Grid Magazine August 2022 [#159]

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Old coal mines are still poisoning our waters

Solarizing the city: Panels for every roof?

p. 10

p. 16

Covanta: our trashburning, smogspewing neighbor p. 32

AUGUST 2022 / ISSUE 159 / GRIDPHILLY.COM

T O W A R D A S U S TA I N A B L E P H I L A D E L P H I A

Can Philadelphia ac hieve stated climate chan ge goals while protecting th e jobs of PGW employ ees?

THE ENERGY ISSUE

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EDI TO R ’S NOTES

by

alex mulcahy

publisher Alex Mulcahy director of operations Nic Esposito associate editor & distribution Timothy Mulcahy tim@gridphilly.com copy editor Sophia D. Merow art director Michael Wohlberg writers Marilyn Anthony Bernard Brown Nic Esposito Sylvie Gallier Howard Constance Garcia-Barrio Lindsay Hargrave Sophia D. Merow Lois Volta Russell Zerbo photographers Chris Baker Evens Bernard Brown Scott Lewis illustrators Lois Volta published by Red Flag Media 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 215.625.9850 G R I D P H I L LY. C O M

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I

’ve been grappling with Vaclav Smil’s provocative book, “How The World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going.” Smil, a professor at the University of Manitoba, has written dozens of books on big topics including population, food and energy, usually with scientists or public policy professionals in mind. This book, however, is intended for a general audience.

Smil effectively demonstrates how profoundly dependent we are upon fossil fuels.

And that the material concerns of the world — ammonia (fertilizer necessary for feeding the world), plastic, steel and concrete — will need fossil fuels for production for decades to come. The notion that we could suddenly transition to renewable energy on deadline — almost always a year that ends in 0 or 5 — to him is laughable.

On the heels of a merciless, scorching heatwave, I’m guessing I’m not alone in feeling the urge to do something right now.

A full embrace of renewable energy seems like a logical direction, but three considerations, two of which we cover in this issue, give me pause.

The first is the legacy of coal. We hungrily devoured every nugget, extracting it from mines like there was no tomorrow. We now know about the pollution and the greenhouse gas emissions, but we don’t often talk about the lasting harm mining causes to the land. Bernard Brown took a trip to Schuylkill County where he stuck his hand into the orange mud that’s the result of water polluted by toxic metals from abandoned mines. This problem will persist … forever.

Perhaps bats crashing into giant blades on a turbine seems an unfortunate but

necessary price we must pay to liberate ourselves from the fossil fuel era. But Smil reminds us that these towers of concrete, plastic and steel are manufactured using fossil fuels. Brown reports that the bat carnage caused by windmills can be reduced greatly by turning off the blades at times when little electricity is being generated. Yet there is little documentation of this practice within the industry.

Finally, our beloved solar panels are also imperfect. Forged in high heat, made possible by fossil fuels, we are not really sure yet what to do with them when they are no longer functional. According to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that it costs roughly $20 to $30 to recycle a panel versus $1 to $2 to send it to a landfill.

In the landfill, the toxic metals the panels contain can leach out and potentially reach groundwater supplies. As solar scales up, the recycling issues will grow with it.

All of this means that, at the very least, we must move forward with renewable energy with as much foresight and regulation as possible. We can’t afford to look away just because we don’t like what we see.

Finally, conservation is given short shrift when discussing energy, and that’s for obvious reasons. Nobody makes money on it.

Since all forms of energy exact some toll on the environment, conservation should be the primary message and strategy of anyone worried about climate change. There is truth in the saying, “The greenest energy is the energy we don’t use.”

a l e x m u l ca h y , Editor-in-Chief

I L LU S T R AT E D P O R T R A I T BY J A M E S B O Y L E ; O N T H E C OV E R : I S TO C K P H OTO ; C H R I S B A K E R E V E N S

Grounded in Reality

AUGUST 20 22

G R I DP HI LLY.COM

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by

lois volta

DEAR LOIS,

In a time when women’s bodily autonomy is under attack, how can men be allies?

L

et’s say that the toothpaste splattered on the bathroom mirror bothers you. Every time you clean the mirror you are reminded that you’re the only person who does this job and it’s frustrating that no one else cares enough to clean it up.

The first step toward peace of mind is finding out if you are the person making the mess. Clean the mirror, then brush your teeth and observe. If it’s you, let the resentment go, keep cleaning up after yourself and modify the action.

If someone else is making the mess, it doesn’t have to be a big deal. They just need the information that stepping back from the mirror reduces the splatter. Easy.

This type of change is respectful, not because the person was asked to change, but because that person acknowledged the unspoken expectation that someone else shouldn’t have to clean up their splattered mouth grime.

In a mutually respectful relationship, it’s safe to address domestic issues without fear of an argument. The person who made the splatters would thank the person who has been cleaning up after them, and then change the behavior to avoid perpetuating the issue.

Now let’s say that you are bothered by how saturated our country is with misogyny. Everywhere you look you see the patriarchal grime that is covering our social behaviors and everyday life. It’s frustrating and you are tired of feeling alone in the melodrama of how it plays out in real time and how it impacts the home.

The first step is finding out if you are per4

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AUGUST 2022

petuating misogynistic behaviors. Check your values, self-respect, dignity, let the resentment go (but get fired up) and then keep pushing toward liberation.

If the people around you are overcome with patriarchal indoctrination it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Everyone is. They just need the information that to be an ally they need to modify behaviors.

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there are a lot of voices asking men to speak up about what is happening to women in this country. And frankly, many men don’t know what to do or say.

My suggestion is to listen and quietly work on modifying behaviors where you are. Now more than ever women need support, not dominance. It’s time for men to be more submissive and give up some of their

everyday liberties, like splattering toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror and not cleaning up.

In a mutually respectful relationship it’s safe to address female liberation in a practical way. If women weren’t so busy managing and maintaining their homes and taking care of the domestic needs of men, they might find more time to fight for liberty and political autonomy. But not only fight: women need to heal and make sense of what was just lost.

In addition to voting for women’s rights, the best way for men to support women (in this war against them) is by being overly active participants in the home. Make yourself useful and learn how to be there for the women in your lives during this time when they need you the most. Help take the edge off in practical ways. If you don’t know how, learn and take lessons.

Be reasonable about the reality of what women just lost; getting on one’s knees to clean the floor should not be that big of a deal.

In doing this it will give women the much-needed hope that things do change.

Let your domestic actions be revolutionary and meaningful. ◆ lois volta is a home life consultant, artist and founder of The Volta Way. Send questions to info@thevoltaway.com.

P O R T R A I T BY J A M E S B O Y L E

TH E VO LTA WAY

IL LUSTRATIO N BY LO IS VOLTA

sponsored content

The Vicinity Energy plant in the Grays Ferry neighborhood creates steam heat to be delivered to district energy buildings throughout Center City and West Philadelphia.

Full Steam Ahead

Vicinity Energy’s district steam loop is planning to use more sustainable energy to heat and cool Philadelphia’s buildings

P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F V I C I N I T Y E N E R GY

A

s we feel the effects of extreme heat and extreme weather, we can no longer delay action. But Philadelphians may not realize that major emissions reductions are happening below our feet everyday.

For over 100 years, an innovative and sustainable district energy system has operated throughout much of Center City and parts of University City through a network of underground pipes that carry steam to heat hundreds of high-rise buildings, including apartments, commercial buildings, hospitals and universities. The steam is created in a centralized boiler rather than each building relying on their own boilers, which makes the system more efficient and reliable.

“District energy is an old tech that has remained relevant by meeting the moment,” says Matt O’Malley, chief sustainability officer for Vicinity Energy, which now operates the district energy steam loop.

At its inception, the centralized boiler at the plant in Grays Ferry was powered by coal.

Later in the 20th century the power source switched to a mix of oil and natural gas. In the 21st century, much of the power is produced by combined heat and power (CHP), which uses a reduced amount of fossil fuels to heat the boilers, but then captures that heat to generate electricity much like the heat from

a car’s engine is used to power the car. CHP has an efficiency as high as 80%, as compared to the 50% efficiency of an individual building’s gas boiler. Based on these numbers, Vicinity’s district energy system avoids over 300,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.

Vicinity Energy took over the operations in 2018 and, with a commitment to cleaner forms of energy, they began using LR100 biogenic oil (or, to put it in layman’s terms, “used cooking grease”) from Center City restaurants in partnership with grease collector Lifecycle Renewables. But understanding that the future will be powered by renewable energy, Vicinity is preparing for a fossil fuel-free future.

O’Malley describes their plan as a “three legged stool.” The first leg is to convert all of their gas boilers to electric boilers powered by buying renewable energy from Pennsylvania’s grid through solar and wind. The sec-

ond leg is to then use heat-pump technology to leverage energy from the nearby Schuylkill River to further increase energy production and efficiency. The third leg is to increase the capability of thermal storage through sodium-ion batteries that are increasing capacity to store renewably generated energy.

Although district energy is limited in its geographic scope, for the buildings that it does benefit it boasts a 99.9% reliability rate to bring heat and cooling to buildings, according to O’Malley. Even though much of the pipe network runs through Center City, Vicinity has a portion of its network that runs through environmental justice (EJ) communities such as Grays Ferry and other parts of West Philadelphia.

“With every building we are able to tie into this technology and serve on our grid, we improve the air quality of the city and those EJ communities,” O’Malley explains.

