Committee on the Environment, November 17, 2025

Good afternoon. My name is Kim Bradford. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman Gauthier and the Environmental Committee. My name is Kim Bradford and I'm a proud resident of the City of Philadelphia, District 4 for eight years, residing in the Wynnewood neighborhood. I am a Pennsylvania environmental manager for Reworld. The Chester facility is a sustainable waste solution facility that helps a wide range of municipal, commercial and industrial clients recover, recycle and reimagine waste. Reworld also operates sustainable waste management facilities throughout the United States and Canada, co-located in urban, suburban and rural areas, converting waste into renewable energy. In fact, countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have enacted legislation to minimize the use of landfills as a waste management option. These countries, the United Nations and the US EPA all recognize waste to energy as a superior to landfills, which is the third largest source of methane, the climate-damaging greenhouse gas. Like nearly all waste management processes, the Chester facility does have air emissions. I work with them on a daily basis. Unlike landfills, these emissions are strictly regulated in accordance with permits issued by PADEP. It is my job to work closely with the facility to ensure that the facility complies with these requirements. Our emissions are up to 99% below permitted levels and we're proud of that. Our share of emissions within the County's air shed is very small. We represent just 1% of the fine particulate emissions in the county and one-tenth of 1% of the VOC emissions. The primary sources of pollutions are mobile, such as cars and trucks. A human risk assessment completed by an independent study this year in accordance with EPA protocols demonstrate that the operations of our facility is protective of human health. Consistent with our environmental justice policy, Reworld seeks to engage in meaningful, two-way communication with the communities in which we operate. As a result of this commitment, we embarked on four major projects to enhance our operations. We have provided access to our realtime emissions monitoring data. I'm pleased to share with you that the emission data for the Chester facility is available online as we speak. In 2021, we launched a voluntary testing program to reduce our NOx emissions. During this testing period, the project transitioned from voluntary to required in order to comply with the PADEP RACT III rule. The permanent system has been operational since December 30, 2024 and has achieved a 21% NOx reduction in our emissions. In 2024, Reworld began replacing our steam vent mufflers with advanced noise silencers designed to significantly reduce noise impact beyond the facility's fence line. This project is scheduled for completion in 2026. This year, we conducted a carbon injection trial test to explore the potential for further reducing our mercury emissions. The testing program was very successful, demonstrating that the facility could achieve a 99% reduction in mercury emissions. Next year we will initiate regulatory permitting process for this project, with construction and system commissioning scheduled to begin in 2027. And I'm proud to say that I've worked on three of these projects and I'm very proud of the accomplishments of these projects. We continue to welcome constructive two-way communication with community stakeholders. We use this feedback to improve our outreach efforts and environmental performance. This is not just a commitment for today. It is a commitment for the future. Thank you for scheduling this hearing on today and for giving us an opportunity to present our accomplishments to the committee.

Thank you for being here today and for your testimony. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.

