing efforts through our outreach, advocacy, and legal work.
Eve Miari, Advocacy Coordinator for Clean Air Council, added, “Residents in communities impacted by toxic air pollution are coming together and saying loudly and clearly, we have had enough. Enough environmental injustice, enough environmental racism, enough prioritization of private profit over public health. We have a right to clean air, pure water, and a healthy environment. We have the right to breathe.”
For more information contact Eve Miari, Advocacy Coordinator, emiari@cleanair.org