Given Philadelphia’s commitment to reducing emissions by 80% by 2050 and other progress such as the newly-formed Environmental Justice Advisory Commission, Vicinity sees this as the right time to be making these investments in Philadelphia.

Although their conversion to electric boilers and renewable energy usage won’t begin for another few years as they work with city and state officials on the regulatory aspects of their plan, O’Malley is definitive in Vicinity’s commitment to a clean energy future in Philadelphia.

“We’ve been meeting with some great organizations, city leaders and activists who’ve been offering us honest feedback and are really excited about this plan,” O’Malley says.

“And we’re going to just continue our coalition building to get this done.” ◆

With every building we are able to tie into this technology and serve on our grid, we improve the air quality of the city and those EJ communities.”

— matt o’malley, chief sustainability officer for Vicinity Energy AUGUST 20 22

G R I DP HI LLY.COM

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Turbine Tragedy The wind industry knows how to stop the slaughter of bats.

So why don’t they? by bernard brown

B

ats are small, delicate creatures, and wind turbines can be as large as half a football field long, reaching speeds of over 100 miles per hour.

It’s not hard to guess the outcome when the two collide.

Unfortunately, they collide frequently.

Studies of bats killed by wind turbines have found four to seven dead bats per megawatt of wind energy per year at large land-based wind installations. In 2020 the total landbased wind energy capacity of the United States hit 121,955 megawatts, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Some quick arithmetic shows a total of 487,820 to 853,685 dead bats per year. And with wind power capacity rapidly increasing, the toll will rise.

The type of bat killed depends on where the turbines are, but the North American death toll is dominated by three species common in our part of the country: red bats, silver-haired bats and hoary bats.

Why exactly bats end up at wind farms 6 GRID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

is still a topic of research and debate. They might just be curious, they might be hunting for bugs near the turbines, and it might be love. Male bats can be attracted to large trees as landmarks in otherwise open space as sites to sing to attract females.

“At the end of the day the bats are dead and it may not matter why,” says Ed Arnett, biologist and CEO of The Wildlife Society. From 2004 to 2012 Arnett pioneered research into bats and wind turbines with the advocacy group Bat Conservation International. “They are killed by being hit by the blades, no question about that.”

And enough are getting killed to make a difference. A 2017 study using a computer model to predict the future of hoary bats found that deaths from wind turbines could cause their populations to drop by 90% in the next 50 years. “Our results suggest that wind energy development may pose a substantial threat to migratory bats in North America. If viable populations are to be

sustained, conservation measures to reduce mortality from turbine collisions likely need to be initiated soon,” the authors wrote.

Fortunately, we know how to reduce the slaughter. Bats tend to hang around turbines and get hit by them at low wind speeds. Thus, as Arnett and other researchers figured out, feathering the blades of the turbines — turning them parallel to the wind so they stop rotating — at lower wind speeds on nights during migration can save bats. A 2021 review of studies of what is often called “curtailment” found that the practice could cut bat mortality by 63%.

Wind turbines generally don’t produce power below a certain “cut-in” wind speed, even though the blades might still rotate. It is relatively easy for turbine operators to feather blades below cut-in speed, but the top of the range of wind speeds for which bats need protection can overlap with the cut-in speed, forcing a clash between bat protection and energy production.

Bat deterrent devices, which blast the bat equivalent of white noise in an attempt to make it difficult for them to navigate by echolocation and thus discourage them from hanging around, have had mixed results. A 2016 study found that the devices

D R N A D I G / I S TO C K P H OTO

urban naturalist

Left: A dead Nathusius’s pipistrelle lies on the ground in front of the wind turbine that sealed its fate. Below: The hoary bat is one of the species most impacted by turbines in North America (pictured is the Hawaiian subspecies).

They are killed by being hit by the blades, no question about that.”

— ed arnett,

F R O M TO P : C H R I S T I A N C . VO I GT; F O R E S T A N D K I M S TA R R

biologist and CEO of The Wildlife Society

did not reduce the number of bats killed by turbines, and actually seemed to increase the number of red bats killed.

In Pennsylvania, wind operators appear to be complying with a cooperative agreement with the state, in which, among other measures, they curtail operations on nights when bats are likely to be most active.

“Pennsylvania took a hard stand with its co-

operative agreement,” Arnett said.

“So far, about 40 facilities statewide have signed the agreement. The agreement is voluntary, but most facilities follow the measures,” says Travis Lau, communications director for the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC). “The PGC also requests adjustments be made to wind turbine speed to reduce mortality.”

Outside of Pennsylvania, it is unclear how many wind farms curtail operations to save bats. The wind energy industry adopted voluntary measures to reduce bat mortality in 2015, but no one seems to know how many companies are actually adopting the measures. I asked Michael Whitby, the director of the Bats and Wind Program at Bat Conservation International, how widespread curtailment is in the wind power industry today. “We have no information on that,” he said. The voluntary practices also let turbines cut in at low enough speeds to keep killing a lot of bats.

A publication by the industry-backed Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute implies that the commitment to protecting bats does not extend very far. “To be implemented effectively, technologies designed to minimize wildlife impacts during wind facility operation need to be able to do so without adversely affecting turbine performance or maintenance requirements.” Protecting wildlife is fine, as long as it doesn’t touch the bottom line.

The Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute did not reply to multiple requests for information on how widespread curtailment is, and three wind operators I contacted about their practices did not reply.

“There really hasn’t been broad implementation of curtailment,” Arnett says.

“This industry has known about this issue for a long, long while — 15 years of info coming in — so to build a facility and not factor this in is poor planning.”

Wildlife advocates who want to push back in any way against the wind power industry walk a rhetorical tightrope. On one side the cause of bats and other wildlife is taken up disingenuously by people who oppose wind power on aesthetic “NIMBY” grounds as well as by fossil fuel backers, like Donald Trump. On the other hand, any compromise to protect wildlife can be dismissed by environmentalists as standing in the way of the fight against global warming, even though that framing ignores the option of conserving energy.

The expansion of renewables entails the industrialization of vast swaths of wildlife habitat. This is true of wind farms, of Southwestern solar projects that kill desert tortoises and could fragment habitat for larger animals like pronghorn antelope, not to mention proposals to clear forests for arrays of solar panels.

The environment has taken a hit from every energy revolution to date: whale oil, water power, nuclear, and, of course, fossil fuels. Though wind helps solve one set of problems, it creates others. It is possible to protect wildlife and expand the use of renewable energy, and it is incumbent on those of us who support both to demand that we avoid the mistakes of the past. ◆ AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HILLY.COM 7

city healing

Volunteers at Cradles to Crayons pack boxes of supplies for students in need.

‘Quality Equals Dignity’

T

he young father made a post on Nextdoor, a virtual neighborhood network, pleading for diapers for his newborn son. Out of work, he had no money to buy them, he wrote, and his partner and baby were due home from the hospital.

“Try Cradles to Crayons,” a neighbor wrote back.

That advice may have helped keep the young family afloat. Begun at a Boston site in 2002 and in Philadelphia in 2006, Cradles to Crayons, a nonprofit in Allegheny West, assists families living with poverty or homelessness.

“We provide everyday essentials for children from ages zero to 12 through service partners like foster care agencies, immigration services, schools, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and community health centers,” says executive director Michal Smith.

8 GRID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

“That includes clothes, footwear, books and school supplies. Families ask their social worker or case manager to place an order for them. We prefer to work through service providers who know what the family needs.”

Cradles to Crayons stays busy. About 25% of Philadelphians lived below the poverty line in 2017, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts factsheet.

“Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the nation,” says Smith, who has extended the service area to South Jersey. “Some 300,000 children across the region live in poverty.”

Evelyn Acevado, 46, project coordinator with Puerto Rican Unity for Progress, a nonprofit serving low-income Camden County residents and a Cradles to Crayons service partner, relies on the latter’s help in cold weather.

“This past winter, Cradles to Crayons provided … lots of shoes, rainboots, hats

and gloves,” she says. “It was a huge help during the pandemic. A lot of people were out of work, struggling to pay rent and buy food, let alone coats and shoes.”

“The Camden County Police Department gets in touch with us in emergencies,” Acevado adds. “They’ll say, ‘We have a mom and three kids here burned out of their house.’

We do our best.”

Cradles to Crayons supplies gently used clothes and other items donated by individuals, families, churches, synagogues and corporations brought to their headquarters or left at collection sites throughout Greater Philadelphia.

Volunteers sort donations by gender, age group and season for use.

“We check clothes to ensure there are no stains, tears or broken zippers,” Smith says. “We don’t accept clothes with religious symbols because they might not accord with

P H OTO S C O U R T E S Y O F C R A D L E S TO C R AY O N S

Staffed by volunteers, nonprofit helps kids in need with school supplies, clothing and books by constance garcia-barrio

Kalia Farrell-Adibe volunteers with her children, Ijenna, Jadon and Nnaji, at the Cradles to Crayons Giving Factory.

It was a huge help during the pandemic.

A lot of people were out of work, struggling to pay rent and buy food, let alone coats and shoes.”

— evelyn acevado, project coordinator with Puerto Rican Unity for Progress the faith of recipients. Everything is quality-checked four times before it goes out the door.”

Shoes, especially sneakers, get spa-level treatment because they’re often seen as status markers.

“We strive to make them look new,” Smith says. “They’re so important to children.”

On the other hand, some donations are, in fact, new.

“Socks and pajamas must be new [because of hygiene]. Packages of diapers must be unopened,” Smith says, noting that Cradles to Crayons has furnished 3.6 million diapers in Greater Philadelphia since the pandemic started.