My name is Brian Stormwind and I work with AECOM. So I'm here to speak about the studies that have been mentioned. AECOM conducted a health risk assessment, a multi- pathway health risk assessment and air quality modeling studies to assess the potential health impacts to the residents of Chester and surrounding areas. The studies were conducted with EPA Environmental Protection Agency models and methods. The health risk assessment is a comprehensive analysis designed to evaluate facilities, air emissions and exposure to residents. The studies are based on actual emissions of metals like arsenic, mercury, chromium and organic compounds like dioxins and PAHs, based on recent years of stack-testing data. The health risk assessment is a multi-pathway assessment, which means that there are various exposure routes. We have direct through inhalation and also -- by the way, the inhalation is based on the maximum modeled air concentrations. We also assess ingestion, which is an indirect pathway of the compounds that enter the food chain through deposition onto soils, plant, water bodies and associated watersheds. The deposition comes from a model and the metals and the contaminants on the surface of particles get into the soil, onto water bodies, and water shed is kind of funneled into water bodies. Then the analysis also includes the ingestion of fish and residential backyard gardens where you have some produce, but we also -- so that's for residential exposure. We also looked at a subsistence farm, which turns out to be kind of like a hypothetical location because there's no real close beef and dairy farm, but the farm was assumed to have produce, beef and dairy. And all of these analyses focused where the maximum air concentrations and deposition rates were modeled. There was a number of conservative assumptions that were incorporated, as required by EPA in these analyses, including assumed ingestion rates of locally-caught fish and consumption of produce and animal products. And that aspect of the model is meant to be comprehensive. We're not just looking at the air that you breathe. But what if you had a backyard garden or what if you did a lot of fishing and you ate a lot of fish. And the ingestion rates of those things are prescribed by EPA. Ultimately, the results of the analysis were evaluated relative to EPA thresholds that they deem acceptable for facilities such as this, the air emissions associated with facilities like these for cancer and noncancer effects. We also did an additional analysis for fine particulate matter, where we looked at the air emissions from trucks associated with the operation of the facility as well as the facility stack. So the cancer and the noncancer thresholds, they're a little bit different than what we did with the particulate emissions. The EPA also provides national ambient air quality standards. The particulate standards are -- well, the NACS were developed by EPA to be protective of the most sensitive populations, including children, the elderly and individuals with respiratory conditions like asthma. So the results of the health risk assessment show that the facility, as you can see in the report, were below the thresholds for cancer, acceptable cancer rate, as well as noncancer. And the truck emissions analysis, and again the focus was particulate matter, and the stack results were well below the national ambient air quality standards, which were again designed to be protective of public health. And that concludes my testimony.

Thank you so much. I have a couple questions and then I'll pass it off to the Committee members. The Department of Environmental Protection issued Reworld a violation for not monitoring radioactive waste at your incinerator. Why were you not monitoring? And what assurances do we have that you will operate in good faith moving forward since you've proven in the past that you would ignore important safety measures like this one? And then as a follow-up, the EPA reports that your incinerator operates in violation of the Clean Air Act. Please explain specifically why you received this violation and what steps you're taking to correct it.

Okay. So first, as it pertains to the radioactive waste, that was associated with -- actually we monitor every single truck across our scales. They go through our radiation detectors. The radiation detector will alarm and it will then activate our radiation protocol. The truck was put into isolation where we were in the process of identifying the isotope and also to get -- to get a permit for it to go off site. The truck calling company trespassed on the premises in the middle of the night and they obtained the truck without -- without our prior authorization, because we would never, one, process radioactive waste above our thresholds and, two, we would never allow for someone to then active -- once the truck is -- once our protocol is activated, it's our duty to then, you know, figure out the correct deposition for it. So they came onto the facility in the middle of the night, apprehended the truck without our knowledge. We actually self-reported it in accordance with our plan. Our plan requires that in the event, if such thing happens, that we have to selfreport and that is what we did. And as a result of self-reporting, the truck driver coming -- trespassing our facility in the middle of the night, we were issued the notice of violation for that event. So the waste was not -- the waste was identi -- the truck was identified as having radioactive waste in it. We were in the process of identifying what it was and they apprehended their truck without it. That's what happened.

I understand that you self- reported. But what are you doing -- I mean, it's your job to monitor what's happening on your property. What are you doing to ensure that that doesn't happen again?

Basically, our security guard has been notified that he needs to make sure that they're letting us know when activities like that happens, ensuring that all of our security policies and procedures are in place to ensure that no one can trespass on our facility after hours as well.

I see. Can you talk about the Clean Air Act violation from the EPA? What did you receive the violation for? And what steps are you taking to correct it?

Well, the EPA ECHO facts database is renewed every single quarter. So even when we submit our quarterly emissions report -- for example, if we miss one hour of monitoring for CO or opacity, a downtime hour because of doing a calibration on the instruments, that will give us an HPV status. So sometimes the database is a little misleading in terms of the way that it reports out our statuses, but then that is also seen as a violation because we are held to a higher standard than most industries for emissions requiring. But at times, unfortunately with an opacity monitor or with our carbon monoxide monitors, you may result in losing one hour of data in a quarter, and then that toggles you into HPV status. We did have a situation where we did have a loss of power even at the facility, where we once again self-reported and we received a notice of violation for that. Any time we have an event like that, we will do corrective action. We do RCA or root cause analysis, where we then develop corrective actions. One of the corrective actions that we have for that is to review our logic for our electrical distribution systems to ensure that those types of events would never happen again.

