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Plan for Central NJ power plant dropped after years of community opposition
By
Verónica Del Valle
and
Louis C. Hochman
Published Oct 14, 2023
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photovs via Getty Images
By
Verónica Del Valle
and
Louis C. Hochman
Published Oct 14, 2023
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Community activists are celebrating after a power company dropped its plans to build a 657 megawatt gas-powered power plant next to one it already operates in an industrialized Central Jersey community.
“It was great news,” said Matt Smith of Food & Water Watch, an advocacy group focused on climate change, sustainable food and clean water. “I know that local residents and the activists who joined them in opposing this plant all breathe easier now that a second power plant in a low-income, [largely] immigrant neighborhood is off the table.”
In 2017, Competitive Power Ventures proposed building Middlesex County’s seventh natural gas-powered plant in the Keasbey section of Woodbridge Township, a predominantly Hispanic area of about 1.5 square miles.
The proposal drew opposition from the local NAACP chapter, environmental groups, at least 16 municipal governments and several local environmental commissions. The facility would have been the third in Woodbridge Township.
But this week, the company told NJ.com and Patch market conditions no longer made the project viable.
Litchfield has not yet returned a message left Friday seeking comment.
Plans for the plant moved ahead even after New Jersey legislators approved an environmental justice law meant to shield communities of color and low-income neighborhoods from disproportionate exposure to pollution. The plans prompted several community protests and objections during multiple public hearings.
“It’s definitely a long time coming to get some closure on it,” Charlie Kratovil, a Middlesex county community organizer who worked with Food & Water Watch to oppose the project, said. “We would have preferred that. the governor used his power to stop it instead of the company backing down. But we're nevertheless very pleased that this won't be happening.”
Regulatory applications from CPV estimated the power plant — which had been planned for the former site of an abandoned chemical plant — would release about 2.3 million tons of greenhouse gasses each year. According to the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter, the proposed facility would have emitted ozone-causing agents and other pollutants within six miles of more than 70 public schools.
Litchfield has previously said, though, the project would be one of the lowest-emitting facilities in the state and help New Jersey transition away from “older, high-emitting generation sources.” The existing, 725 megawatt plant next door produces enough power for about 700,000 homes.
In March, state regulators disclosed they’d cited CPV’s existing facilities for more than $69,000 in air quality violations since 2015, NJ.com reported at the time.
Smith credited local activists for mounting enough opposition to delay plans by years, to the point where CPV determined the project was no longer viable.
“Sometimes that's how we win — death by 1,000 daggers or delays, he said.
Keasbey is considered an “overburdened community” under the environmental justice law, which went into effect this year after regulations were finalized. About three-fifths of New Jersey municipalities have areas that qualify for the designation, which lets the state Department of Environmental Projection reject plans for certain types of development, including sewage plants, gas-filed power plans and recycling facilities. But CPV’s 2017 application predates the measure.
Jean Roy, an asthma sufferer from Woodbridge, said during a public hearing earlier this year there was already enough pollution in the area, the Associated Press reported at the time.
“Don’t add more,” he said. “It would be nice to see the plant built in some of the more affluent and pretty areas.”
In a statement this week, New Jersey Sierra Club Chapter Director Anjuli Ramos Busot described the withdrawn plan as “the clean energy transition happening in real time.”
“This is a massive victory for our communities, environmental justice, and in the fight against climate change,” Busot said. “After attending and participating in the public hearings for the proposed expansion, and witnessing hundreds of residents voice how their families have been negatively affected from fossil-fuel pollution, this victory is personal and a powerful example of how we can win when we come together.”
Environmentalists have also raised concerns about NJ Transit’s proposal to provide uninterrupted power to its rail system through a power-generation facility in Kearny — a town located a few miles north of Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood, which is also considered an overburdened community. But an NJ Transit spokesperson told Gothamist earlier this year the agency has ”reimagined this project to promote maximized renewables and clean energy components.”
The Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission’s proposal to build a gas-fired power plant in Newark — the fourth power plant in the city’s Ironbound section — is also moving ahead. Gov. Phil Murphy, a champion of the environmental justice law, has defended that plan, saying it would provide a critical backup electricity to PVSC’s Newark Bay Treatment Plant. The plant lost power for 72 hours during Hurricane Sandy, and 840 million gallons of raw sewage seeped into the Passaic River and Newark Bay. PVSC officials say that they would look to move to cleaner energy sources over time.
Murphy’s office has not returned a message Friday seeking comment on CPV’s withdrawal of its plan for Keasbey.
Tagged
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environment
new jersey
Politics
Verónica Del Valle
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Louis C. Hochman
After about two decades in (mostly) New Jersey-focused commercial print, digital and digital-but-radio-adjacent news, Lou stumbled into member-supported news in early 2021, as the editor and CEO of Montclair Local. There, he (hopes he) expanded enterprise, brought more sophistication to digital storytelling and moved the nonprofit newsroom closer to long-term financial sustainability. He helped lead the Local to its fourth consecutive General Excellence award from the New Jersey Press Association — the NJPA's highest honor with judges noting the paper's work to strip away layers of government opacity, to hold power to account, to make news accessible for more members of the community, to share the stories and concerns of more facets of the community and to tell compelling stories across multiple media. He's excited to continue the same ethic — news as a public service — at NYPR as the New Jersey and suburbs editor, drawing on the extraordinary talents of reporters including Karen Yi and Nancy Solomon. Lou lives in Philly (that commute!) with his partner and their two cats, about whom and about which he speaks incessantly.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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