“We have a motto,” says Cradles to Crayons volunteer coordinator Melissa Ziegler, 23. “‘Quality equals dignity.’ The clothes

should give children the confidence to flourish. Clothes that don’t make the cut go to thrift stores. Nothing is wasted.”

Clothes go into bundles, according to what social workers have ordered.

In addition to clothing, Cradles to Crayons supplies some baby items and bedding.

The organization has a small staff and receives funding from individuals, corporations and foundations, but money stays in Smith’s thoughts. “As executive director, sustaining revenue is in the front of my mind, so we can continue serving children and filling the gaps in the donated items,” she says.

Volunteers power the operation of the Giving Factory, the 26,000-square-foot warehouse, once part of a radio manufacturing complex, where items are received and processed. Pre-COVID, Cradles to

Crayons had 2,500 volunteers a month, Smith says, but the pandemic cut that number in half while demand jumped.

“We are grateful for those who have volunteered throughout the pandemic, but since we are a community powered organization, we rely on volunteers to get the basic work done,” she says. “This presents a challenge with volunteer numbers down.

Right now we get about 1,000 a month.”

Volunteers, who work two-hour shifts, may tackle anything from packing bundles to wielding pens. “Have a great year!” Chris, 25, a data analyst and volunteer, wrote on a note destined for one of the 50,000 backpacks full of school supplies that Cradles to Crayons gives children in August. Chris added a rainbow from a sheet of stickers.

“We’re having a competition to see who can use these stickers most creatively,” he says, nodding toward his colleagues.

Volunteers also prep books. “A lot of kids we serve don’t have a personal library, but they need books in their lives,” Ziegler says.

“We check books for marks, cut out pages that show it was a gift to another child and wipe the cover and spine with a Simple Green solution.”

Volunteering seems a win-win situation.

“You kind of feel good when you’re in the midst of doing this,” says corporate volunteer Michael Edge, 44, lifting bags of books from a huge bin, “and you get a half-day off.”

Katherine “Kat” Dice, 25, oversees Giving Factory logistics. “Before donations come in, I plan where they’ll go,” she explains.

“Say, we have 26 pallets of diapers arriving.

I make sure there’s space for them and volunteers to process them,” says Dice, a Saint Joseph’s University graduate who interned here for two summers.

“I love this organization for different reasons,” Dice says. “It’s the only one I know of that accepts volunteers from age five on.”

“It feels good and it feels bad to help here,” says Joel Larson, 8, sorting clothes with his mother, Julie Larson, and his friend Victor, 9. “You know that they’re poor people. You remember there are people sleeping on the sidewalk.”

“For us, the goal is to not exist,” Dice says, “to see the end of poverty and homelessness.” ◆ To learn more about Cradles to Crayons or to volunteer, visit cradlestocrayons.org/ philadelphia or call (215) 836-0958.

AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP H ILLY.COM 9

water

Abandoned mines spewing toxic water is the unwanted legacy of coal by bernard brown

A

cloudy pool of water marks the spot where, every minute, about 1,200 gallons of toxic mine drainage, contaminated with sulfuric acid and iron, flows out of the ground in the hills above New Philadelphia, in Schuylkill County. Below lies a flooded mine void, the space where miners extracted tons of anthracite coal from the ground to be shipped to (old) Philadelphia using canals along the Schuylkill River or railroads paralleling its course.

To prevent the pollutants from following the same path, in 2010 the Schuylkill Headwaters Association, working with a network of state and local partners, built a series of five wide pools, or “cells,” covering eight acres to treat the water before it enters Silver Creek, a tributary of the Schuylkill.

As the water spreads out and flows slowly through the cells, it absorbs oxygen from the air, allowing the iron to settle out as a lurid orange sludge. Two of the cells employ cattails, rushes and other wetland plants to trap more pollutants.

Pennsylvania has thousands of abandoned coal mines, many of them leaking toxic waste into nearby streams. When the Schuylkill Headwaters Association conducted an inventory of abandoned mine drainage sites in the watershed, they counted 164, according to Bill Reichert, president of the all volunteer group. (These sites were commonly referred to as “acid” mine drainage, but since, technically speaking, not all polluted mine drainage is acidic, the conventional term these days is “abandoned mine drainage.”)

The pollution is the legacy of centuries of anthracite coal mining in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The first anthracite coal mine was built near Pittston in Luzerne County in 1775. In the Schuylkill, drainage credit 10 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

goes to Necho Allen, a hunter who, in 1790, according to local legend, found that some of the rocks near his campfire ignited. In the early 1800s he went into business with a partner mining anthracite (the purest grade of coal, compared to bituminous and lignite) near Pottsville and shipping it to Philadelphia.

Anthracite is a beautiful rock, black and lustrous with a silky texture. It seems to soak up light even as it glitters. More important than its appearance, though, is the fact that it produces plenty of heat from a small package. In the 1800s coal overtook water power as the fuel of choice of the Industrial Revolution. Anthracite was also the primary way that Philadelphians heated their homes for 100 years beginning in the mid-1800s. Canals and then railroads brought anthracite from the upper reaches of the Schuylkill watershed into Philadelphia, where it was burned or shipped elsewhere.

Anthracite production climbed through the 1800s into the 1900s, peaking in 1917 at more than 100 million tons annually. From there it declined, down to about 3 million tons per year today, according to Dan Koury, a watershed manager for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, based in Pottsville. From 1870 through 2016 miners took more than 5 billion tons of anthracite out of the mountains, totalling more than 4 billion cubic yards, leaving behind vast underground voids in the mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

The problem is massive. The thousands of abandoned mines pollute waters in 43 of the commonwealth’s 67 counties, and each discharge can cost millions of dollars to treat.

BERNARD BROWN

Acid Rock

“So when they were mining they had to pump water in order to mine,” Koury says.

Otherwise groundwater would fill the mines. That pumped water carried silt and other mine waste with it. “So you can imagine what the Schuylkill River looked like in the 1800s,” he says.

When mines were abandoned, the voids filled up, resulting in today’s “mine pools.”

The water in the pools reacts with pyrite, an iron sulfide mineral common in Pennsylvania bedrock. This reaction acidifies the water while also adding iron and sulfur compounds. The acidic water dissolves more metals out of the bedrock, yielding a toxic soup. “It just emanates out of wherever the old [mine] entries were, but sometimes it pops out of a subsidence,” Koury says. Once the iron-rich water hits the air, it picks up oxygen and turns its characteristic rusty orange.

Thanks to environmental laws passed in the second half of the 20th century, mine operators are required to limit pollution from active mines and to guarantee the cleanup of mines that they close. The abandoned mines, for the most part, have no one to clean them up.

The problem is massive. The thousands of abandoned mines pollute waters in 43 of the commonwealth’s 67 counties, and each discharge can cost millions of dollars to treat.

In Pennsylvania, according to Reichert, the Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation focuses its limited resources on mines that pose immediate safety risks, such as open shafts that people could fall into or places where the ground collapses over old voids. This leaves mines that are strictly water pollution sources to groups such as the Schuylkill Headwaters Association.

Founded in 1998, the all volunteer group works to restore the Schuylkill’s watershed in its namesake county. “That means we do a lot of work on abandoned mine drainage discharges. That has been most of the focus of our work from the early days on,” Reichert says. At the headwaters of the Schuylkill they built treatment projects for three discharges that accounted for most of

Grid writer Bernard Brown holds sediment that has settled out of mine discharge at the Silver Creek abandoned mine drainage treatment facility.

AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HILLY.COM 1 1

Polluted water flows through an abandoned mine drainage treatment facility in Schuylkill County.

12 GR ID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

Abandoned mine drainage is a problem with no permanent fix. As long as the mountains stand, the mine voids will remain, and water will keep flowing from them.

Today the water from the Kaska Silt Dam paints the rocks orange where it enters the main stem of the Schuylkill in Middleport, a couple river miles upstream from New Philadelphia. Here the toxic discharge runs down a moonscape valley otherwise filled in with clay, coal silt and slate rubble, all rinsed from the coal taken out of the adjacent mountain over the course of 150 years of mining. The association will need to excavate 650,000 cubic yards (the volume of about 200 Olympic swimming pools) of the mine waste in order to construct a treatment site.

The price tag will be at least $10 to $12 million, but Reichert is hopeful that recently announced funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will foot the bill.

The Schuylkill is getting cleaner, but Reichert expressed some concern that support

for the work to restore the Schuylkill could wane as people view the Schuylkill as restored, rather than as a work in progress.

After the Kaska site there is a long list of discharges to treat, and the existing treatment facilities need to be maintained and monitored. Abandoned mine drainage is a problem with no permanent fix. As long as the mountains stand, the mine voids will remain, and water will keep flowing from them.

Nonetheless, he still celebrates the victories. Downstream of the Silver Creek site, where its treated water meets the Schuylkill River (which, at this early point in its course, is about 10 feet wide), the water is now clean enough to stock trout. “In the town of New Philadelphia,” Reichert says, “I never ever expected in my life to have a trout stream in my town.” ◆

S C H U Y L K I L L AC T I O N N E T W O R K

the river’s flow. “So within three miles you have three discharges that make up three quarters of the flow at that point. So if you correct those three discharges that’s 5,000 gallons a minute.”