Thank you. And then lastly, do you know what materials are burned in your incinerator? Do you, for example, sort out toxic materials like heavy metals, plastic and rubber? What percentage of trucks do you inspect given sort of the earlier violation we talked about? Do you do open bag inspections? And do you monitor in realtime for heavy metals like lead, mercury and cadmium?

Okay. So a couple of questions there. So we do have inspectors on our floor that are inspecting our waste. So we do, do about roughly 5% to 10% of inspections on a daily basis. We also have floor attendants that are reviewing and looking at the waste and seeing if there's anything that should not be processed. They are trained on what type of waste should be processed versus not pulling out what we call nonprocessables. And that's their job and responsibility, to pull those things out, heavy tree stumps, white goods, etc, that could make their way, electronic goods that can make it into the waste stream. So we do have floor attendants who are visually surveilling. We have people in front-end loaders who are pushing the waste that can visually surveil the waste as well. We only burn municipal solid waste and also a few nonhazardous residual waste codes per the Pennsylvania solid waste regulations. So we do not burn any hazardous waste. We are not permitted to burn hazardous waste. We would never burn -- we would never even want to permit to burn hazardous waste.

One last question for clarity. So I was at the incinerator. They're literally mounds and heaps of garbage there. Are you saying that it's an eyeball inspection and that you inspect between 5 to 10% of what's come in or are you saying something different?

Well, we write down approximately 5 to 10% of the loads coming through the day. But then you also have people who, like I said, are floor attendants who are working the floor that they can also visually see and detect. We do not tear open bags because we also have an anti-scavenging policy and then we don't want people to come in contact with the waste in that manner. But if they do, they have been trained to see if there is something that should not be, that we should be processing, that they are trained to pull those things out.

Thank you. Councilmember Ahmad.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Quick question about the radioactive waste that was found. Was that part of your solid waste, you're collecting radioactive waste?

No, ma'am. Most radioactive waste that we -- the isotopes that we get hit for our medical isotopes, lutetium 177, iodine, iodine 131 and technetium. It is a medical isotope that is used to treat thyroid cancer. So people are -- it is communicated to people when they're going through treatment that you need to isolate your ways. But as someone who also gets involved in the radiation isolate, I tend to empathize with them in the fact that sometimes even though they may get those instructions at the hospital or at the point of treatment, maybe they don't -- it's just like I'm concerned about my cancer, you know, I'm throwing this away.

Yes, I hear you.

So we do have detectors at our scale house to detect for that. And then we isolate those trucks and we have personnel who will then, you know, go out there, confirm what the isotope is and we will then get, you know, we have to contact the DEP to get a request to ship to then ship that truck to the landfill.

So you don't decontaminate on your premises. You just ship out any radioisotopic waste to someplace else, right?

Yes -- we can also pull it out. So if we need to -- because maybe we have a customer that does not have a contract to go to the landfill, then we'll bring in our health physicist to then, you know, basically it's a very meticulous process. I've been out there and I've seen it. And you follow the isotope and then you pilfer through it, identify it, and then we put it in our radiation holding area until it drops to the appropriate threshold where it can be processed.

So, you know, those half lives are very long. It takes a long time for these isotopes to decay. So I just wondered how much safety is used to make sure these are segregated, these are properly protected so personnel who work there are not exposed to this? And it was very worrisome to hear that a truck came. You were not able to fully decontaminate and they left. And it seems to me very lax procedures, even if you're getting a tiny amount of radioisotopes coming in with regular waste. I think you need to have much better protocol for this to happen. This cannot happen. This cannot happen. (Applause.)

Second question is for you, sir. You mentioned the health impacts. Help me understand, is this done on actual data from real people or is this a modeling done based on the EPA report of what is acceptable or not?

This is a modeling study using actual facility operational data. The assessment itself is a hypothetical conservative screening analysis that is based on the results of the model that tells us what the air concentrations are at the maximum location within the residential area, and the deposition rates that again contribute to compounds in produce. And so, it's that aspect of it. It's hypothetical and there are ingestion rates that are assumed. For example --

Let me stop you. I understand what you're going to tell me. I just wanted you to say it, this is hypothetical and we actually don't have real data from real people around us because the EPA takes data from all over. I am really concerned because you've been in this facility, has had this contract for a long time and over all these years, we have not been able to do an actual assessment of a health impact on actual people living in Chester city who have been exposed to this. So this hypothetical model, the data you give to me is not very useful because it is not on actual people -- (Applause.)

Yes, this study was following EPA guidelines to determine what is the potential impacts to the residents in the area.

I understand what you're saying.

I mean, it's designed to be very conservative.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I'm saying it's not acceptable because you have perfect opportunity with all the profits you're making to have a really detailed study of a real impact on the real people in the real city of Chester, so that we don't have to depend on simulations. So, yeah, I mean what you're doing, but to me these numbers mean nothing. It just means that you were able to get a model that did this and said that. And yet we don't know what's happening in realtime with real people. So whether you get a contract here or not, you're going to have contracts elsewhere. I behoove you to use all these profits you're making to actually invest in longitudinal studies of real human beings who are around your facilities so that we can have real data and you can present that. Hopefully, it will show what you're showing. But I am highly suspicious it would match this data.

Well, I do want to add that this assessment is meant to be very conservative. It assumes some is exposed to the air concentrations and deposition rates for a lifetime of 70 years, whether they live in Chester their whole lifetime or not. There's a lot of conservative assumptions. But no, it's not an epidemiological analysis.

And that's exactly what we need to do, for Reworld to do a real epidemiological study, a longitudinal one to be able to then say without any doubt that you are not impacting negatively the health of people surrounding your facility.

I do want to add also that it is the objective following -- EPA designed these studies to evaluate facilities that have not been built yet, right, so that they can determine whether or not the air pollution control design on the facility is enough to protect the public health. We applied that here, and it shows very --

I think EPA is correct in prospective when something has not been built. But you've been built and you've been operating for many years so there is no -- (Applause.)

-- excuse not to have real data. I'll just tell you that.

I'm just saying that the analysis and the methodologies were designed so that facilities would be built protective of human health and we applied that model to a facility that's an actual operation. We have actual data that we put into that analysis and it does indeed show that the cancer risk associated with this facility is below the acceptable range that EPA has said.

I'm sorry. All based on a simulation, not on real data. So I don't think you can give us this data and tell us definitively that this is what is actually happening in the community, because you did not do that study. So that's what I would recommend, you actually do longitudinal studies which you have the time and the resources to do and not tell us to swallow this, because this is something done by EPA prospectively overall taking averages. That doesn't work here. This is not real data for us to consider. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Did use actual operational data for the facility. Did use that -- we did do actual emissions from the facility for this analysis too.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Councilmember Nina Ahmad. And we thank you all for your testimony today. Thanks for being here. Will the Clerk please call -- well, first I'd like to make an announcement. We're going to have to, for the sake of time so that we don't lose quorum, we're going to have to make up some time. So I'm going to switch up the last panel and then we're going to recess for a bit and then we'll come back to public comment.

The fourth and final panel will consist of Ms. Zulene Mayfield, Founder of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living; Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, Professor of Clinical of Family Medicine and Community Health; and Mike Ewall, Founder of Energy Justice Network. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.