After taking stock of the abandoned mine drainage (AMD) sources in the Schuylkill’s tributaries, the group began coordinating cleanups, targeting the largest sources of toxic discharge. Most AMD treatment consists of systems to increase the pH of the water (making it less acidic) and allow metals to settle out of the water. In some cases, as in Silver Creek, this means slowing the water enough to let natural processes reduce the pollution. At other sites they direct the water over limestone, which, as it dissolves, makes the water less acidic and allows metals to settle out.

For Silver Creek, the group procured a grant from the EPA for $858,402 to fund the treatment site. The group has built six others, and Reichert says that a few more sites have been removed from the original list as mining resumed, making their discharge the responsibility of the mine operators.

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AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 13

THROUGH THE ROOF Olde Kensington-based solar installer creates green, local, stable jobs

T

story by sophia d. merow

he “big story of solar,” according to Micah Gold-Markel, is not about slashing carbon footprints or lowering energy bills.

“Yes, people can save money,” concedes the founder of Solar States LLC. “Yes, they can save the planet, but really they can do the most good because they’re saving their communities with good-paying jobs.”

Inspired by the vision outlined in Van Jones’ bestselling “The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems,” Gold-Markel founded Solar States in 2008 with a dual mission: to install solar in and around Philadelphia and to serve as an on-ramp to the solar industry for inner-city residents. To that second end, Solar States has formed ongoing educational partnerships with vocational school Philadelphia OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Center), the Philadelphia Energy Authority, the Energy Coordinating Agency and the School District of Philadelphia. The Certified B Corporation has not only hired graduates of these training programs but taken pains to ensure that the company’s growth squares with its commitment to creating stable jobs.

“Up until two years ago,” Gold-Markel says, “our problem was 100% how do we get enough sales to support our staff and to grow our staff and to have full-time work.”

Reliant at the time on outside sources — programs like Solarize Philly and companies that provide leads for a fee — for prospective clients, Solar States experienced a revenue rollercoaster that necessitated corresponding fluctuations in staff size.

“We had to take a hard look in the mirror and say to ourselves, ‘If our model is consistent employment, is scaling up to 40 and then letting 15 people go consistent with that model?’” Gold-Markel recalls. “Clearly the answer was ‘no.’”

So Solar States upped its in-house sales 14 GRID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

game. Bill McBride came on board in 2020 and, after months of market research and bringing himself up to speed on all things solar, built out the company’s online presence and diversified its marketing efforts. Thanks to McBride’s wizardry and the elevation of the position of sales manager to the leadership team, Solar States attained a self-reliance unprecedented for the company.

“We can bring in enough work to sustain us through our own methods,” Gold-Markel reports.

Solar States still relies, of course, on suppliers to furnish the components of the rooftop arrays it installs. And of course the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on supply chains worldwide.

“It completely changed our business model,” says Gold-Markel.

Solar States used to employ a just-in-time inventory management method, whereby a supplier partner delivered parts and materials to job sites. Faced in the COVID era with unavailable panels, long wait times for parts, materials arriving behind schedule and/or over budget, the company has started warehousing components like panels and inverters and is looking to acquire more warehouse space.

Throughout the pandemic-induced pivot, Gold-Markel says, Solar States customers have been a bright spot. Sales are through the roof, for one thing.

“People are seeing the instability in both prices for energy and the world,” GoldMarkel figures, “and they’re thinking about how they can insulate themselves against that instability.”

Folks signing contracts with Solar States have been understanding — “amazing,” Gold-Markel insists — when complications arise, like when a promised 360-watt system is no longer available and a pricier 400-watt one has to be substituted or when there’s a year’s wait for the Tesla Powerwall, a rechargeable energy storage device.

Gold-Markel cites Solar States’ dedication to quality as something that sets it apart — something that perhaps contributes to customer goodwill. Solar States has an operations and maintenance team devoted to supporting clients — be that tweaking an installation setup or repairing squirrel damage to power lines — for as long as they own their array.

Susan Smythe of Swarthmore College says the company is “great to work with” on the front end of a project, too. Solar States won the bid to install a 400-kilowatt system on the roof of the college’s renovated dining hall because of their competitive pricing and high-quality panels but also because of their openness to “intense collaboration of the design side. They approached the project like a partnership,” Smythe says.

Customers also choose Solar States because of that business ethos Gold-Markel has striven to cultivate. “From a values perspective there’s an excellent fit,” says Mount Airy resident Steve Weinberg about why he decided to go with Solar States for his installation. “They are locally owned, they do solar education and create local green jobs.”

Weinberg was sold on Solar States after he and some neighbors met with energy consultant Marc Shackelford-Rowell in February.

A North Philadelphia native who has filled a variety of roles — installer, operations and maintenance crew member, permitting of-

The solar training program was the best free gift I’ve gotten to date.”

— marc shackelford-rowell , project manager for Solar States

P HOTO BY CHRIS BAKER EVENS

Solar States project manager Marc Shackelford-Rowell poses with a solar panel in the Solar States office.

ficer, project manager, sales representative — at Solar States since being hired in 2019, Shackelford-Rowell completed the free Smart Energy Technical Training (SETT) program, a collaboration between Solar States and Philadelphia OIC, and interned with the Philadelphia Energy Authority.

“The solar training program was the best free gift I’ve gotten to date,” Shackelford-Rowell says, praising SETT for its accessibility and hands-on instruction. “I’d like to think that being a participant in the

SETT program gave me a competitive edge for a lot of the job opportunities I’ve been presented after leaving there.”

Nurturing local talent like Shackelford-Rowell rates high on Solar States’ priority list. Gold-Markel estimates that 90% of Solar States’ 43 full-time employees — whose benefits packages include healthcare and 401(k) plans — are Philadelphians. The starting wage for a Solar States installer is $17 per hour, and the company aims to promote from within and provide opportunities for

advancement. One goal is to help more employees get their own electrical licenses.

“We’re here, and we’re growing, and we’re doing it with a model that pays people fairly. This is the type of business that Philadelphians want,” Gold-Markel says.

“A lot of people think about solar in terms of environmentalism or saving money, but really it’s all about great jobs for our community. The people we’re hiring are the type of people who wouldn’t have access to these sorts of jobs.”◆ AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 1 5

SHARE THE SUN A Philadelphia Energy Authority program is making solar possible for all Philadelphians story by marilyn anthony

16 GRID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

the “soft costs” of permitting, financing and customer acquisition account for about 65% of the installation expense. The SETO report notes the need for market interventions to ensure equitable access to the benefits of solar.

Innovations in purchasing, financing, community engagement and education are central to Solarize. Their superpower has been their ability to navigate among city programs, coordinate departments and utilities, and create a pool of trusted suppliers.

Solarize worked with Licenses & Inspections to streamline the permitting process, with PECO to simplify meter installation, with equipment suppliers to achieve group buying power, and with installers and service providers to create dependable choices for consumers.

In April 2022, Solarize introduced “Share the Sun,” described on their website as “a first-of-its-kind program in the nation” with the goal of making rooftop solar available for low to moderate income households in the city. Solarize’s new lease program offers a fixed rate for kilowatt hours over a 20-year span, at rates cheaper than PECO’s current rates.

Community marketing manager Julian Burnett went to work for PosiGen, one of Solarize’s partner providers, because he “wanted to see the impact of [his] work outside [his] front door.” Burnett says that Solarize’s leasing program has stimulated “more activity in low and moderate income homes. This is especially impactful since older homes are often less energy efficient, with incredible financial burdens for heating and cooling.”

Jared Pashko, residential and commercial sales manager for Solar States, another Solarize partner provider, sees the customer base for solar expanding. Pashko believes environmental concerns are driving more diverse customers to solar. “When I started it was very much an echo chamber of voic-

West Philadelphia rooftops are prime locations for solar to be installed.

es from the organic food crowd.” Now he sees “lots of people who want to switch to solar for their grandkids and for our future quality of life.”

Philadelphia Solar Energy Association executive director Liz Robinson attributes the uptick in solar to specific worries. “People are much more urgent in their desire and determination to add solar for many reasons, but environmental concerns are very strong, particularly in Philly. There’s tremendous awareness it’s going to get much worse here.

People are concerned about their quality of life as it relates to climate change.”

Abramson adds, “We’re already seeing hotter summers, more intense storms and more frequent power outages. Air conditioning is becoming more of a necessity than a luxury.”

Despite growing enthusiasm for solar, common misconceptions linger. PosiGen’s

K R I S TO N J A E B E T H E L

A

quick glance at today’s headlines reveals many issues that stress or divide us: inflation, gas prices, gun violence, climate change, the pandemic and reproductive rights, to name a few. But before you give in to despair, here’s something positive we can rally around: solar power.

A recent statewide poll shows that 81% of Pennsylvanians indicated “support” or “strong support” for rooftop solar. Rural and urban, red and blue, across demographics and income levels, we want solar. Solarize Philly, an initiative of the Philadelphia Energy Authority (PEA), aims to make the switch to solar easier and more affordable.

Operating since 2017 under the leadership of Alon Abramson, Solarize set out to “normalize” all aspects of making the transition to solar energy for homeowners, landlords and developers. Abramson’s team see solar adoption as a way to improve community health, create jobs and boost the local economy by providing equitable access to solar solutions.

Solarize is not alone in recognizing the transformative power of solar.

In its 2021 Solar Futures Study, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) reported that costs of residential installations have plummeted nearly 70% since 2014. Employment in the solar industry has jumped 167% in the last decade. More than 10,000 U.S. companies are now involved in the solar industry. Amazon, Google, Walmart, Target, Apple and Tesla are all investing in solar. SETO forecasts that, by 2030, one in seven homes will have rooftop photovoltaic systems. The United States now ranks #2 in global solar production, with only 3% of electricity currently generated by solar.