Good afternoon, Chair Gauthier, Vice- Chair Bass, who is not here at the moment, and members of the Committee. My name is Mike Ewall, and I'm the founder and executive director of a national organization called Energy Justice Network based here in Philadelphia. I've been working on waste and energy issues for 35 years now, and I've put more years in working for environmental justice in Chester than anyone out there and counting over 30 years at this point. Communities across the country seek me out to stop dirty energy and waste facilities planned for their communities and to transition away from such facilities toward clean energy and zero waste solutions. I've developed the zero waste hierarchy, which is used as an international standard, and am a resident of Northeast Philadelphia and have been leading the work on this bill since four years ago. This is an initiative that's been entirely generated by Philadelphia residents. I'm going to skip over most of my testimony because I know you're running tight on time and just jump to some other key points. One of them is that alternatives already exist. We are not in the situation that Delaware County is in where they have financial and infrastructure barriers to moving away as quickly as they would like to. We can do this in the time that we have, which is about seven months. We already have a major waste company with adequate transfer station capacity and landfill capacity with two transfer stations in the city already and enough capacity at them as well as two landfills with enough capacity to take that one-third of the waste that is currently going to an incinerator contract. We're talking about 37% of our trash going to incineration, so that's not everything. It's not even half. And we know that longer term, not even just a few years even and we could do this if we wanted to, that adopting two of the main building blocks of the zero waste system can quickly and easily reduce the city's waste stream by more than that 37%, enabling us to dial back the waste that we do have to landfill by more than we currently burn and saving money in the process. Now, we're sympathetic to the administration's concerns about timing and cost. We understand their desire to have this bill held in committee. However, we would suggest that this committee move the bill forward to show its sincerity on this issue, but that the bill doesn't necessarily have to be voted on by the full Council until all the bids come in for the RFP. So you understand how that could be challenging, if it happens that way. And finally, while we support these concerns, I must say I'm disappointed to see some of the same arguments put forward by Carlton Williams today as he did in this chamber in 2019, when this was last a controversy before you, citing EPA waste hierarchy to justify placing incineration above landfilling, even though the science-based zero waste hierarchy does the opposite. Having written the most extensive response to the Sanitation Department's waste management request for information this past summer, among my 54 pages of comments, I pointed out to this department that EPA admitted to us almost four years ago that the agency has zero documentation to back up the placement of incineration above landfilling in its hierarchy. They told us this high level staff at EPA who work in this field, who are the waste division told us they have zero documentation. So for the city to be resting on that and saying, oh, well, EPA says so because they know best when they can't back it up, and that's why since July 2022, because I asked them, the EPA, the federal agency, put a disclaimer under the hierarchy everywhere it shows up saying they are revisiting it, and it's a slow process, and maybe on hiatus for four years, but this is something that they're working to revise because they recognize that is not backed up by science as it should be. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you so much. Dr. Bettigole, thank you for all of your service to the city. Thank you for being here today. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.

So my name is Dr. Cheryl Bettigole. Good afternoon, Chair Gauthier and members of the Committee on the Environment, and thank you for the opportunity to give testimony on Bill 250768. As you know, I'm Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, Professor of Clinical Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine. The opinions that I express in this testimony are my own and don't necessarily represent those of Penn. As we've heard today, more than 1 child in 5 in the city of Philadelphia has been diagnosed with asthma. That's nearly three times the national rate. Asthma is one of the top reasons for missed days of school in our city and that makes it harder for our kids to learn and for parents to go to work and support their families. So as we're thinking about the economics of this, that really has to play a part. The burden of asthma falls unequally on our children, with the hospitalization rate for Black children in the city nearly six times as high as that for White children, and the last available data that high rate of asthma, along with the other impacts that we've heard about today on the health of city residents from air pollution, it's not the result of any single source children who grow up in our city, particularly those whose families do not make a living wage, which is more than half of our city, face the combined impact of multiple exposures. Many live in lower- quality housing or indoor air pollutants may trigger their asthma as well as impacting the breathing of older adults. Tobacco use tends to be higher in these same neighborhoods, although the city has made welcome strides in decreasing its use in recent years thanks to the actions of this City Council. And sadly, too many of our children face barriers increasing in the current environment to accessing the health care and medications they need to control their asthma and to prevent exacerbations. As City Council considers this bill, it may seem like a decision to support its passage is solely a vote to protect the residents, especially the children of Chester city and county, which we absolutely should do. But when we send our trash to Chester for incineration, we are also putting our own residents at risk in the warmer months of the year. In the warmer months of the year, winds in Philadelphia generally shift to blow from the southwest rather than from the northwest, bringing toxins from trash incinerated in Chester to the air we breathe in Philadelphia. And I think we saw over the last few years just how far air pollution can go when the wildfires in Canada made our air orange in 2022. At a public meeting of the Air Pollution Control Board, members of the public pointed out that in Philadelphia facilities that emit large amounts of toxic pollution tend to be built in the same neighborhoods. They asked why the board could not require consideration of the air pollution and cancer risk in the specific neighborhood of a facility applying for a permit. Rather than just considering the facility's risk on its own, the board agreed, ultimately passing a regulation that requires consideration of cumulative cancer and noncancer risk in the neighborhoods of proposed facilities for large emitters before their permits can be approved. They made that decision because they recognized the need to address the disproportionate health risks in some city neighborhoods created by a historical legacy of injustice. Council has an opportunity to take another step down that road today, passing this bill and saying no to the incineration of Philadelphia's trash in the largest incineration facility in the country that is more than 30 years old and to the toxic air pollutants it produces. Council has the chance to move our city and our neighbors in Chester toward environmental justice and the healthier future we all want for our city's residents and our neighbors. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you so much. Thank you to both of you for your work and for being here today. Thank you.