Forecasters predict that by 2050 that percentage will climb to 20%.

Solar panel prices have decreased, but

From top: Alon Abramson, director of residential programs for the Philadelphia Energy Authority; Julian Burnett, community marketing manager for PosiGen.

Part of my challenge is getting people to believe that it sounds too good to be true, but it is real.”

— julian burnett, community marketing manager for PosiGen

Burnett encounters skepticism from homeowners who were promised savings on their electric bill by switching providers, then saw those initial savings evaporate. He explains how going solar is different. “You’re still getting your power delivered by PECO, but the source is now the sun.”

Solar States’ Pashko counsels consumers who think their roof is inadequate. “Some people feel if they only have a small roof it’s not worth it to go solar. Even if you have enough space to cover 10% of your energy needs, it’s worth it. You’ll save 10% of your

electric bill.” In fact, many households can generate 60 to 80% of their energy needs.

Paskho wants homeowners to weigh the greater impact that has “for the planet, your wallet, the city, workforce development, the whole thing.”

Despite the availability of Solarize’s attractive programs, developers and landlords have been slow to sign on. Philadelphia Solar Energy Association’s Robinson considers the lack of solar on the majority of new construction to be a missed opportunity. Ever hopeful, Robinson notes that

these huge new flat roofs across the city are perfect for future solar arrays.

As potential solar adopters, Abramson places landlords in two groups: one that is purely profit driven and one that combines profit with social responsibility.

“Solar offers paybacks for both types. Solar is additive.

Any roof in good condition is a candidate.”

In buildings with common space, installing solar can cover the costs of that area.

As a marketing feature, landlords could build utility costs into the rent and keep the energy savings. Landlords with multiple properties within a two-mile radius can create a shared solar account. Power generated at one site can offset costs on other properties, spreading energy benefits across holdings.

Taken together, there are many reasons to adopt solar solutions. Robinson advises making the switch “as soon as you can. As we increase the penetration of solar we will be stabilizing energy costs.” And Burnett encourages city residents to take advantage of the affordable opportunities Solarize offers.

Going solar can reduce the burden on energy production, make homes more comfortable, provide users with more energy resilience against outages and save money. But beyond that, Burnett believes the local solar industry can help address gun violence through economic and workforce development. “A job is great, but a career is better. In Philly the solar industry provides that opportunity. Part of my challenge is getting people to believe that it sounds too good to be true, but it is real.” ◆ AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 17

ELECTRIFY EVERYTHING

Homeowners — some affluent, some impoverished — lead the way with homes using electricity exclusively story by bernard brown

W

hen judy wicks, the former owner of the White Dog Cafe, got back from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016, where she had protested against the construction of the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline, she knew she had to make a change. “The [Lakota] elders there told us the prophecy of the black snake.” The elders told Wicks and other protesters that a prophecy predicted a black snake would emerge from the ground and cause great devastation and harm. “They told us when we go home, to find the black snake.” Back in Pennsylvania Wicks realized the black snake was fracking. She toured areas affected by fracking and joined in anti-fracking protests, going as far as getting arrested for chaining herself to a drilling rig.

“I realized also that besides protesting I had to clean up my own act. If I was buying natural gas, I was complicit,” Wicks says.

At her Fitler Square home she added electric air-source heat pumps, which handle most of her home heating needs. An electric furnace kicks in as a backup source when winter temperatures get extremely cold. “I looked into geothermal, but it would be really hard to get the drill in my yard. It’s also not efficient for just one house.”

In 2015 David Scheuermann, his wife and two sons moved out of their house on Locust Street in Rittenhouse Square so that it could be renovated. A year and a half later, they moved back into what is now a “passive house.” Passive houses have extremely 18 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

thorough insulation, what is often referred to as an “envelope.” The tight envelope ensures that air, and with it heat, flows in and out primarily through the ventilation system, which uses an energy recovery ventilator to pull heat out of air leaving the house and transfer it to cooler air coming in. Scheuermann installed electric heating, cooling, hot water and cooking appliances as part of the renovation. “In order to be in the passive house category you have to get rid of combustion,” Scheuermann says.

Scheuermann is an architect whose firm focuses on sustainable designs for large commercial projects with LEED certifications. He saw the renovation as a chance to put sustainable design principles into practice where he lives. “It’s always been a dream of mine to have a more personal project to do all those things.”

His family is happy with the results. “I love it. [My children] both love it. My wife loves it. [The renovation] transformed it, transformed it aesthetically, transformed it utilitywise.” He says the electricity bills are now between a third and a quarter of previous gas and electric bills combined.

Not all homeowners electrifying their houses accomplish it all at once. Kenny Grono, owner of Buckminster Green, which remodels houses in Philadelphia, says he doesn’t see homeowners asking for full-house electrification. “That said, I have plenty of people saying ‘I’d like to go with an induction range.’ We do a lot with mini splits [a common type of electric heat

Judy Wicks shows off her electric induction range at her home that runs solely on electricity.

pump], and we also have been putting in a gas furnace with a heat pump option, so a hybrid type thing.”

Kara Kray and her partner, who are both architects, balked at the expense and the disruption that would have been necessary for completely upgrading their insulation and heating systems at their house in Passyunk Square in South Philadelphia.

“We had lived there 13 years, so most everything was past its expected lifespan. We intend to live there forever, so all the things P HOTO G RAP H BY CHRIS BAKER EVENS

Captions tk

I realized also that besides protesting I had to clean up my own act. If I was buying natural gas, I was complicit.”

— judy wicks, climate activist and former owner of the White Dog Cafe we did are things we either like or for the longevity of the house,” Kray says. “There’s a best case scenario and we did the best we could. It’s a balance.”

Both Kray and her partner worked with

Buckminster Green to install air-sourceheat pump mini-splits in the bedrooms and kitchen, at a cost of $11,740. Other parts of the house kept the radiators, but they replaced their old gas furnace with a

more efficient unit that heats water for the household while it also generates steam to heat radiators in winter. They added radiant heating to floors in two downstairs rooms and replaced the gas appliances in the kitchen with electric. This was in addition to adding insulation to the walls and roof and renovating other elements such as the house’s floors and plumbing.

Decarbonizing or “electrifying” a house is not cheap. Replacing a hydronic gas-powered furnace with a heat pump and mini-split sysAUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 1 9

tem can cost twice as much as sticking with gas. Even though the heat pumps double as air conditioners and cost less to operate, the upfront expense means the early adopters have tended to be relatively affluent.

Homeowners on the other end of the wealth spectrum, however, are benefitting from a pilot home renovation program, Built to Last, run by the Philadelphia Energy Authority.

Built to Last restores homes for lowincome homeowners with an eye toward improving insulation and energy efficiency. Depending on the house, the restoration can include installing new electric heating systems and stoves. Sixty thousand homeowners could qualify for the program eventually, but as it works out how best to renovate housing, the program is starting with a 50-home pilot, with plans to seek additional funding for 10,000 homes by 2033.

Electrifying old Philly row houses isn’t as simple as installing some new appliances, according to Alon Abramson, the director of residential programs with the Philadelphia Energy Authority, which runs Built to Last.

Heat pumps function much like refrigerators, using a liquid refrigerant to pull heat out of air or water in one space and transfer it to air in another. In a house with ducts already installed for air conditioning or for a pre-existing forced-air heating system, heat pump installation is simple. It can simply be connected to the duct system to heat air in winter and, in summer, run in reverse to cool it.

The transition is more complicated, however, for houses without air ducts. The classic iron radiators of Philly row houses radiate warmth from water heated by burning either oil or gas. They are, as Abramson says, essentially plumbing systems. There

20 GRID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

There’s a best case scenario and we did the best we could. It’s a balance.”

— kara kray, architect and South Philly homeowner

is no system of air ducts, which means that in order to reach every room the heated or cooled air from heat pumps needs to enter the house through multiple subunits, or “heads,” connected by lines that transport the refrigerant back and forth to the heat pump sitting outside the house.

Old row houses also often lack the electrical systems needed to power the heat pumps. “There’s the question of these homes, do they have the capacity to support that much electrical demand?” Abramson says. Often they do not, meaning that the new heating and cooling systems require rewiring the house.

Although stoves consume less energy than home heating systems, they can be the gas appliance homeowners are most attached to. Homeowners operate heating systems by adjusting a thermostat far away from the heat source, hot water systems simply by turning a tap. Stoves, by contrast, put people face to face with dramatic blue flames leaping forth from the burners as they cook.

“The thing I was most concerned about was the stove. There is something about seeing that flame. At first I missed it. Now I don’t,” says former restaurateur Wicks, who has become a fan of her electric induction stovetop, which uses a rapidly oscillating

magnetic field to heat steel or cast iron pans.

“There’s no flame that goes into the air. It heats the pot, not the kitchen.” Induction stoves have been growing in popularity, including with Michelin-starred restaurants such as Chicago’s Alinea, Copenhagen’s Noma and Northern California’s French Laundry.

Based on modeling of Philly row houses by the Rocky Mountain Institute, a clean energy think tank based in Colorado, insulating a house and switching to electric saves the homeowners 20% on heating bills when the gas heating system is nearing the end of its lifespan. Up front costs are higher for the new equipment (which Built to Last purchases for its beneficiaries), however, so “in today’s dollars it is not necessarily cheaper to switch over to electric, but when paired with solar, it provides more stability and reliability,” Abramson says, “and resilience thanks to cooling.”

Wicks hopes her house can serve as a model for other homeowners considering decarbonization. “A lot of people think gas is the good fossil fuel, which is bull.” She has hosted tours for local environmental organizations, and she hopes to win converts from her neighbors. “I’m doing it as an example for others.” ◆

We all live downstream.

So how do we keep that water clean? From fish to factories, swimmers to sewage, insects to instruments, learn how we've protected our water in the past—and the challenges we face tomorrow. sciencehistory.org/downstream Museum of the

AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HILLY.COM 21

PA Governor Tom Wolf addresses reporters as he and fellow lawmakers tout the benefits of entering the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

STATES’ RIGHTS

Pennsylvania is the first major fossil fuel state to enter the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

P

ennsylvania’s recent entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) made it the first major fossil fuel-producing state to join, but the move had its share of detractors. After much legal and public debate, the agreement has been put into effect. Here’s everything you need to know.

What is RGGI? The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection website describes the RGGI as “an initiative of 10 New England and 22 GRID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

Mid-Atlantic states, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector while generating economic growth.” The initiative, essentially a carbon trading agreement between Northeastern states, puts a limit on emissions inside the region. Within this limit, states are able to buy, sell and trade amongst themselves for proportional shares of that emissions limit. This way, states with greater needs can “borrow” energy from states with fewer residents and power needs, ensuring a more efficient distribution.

There is also an economic growth ele-

ment to the agreement, which is designed to generate jobs and revenue to invest in clean energy throughout the region. City of Philadelphia Office of Sustainability Director Christine Knapp, who recently announced she is leaving the position, explained that these investments will benefit the consumer, saving Pennsylvanians on their utility bills each month while reducing emissions.

“Traditional government grant programs have often been very top-down, so I’m looking forward to see[ing] how the state sets this up to be more grassroots-driven

T H E O F F I C E O F G OV E R N O R TO M W O L F / F L I C K R

story by lindsay hargrave

and be more frontline communities-driven, and seeing how we can start programs at the smaller scale level rather than relying on trickle-down market trends,” she said.

What about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the EPA’s ability to regulate emissions?

The Supreme Court recently ruled in the case of West Virginia v. EPA that the federal agency overstepped its authority to regulate carbon emissions. Though this ruling will have sweeping legal, regulatory and environmental consequences (many of which are not quite clear yet), it will actually have minimal impact on RGGI and its participant states.

However, the fact that the agreement is largely unaffected by the ruling only underscores its importance. With a lack of federal regulation and oversight, state and regional efforts to reduce emissions will be some of the country’s most powerful tools to combat climate change.

Robert Routh, policy and regulatory attorney at the Clean Air Council, explained that the states involved in the initiative have the same goal: to reduce carbon pollution from power plants. To do this, they collectively created a template for how to set up a state program, but each state has the ability to tweak and tailor this template to fit its unique economy. To this end, each state adopted its own program under its own state laws and constitution.

In other words, the states could have, of their own accord, adopted the very same laws without RGGI even existing. But instead, the states cooperated to make the regulations similar enough to allow for power plant trading.

This, he said, provides a good model of states acting sovereignly to work collectively toward a common goal and make it easier for regulated entities to comply. The states not only enter a larger, regional marketplace, but also have a unified approach for confronting climate change.

Who supports RGGI? A number of Philadelphia City officials as well as NGOs have come out in support of the initiative. David Masur, executive director at PennEnvironment, noted that Pennsylvania’s status as a major fossil fuel-producing state marked a shift in the initiative’s reach, particularly in the wake

of the SCOTUS decision. “It will be more important than ever that states like Pennsylvania take the reins and lead in the fight to tackle climate change,” Masur said.

“It’s a huge change, I think, substantively and politically,” he said, noting that Pennsylvania’s power sector emissions equal the sum of all emissions from the rest of the RGGI states combined. He also added that RGGI could pave the way for other major fossil fuel-producing states such as Illinois to enter RGGI or similar agreements.

Routh, whose organization was heavily involved in supporting the initiative’s passage into law, said that “RGGI has been a remarkably successful cooperative effort among the states that have participated in it since 2009.”

Knapp also said she is looking forward to working with Pennsylvania citizens to hear feedback on where their priorities lie. While

that its passage would cause them irreparable harm. The lawyers at Clean Air Council (along with PennFuture, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, plus the energy company Constellation) took action to intervene in both of these lawsuits to prevent an injunction against the rule being issued. Though the Clean Air Council and other groups made the argument that the injunction would do more harm than good, the court recently ruled that their party was already adequately represented in the case.

In other words, Clean Air Council’s intervention can go no further.

“Sadly, these fights are very common,” Masur said. “I think in Pennsylvania, the largest entity that’s stopping positive action to rein in climate change right now is the political power of the unions. And if it weren’t

It will be more important than ever that states like Pennsylvania take the reins and lead in the fight to tackle climate change.”

— david masur, executive director of PennEnvironment

receiving an investment allocation proportional to Pennsylvania’s population size is important to Knapp, she is also hoping to hold open dialogues to decide how they should be used.

Who opposes it?

Although Pennsylvania sat in on the creation of the initiative over a decade ago, the state did not enter it until now. While environmental groups have expressed overwhelming support for RGGI, the initiative has significant opposition. Though Masur noted that labor unions are far from politically monolithic, most of the pushback came from building trades and mining unions, specifically AFL-CIO. In the legislature, detractors were mainly Republicans.

Routh said that these groups have filed lawsuits — both before the agreement’s publication and after — with the position

for them, [environmentalists] would pass more policy because they’re able to not only peel off some Republican votes, but they also put a lot of Democratic legislators like a deer in the headlights given the power of labor unions in the Democratic party.”

Still, he noted that labor groups are generally very cooperative when it comes to creating clean energy jobs. They tend to clash, however, on issues of regulation, especially that of fossil fuel energy.

Yet Pennsylvania’s entry into the agreement is a historic landmark for major fossil fuel-producing states, and Masur is hoping that other fossil fuel states will see Pennsylvania’s success and follow suit.

“Big picture, RGGI is the most significant step that Pennsylvania has taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its history. Perhaps that’s damning with faint praise, but it’s true,” Routh said. ◆ AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 23

FRONT Can the City overcome entrenched interests at Philadelphia Gas Works to address climate change? story by bernard brown

24 GRID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

I

P R U T H V I S AGA R / U N S P L A S H

n 2019, after similar bans had been enacted in other cities, a draft of a bill to end gas hookups in new construction in Philadelphia was put on the desk of Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, the head of City Council’s Committee on the Environment. Designed to speed the transition from fossil fuels, it seemed like exactly the kind of legislation Gilmore Richardson would champion.

The bill would have not only prohibited gas hookups on new construction, but also prevented buildings that are electric from switching to “mixed fuel.” While it wouldn’t threaten the status quo for fossil fuels, it would block their future growth. The draft reads: “The intent of this Ordinance is to improve community health, safety, and resilience by reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which have numerous deleterious health and environmental effects from the results of global warming.”

But the draft, which was submitted by members of the Energy Subcommittee of City Council’s Environmental Advisory Group, would go no further. “It never left [Gilmore Richardson’s] office due to the politics at the time,” reported subcommittee member Emily Davis, who is both secretary and treasurer of the local Sierra Club chapter, which supports a gas hookup ban along with broader home electrification efforts.

Electrification, the process of shifting buildings away from burning fossil fuels such as oil, propane gas or other gases such as the methane, butane, propane and ethane that get piped into buildings by gas utilities such as Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW), is growing in popularity as a public health measure and a strategy to fight climate change. Although electricity produced with fossil fuels also generates greenhouse gases, increasing contributions to the grid by renewable sources such as wind and solar mean that end users of electricity can reduce their emissions without any new appliances or renovations to their own building.

The fossil-gas-fueled buildings of Philadelphia might be the most difficult piece of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction puzzle. According to the 2021 PGW Business Diversification Study, 72% of the city’s emissions come from housing and industry. According to figures from the city’s 2019 greenhouse gas inventory, residential housing comprises 31% of the category. Compared to commercial and industrial buildings, gas and other fossil fuel (mainly heating oil) emissions make up a larger share of the residential total. Burning fossil fuels accounts for 64% of residential emissions, versus about 37% from commercial and industrial.

The inventory also revealed that while emissions from electricity fell from 2006 to 2019, as coal power production was replaced by less-emissions-intensive fossil gas and, to a lesser extent, renewable sources, emissions from burning gas in Philadelphia increased by 4% in line with increased use, possibly due to the city’s recent population growth.

In much of the country, efforts to wean homeowners off of gas appliances are advancing. Some states, like Oregon and California, have plans to shift to “Zero Net En-

ergy” construction, meaning buildings will be able to produce the energy they need to operate from renewable sources. Several cities, including Denver, Colorado and Berkeley, California, have enacted bans against gas hookups in new construction. New buildings will have to rely on electricity for heat, hot water and cooking. In California 15% of the population now lives in municipalities with such bans in place. Other local governments have launched campaigns to help residents electrify their homes.

Along with the ability to cut greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, electrification also improves indoor air quality, particularly in the kitchen. Burning fossil gas indoors emits air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, raising indoor levels above what would be legal outdoors. A 2013 analysis of studies of indoor air pollution and asthma found that “children living in a home with gas cooking have a 42% increased risk of having current asthma, a 24% increased risk of lifetime asthma and an overall 32% increased risk of having current and lifetime asthma.”

Ventilation systems that use a hood directly over the stove to suck in air from above the stove and vent it outside do lower indoor levels of pollutants from gas stoves, particularly from the back burners, but this is not true of ventilation systems that dump the air elsewhere in the kitchen.

Recent research has also shown that gas stoves leak unburned methane even when they are turned off, and that the mix of gases delivered to the home, and leaking inside it, can include toxic substances such as benzene and hexane.

Kitchens have long been the front line in the battle between gas and electric. Cooking brings people face to face with the heat source in a more tangible way than adjusting the thermostat or turning on the shower.

The gas industry has recognized that they can maintain their reach into homes as long as home cooks prefer gas stovetops.

The slogan “now we’re cooking with gas”

PGW has its outward facing narrative, but behind the scene they keep doing things to reinforce our reliance on gas.”

— david masur, executive director of PennEnvironment AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 25

emerged in the 1930s from gas industry product placement campaigns that competed against electric stovetops. As reporting in Mother Jones has shown, the industry has countered recent news of the health risks of gas cooking by promoting gas stoves through paid posts by social media influencers, who often pose in shiny kitchens that lack proper ventilation hoods.

Some of the low-income households participating in the Philadelphia Energy Authority’s Built to Last program have received induction stoves, according to Alon Abramson, the authority’s director of residential programs. “In one of the houses we did a stove replacement in, they are fully electrified, so they have benefitted from that cost savings of not being connected to PGW and paying that monthly fee,” Abramson says.

Built to Last restores homes for low-income homeowners with an eye toward improving insulation and energy efficiency.

Depending on the house, the restoration can include installing new electric heating systems and stoves. Sixty thousand homeowners could eventually qualify for the program, but as it works out how best to renovate housing, the program is starting with a 50-home pilot, with plans to seek ad-

about health implications,” Abramson says. “That increasing demand will shape the market so we can broaden availability of the technology to more consumers. So as that demand grows, the price curves down.”

“We know electrification is a business trend, it is happening,” says Christine Knapp, the director of the Office of Sustainability who recently announced she is leaving the position. According to Knapp, the sustainability office is looking to learn from Built to Last’s experience to develop local expertise to support Philadelphia homeowners in electrifying their homes.

The office is also participating in the Rocky Mountain Institute’s 2022 Electrify Community Cohort, seeking to learn from other cities planning for electrification campaigns.

Although Knapp recognizes the need to electrify Philadelphia’s buildings, she is not in favor of a ban on new gas hookups before the City has a plan to support low-income residents who can’t afford the upfront costs of electrification. She also notes the challenges the hookup ban would pose for PGW. “It’s hard to say ‘flip a switch tomorrow and we’ll do X,’ when we don’t know what X is. I think preventing future problems as much as you can is a good idea,” she says. “We al-

TERM LIMITS What PGW provides is mostly methane gas with a few other similarly flammable gases mixed in. The term “natural gas” basically evolved to distinguish it from gas manufactured from coal, but environmental activists today argue that the term functions as greenwashing, making the product seem more benign than the polluting fossil fuel it actually is. As a result, “fossil gas” is gaining popularity among environmental activists.

ditional funding for 10,000 homes by 2033.

Although Abramson says “Built to Last is grant funded and not scalable to a broader market,” the program has, in the absence of other city efforts to promote home electrification in Philadelphia, made the Philadelphia Energy Authority the de facto local experts. “We’re starting to explore what PEA can be doing to support electrification more broadly,” he says.

This includes expertise that can be shared with people who can afford their own home electrification costs. “There are folks who want to switch for other reasons: they want to be greener, they’re worried 26 GRID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

ready know we’re going to have a hard time switching over the number of gas customers we already have. We shouldn’t add to the problem. That said, it’s a hard step to take when we don’t have a strategy with PGW.” “Numerous cities have taken steps towards electrification,” says Philadelphia City Councilmember Derek Green, who heads the Philadelphia Gas Commission, the City body that oversees PGW, “but those cities are not like Philadelphia, [which] owns its own natural gas utility.”

A failing PGW would be an anchor around the City’s neck. “If they go bankrupt it could bankrupt the City,” Knapp says.

“There are implications for the pension funds, also for low-income customers who can’t afford electrification,” not to mention the PGW’s 1,600 workers.

A shrinking PGW would penalize its poorest consumers. It takes a large staff and considerable money to maintain PGW’s sprawling network of pipes and other equipment no matter how much or how little gas Philadelphians actually burn. In a worse-case scenario for PGW, falling demand for gas would leave the utility with higher per-customer costs to maintain that constant overhead. Those higher costs for customers would encourage those who could afford to electrify to do so. Those who could not afford to buy new equipment and renovate their houses would be stuck with higher and higher monthly bills.

There are signs that this utility death spiral has begun. Warmer winters mean consumers need less energy, whatever the source, to heat their homes. “PGW is a victim of its own success,” says David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment.

“PGW sells a product based on fossil fuels that fuels climate change, so then people need less gas for heat.” New gas appliances also tend to be more efficient than older ones, even if a homeowner doesn’t shift to electric. In 2017 PGW increased rates to make up for lost revenue from declining gas use.

In 2021 the Office of Sustainability published the PGW Business Diversification Study, which explores future options for the company. The goal of the study is to offer a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while avoiding a utility death spiral.

The diversification study looked at four lower-carbon alternatives to the current model.

Electrification is one, though it would mean the end of PGW. In the words of the report, “building electrification, though potentially beneficial to customers who can electrify their buildings, and supportive of the City’s climate and equity goals, at scale, reduces PGW’s long-term financial viability under the current regulatory framework.”

Replacing fossil gas with “decarbonized gas,” which comes from sources such as methane emitted by sewage and landfills, is another option. Decarbonized gas would avoid changes to the delivery infrastructure, but there is not currently a supply of decarbonized gas at affordable prices. Decarbon-

The [liquified natural gas] plant is a false solution to a real problem. We need a plan to transform PGW.” —mitch chanin, volunteer with POWER’s environment and jobs committees

ized gas would also not improve indoor air quality.

The report also considered a hybrid system, in which customers with electric heat pumps retain gas furnaces fueled by decarbonized gas.

The last option would have PGW install P HOTO GRA P H BY C H R IS BA KE R EV E N S

and maintain geothermal networks similar to those that already exist at places such as Bartram’s Garden and the German Society of Pennsylvania. In geothermal systems, buildings use “water-source” heat pumps.

Instead of utilizing heat from outside air (“air-source” heat pumps) they use water

warmed by the constant temperature of the ground (though models do exist that capture heat from other sources, such as sewage lines). It takes less electricity to extract heat from water than from air, so water-source heat pumps are more efficient than air-source, but the upfront cost of drilling and running pipes into the ground is more expensive. This is where a public utility like PGW could be useful, setting up larger geothermal networks that entire neighborhoods could plug into.

“Geothermal seems to be an idea that shows some promise because it presents the opportunity to work with the existing union workforce while still providing energy that we need,” Green says. Green says he sees promise with examples such as Boise, Idaho, whose geothermal network dates to the 1980s, as well as a geothermal pilot project in the Boston area.

POWER, a Philadelphia association of religious congregations that advocates for racial, economic and environmental justice, also supports a geothermal path towards decarbonizing Philadelphia’s buildings, says Mitch Chanin, who works with POWER’s climate justice and jobs team and who does not support a new gas hookup ban. POWER was one of several environmental groups that opposed a now-scrapped plan for PGW to work with a private partner to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) export plant in South Philadelphia.

“At the time proponents were saying we need this to keep rates down,” Chanin says.

They claimed that the plant would protect low-income rate payers in the face of warming winters, increasingly efficient appliances and a gas utility with steady costs but dwindling sales. It would guard against not only rising rates, the argument went, but also job loss. “The coalition said there is a serious problem of excessive energy burden, energy poverty,” Chanin recalls. “Whether this plant is built or not, large numbers of ratepayers will have trouble paying bills. A utility death spiral threat is real. The LNG plant is a false solution to a real problem. We need a plan to transform PGW.” Since the diversification study came out, POWER and other environmental groups have been pushing PGW to follow up with a geothermal pilot program, particularly by lobbying to have the utility budget the money to begin planning the pilot. Although the utility resisted allocating the funds in its AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 27

28 GRID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

Numerous cities have taken steps towards electrification, but those cities are not like Philadelphia, [which] owns its own natural gas utility.”

—derek green, Philadelphia City Councilmember-At-Large

“On the one hand, you’re saying to the public you have a plan to decarbonize, but you’re reviewing a draft of the bill that would make it impossible to decarbonize,” Masur says. Though the state legislation didn’t pass in the 2021 session, sponsors recently introduced new versions in the 2022 legislative session.

PGW’s workers’ union also does not seem to be on board with efforts to transform the utility. Keith Holmes, president of the Gas Workers Union Local 686 penned an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer in January rejecting any low-carbon future for the utility aside from decarbonized gas.

I

n 2019 City Council passed a resolution to shift the city entirely to renewable energy by 2050. “City Council signed a resolution to do that, and Jim Kenney signed on to a resolution to do that, and nothing has happened,” Davis says.

Grid reached out to Katherine Gilmore Richardson’s office to ask what she thought

of the proposal to ban all new gas hookups.

Eliza Alford, the councilmember’s policy director, responded via email: “We strongly believe we need a holistic strategy to address emissions from all building types that will lead to the necessary reductions, center equity and prioritize the needs of vulnerable populations, and includes a plan for workforce development/economic opportunity.”

Public health and climate activists plan to keep the pressure up, with activists focused on ensuring that the Philadelphia Gas Commission includes funding for planning the geothermal pilot when it votes on the PGW budget on August 9.

“We’ve waited too long to address these existential problems,” Chanin says. “Now so many things have to be done fast.” The scale of the decarbonization task at hand requires government action, whatever the path. “Every version of this is a massive undertaking. No matter what, we have to retrofit hundreds of thousands of buildings in 20 years,” Chanin says. ◆

J O S E P H G I DJ U N I S F O R D E R E K G R E E N

capital budget, $500,000 has made it into the proposed operating budget.

“What we want to do is an implementation strategy,” Knapp says. It would explore “the work you need to do before you put holes in the ground, where you’d put the holes, what workforce is needed, how do you finance it, the regulatory framework.”

Knapp says the City is also searching for solutions to the legal and labor hurdles involved with transforming PGW. These include reaching out to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, which oversees PGW, and looking at City laws that might need to be changed to facilitate a transformation.

The City is also looking into the impact on PGW’s workforce. “We are working with lots of partners, including Local 686 [the union that represents most PGW workers] to do a deeper workforce assessment. We want to make sure we’re thoughtful and not have happen what happened to the refinery workers,” Knapp says, referring to the Philadelphia Energy Solutions workers left unemployed after the South Philly refinery was shut down following its 2019 explosion.

Although PGW participated in the diversification study and has publicly stated the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the utility has nonetheless been working to expand its fossil gas business. “They’re fighting it every step of the way,” Davis says. “They want to sell gas for the next 100 years.”

“PGW has its outward facing narrative, but behind the scene they keep doing things to reinforce our reliance on gas,” says PennEnvironment’s Masur. As Grid has reported, PGW has been actively courting new commercial customers, including Amtrak’s 30th Street Station. The station had been a customer of Vicinity Energy’s steam system, which pipes steam to commercial customers throughout the city for heat. Vicinity generates electricity as it produces steam, making the process more energy efficient than burning gas to produce only heat. Vicinity also has plans to shift to renewable energy, whereas a building with its own gas boiler is stuck with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.

PGW, which did not respond to requests from Grid for an interview, has also worked to undercut the city’s ability to reduce gas consumption. Reporting by WHYY revealed that PGW representatives helped draft state legislation that would prevent local governments from enacting policies that have the effect of restricting new gas hookups.

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JOIN TOGETHER

Can Philadelphia workers and environmentalists achieve a just transition to net zero? by sylvie gallier howard

T

ransitioning our economy to one that supports well-paying jobs and a healthy planet certainly seems like a concept that most people can get behind. So why has the term “just transition” been so controversial and rejected by many?

The term gained momentum in the early 1990s when Tony Mazzocchi, leader of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, proposed the idea of a “Superfund for Workers,” similar to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program for toxic cleanups. Mazzocchi’s proposition prompted both unions and environmental justice groups to recognize the need to simultaneously phase out environmentally harmful industries while ensuring that workers in those industries could transition into different well-paying careers. According to the Just Transition Alliance, one of the foremost advocates on the topic, “the principle of just transition is that a healthy

30 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

economy and clean environment can and should coexist.”

Over the last year, I have collaborated with Grid’s Nic Esposito on several projects related to the topic of a just transition. This has included in-depth research about the topic and the development of a toolkit for mayors around the world that will soon be released by C40, a network of nearly 100 cities collaborating to deliver urgent action to confront the climate crisis. When researching the topic, I have been surprised by how infrequently just transition is mentioned in the United States and by how many Americans have varying levels of understanding of what it means.

The actions that are necessary to ensure that global temperatures don’t increase by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (the temperature increase that has been deemed a tipping point to irreparable and irreversible damage) require a major transition in jobs, in consumer habits and basically in

everything we do. And let’s face it, most American workers have yet to see proof that adequate programs and infrastructure exist to support them in this changing landscape.

In contrast, Europe has set up a Just Transition Fund of nearly 18 billion euros to support areas most affected by the transition by investing in small businesses, research and innovation, reskilling and training of impacted workers, job search assistance, and job-seeking programs. Each member state must have a “territorial just transition plan” to access the funds.

While the Supreme Court has set back our efforts with its recent West Virginia v. EPA decision, we must forge ahead and take a page from Europe’s book and make serious investments in both climate action and quality green jobs. If we are going to reach net zero and avoid the disastrous effects of global warming, just transition can’t be a zero-sum battle between workers and environmentalists.

Cities must play a lead role in building coalitions between environmentalists and workers. In order to do so, workers must understand that certain jobs will have to be eliminated — certain workers reskilled — as the economy transitions to new low- or no-carbon alternatives. But we can’t just ask workers to carry this load on their own; protections must be put in place to provide dislocated workers with financial resources and job training. When advocating for clean energy, environmentalists must also advocate that clean energy jobs be quality, well-paying jobs with upward mobility.

The good news is that many climate change measures, including the retrofitting of older buildings and the installation of EV charging infrastructure, will generate a tremendous number of jobs. According to an American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) white paper titled “Energy Efficiency Job Creation: Real World Experiences,” “the effects of energy efficiency on job creation are powerful and multi-faceted, and they reverberate through the economy over an extended period of time.”

The principle of just transition is that a healthy economy and clean environment can and should coexist.”

— just transition alliance Cities have the opportunity to apply an anti-racist, pro-equity approach to climate action by prioritizing public schools and affordable housing for retrofitting, and by creating job training and apprenticeship programs targeting populations who have previously lacked access to quality construction jobs. And there are countless other actions cities can adopt listed in our 2021 publication “Exploring the Just Transition.”

Philadelphia could be in prime position for a just transition with its large union presence and the government oversight provided by such entities as the recently-formed Environmental Justice Advisory Commission. To reach this aim, Philadelphians must

champion the need for both a healthy planet and a healthy economy, and we can start by myth-busting the idea that climate action necessarily harms workers. In reality, the transition that needs to happen to save our planet and protect humanity might be just the opportunity we need to move from an usversus-them mentality and consumer-centric society to one where we finally recognize that we are all one interdependent international community, and our best option is to find unity centered around the core priority of protecting and preserving the planet that is home to all of us. ◆ sylvie gallier howard is the CEO of Equitable Cities Consulting.

AUGUST 20 22 G R I DP HILLY.COM 31

Incinerating trash produces vast amounts of smog.

Philadelphia needs to stop doing it by russell zerbo

I

f philadelphia wants to advance its goal of confronting environmental racism, we have to stop sending hundreds of thousands of tons of trash a year to be incinerated and landfilled.

Waste incineration is a massive source of greenhouse gases and smog-causing air pollution. Next year, the City of Philadelphia has the option not to renew its Waste Management of Pennsylvania contract, which allows Waste Management to send a portion of the waste to Covanta incinerators in Chester and Conshohocken. Stopping this practice would significantly reduce air pollution in the region.

There are six “waste-to-energy” (WTE) facilities in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, and Philly sends trash to all of them. WTE is a misleading term as these facilities produce an insignificant amount of electricity from trash burning. Covanta operates the Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility in Chester, widely acknowledged as one of the country’s most egregious cases of environmental racism.

Covanta’s Chester facility is the largest waste incinerator in the United States. Considering the 1,167.9 tons of nitrogen oxides (NO x ) — which causes smog (ground-level ozone) to form when it reacts in heat — emitted in 2020, it produced a paltry 87 megawatt (MW) electricity capacity.

The entire five-county Southeastern PA region is classified Zulene Mayfield, founder of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, stands in front of the Covanta Waste to Energy plant in Chester.

32 GRID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 2022

as being in severe nonattainment of federal ground-level ozone standards. In this region, a “major” source of air pollution is defined by emitting at least 25 tons per year of NO x . So how does this facility get away with producing almost 47 times this much?

Unfortunately, this facility was permitted before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began making such designations in the 1990s. To put its electricity production in context, Philadelphia’s Adams Solar project is 70 MW and will provide 22% of the City’s municipal electricity needs.

Pennsylvania also exports more electricity than any other state in the country — over 9,000 MWs in 2020 — while importing more trash than any other state in the country.

Even more frustrating is an EPA loophole that ignores two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions from trash incinerators. The EPA estimates that two-thirds of the municipal waste stream is paper and plant matter, which is a faulty assumption. This leads

russell zerbo is an advocate at the Clean Air Council. For assistance with local public health issues, reach him at rzerbo@cleanair.org

S C OT T L E W I S

WASTE TO POLLUTION

the EPA to claim that two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions from WTE facilities are biogenic, meaning they would happen naturally. This equates incineration with natural decomposition! In reality, burning trash creates 30% more carbon dioxide than burning coal, for an incredibly small fraction of the electricity.

While it may not sound appealing, landfills create far less air pollution than WTE facilities, and Philly sends slightly more of its trash to landfills than incinerators. They can also generate energy from captured methane (natural gas), which some Waste Management landfill facilities are already doing.

The most absurd aspect of the incineration-versus-landfill debate is that incinerated municipal solid waste has about a 27% ash content. This hazardous waste must be landfilled. It’s also more dangerous to handle after incineration, in addition to the massive amount of air pollution created in the process.

There are many solutions out there from reducing waste through circular economy practices to viable plans for increasing recycling and composting on the municipal and commercial scales. But we must act now because it’s not fair to keep burdening the people of Chester and other environmental justice communities with pollution from our waste. ◆

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