Ms. Zulene Mayfield, Founder of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you so much for being here, Ms. Zulene. Thank you for all of --

It's a long day.

-- your work. It really is.

It's a long day. Hello, my neighbors. I am going to -- 0I provided written testimony. I just want to get through this and we're going to go over a couple of things.

Sorry. Can you state your name for the record and speak into the mic.

My name is Zulene Mayfield. I'm the Chairperson and a Founding member of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living or CRCQL. CRCQL was formed in 1992. We were formed after the incinerator went live and began burning. Initially, we formed on everything that you could see, hear and smell. We were not knowledgeable about the pollution and/or the disruption and disease and cancers that they would bring to our community. You've heard from other panelists on their perspective about Covanta Reworld Incinerator. We have experienced firsthand the immediate impact of this incinerator that it has had on our community. As people that live in Chester, we are environmentally assaulted every day, from the thousands of pounds of pollutants being emitted by Covanta Reworld. We've had to become scientists, engineers, enforcers, health advocates and regulatory agents, all while trying to live. Only we can tell our story. Only us. Covanta recently commissioned a report on the health of residents of Chester. They have referenced that so-called report today. AECOM authored this report, and it should be noted that this company has a dubious history. They've been a source of fraudulent billing, racial discrimination, hiring discrimination, lawsuits and settlements resulting in millions of dollars being paid out. Covanta Reworld should be ashamed to even tout that as a report. In 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency at the behest of this organization, commissioned an environmental risk assessment study. They have all of the data. They showed the cancer rates for our community. They gave us the projections. It was a trailblazing report that had never been done before. Every report after that has mirrored their conclusions at that time. Basically, our community is sick, our children have asthma and we are burying members of our community, burying them every day, as Dr. Motley said. We are getting that phone call that somebody else is sick or they need transportation, they need food. Covanta Reworld emits cadmium, chromium, mercury, dioxins, arsenic, all known cancercausing carcinogens. Yet Covanta Reworld wants this committee to believe that the cancer rates in Chester are not significant, although data shows Chester residents suffer from rates of liver and bio cancer, 91% more than the national average. Laryngeal cancer, 84% the national rate. Hodgkin's lymphoma, 78%, greater than the national rate. Pancreatic cancer, 50% greater than the national rate. The list goes on and on and on. Asthma rates for our children are alarming, as are the rates for the children of Philadelphia. For some reason, people think that when the pollution hits the fence line, it stops. It don't stop there. What is done to us in Chester, what is contributing to environmental genocide, what is allowed to happen to us, you do also unto yourself. It don't stop there. There's no Wakanda shield. The city of Chester also falls within the 90 percentile for ozone. Meaning, it is in the top 10% for the state of Pennsylvania for ground level ozone exposures known to cause respiratory distress, among other health issues. Delaware County Solid Waste and Delaware County Council just approved the Zero Waste Plan. If you are looking for a model on how to do the financial assessment, a lifecycle analysis and a comparative study, that is a great start, an absolute fantastic start. I think it is a trailblazing study. And what they have determined, incineration is far more polluting than landfilling. It's apples and oranges. And I would pose a question to the people in this committee today, everybody's looking financially and what does this do and how do you do that. I would just say the logic is, if Delaware County hasn't done anything, why should we do the right thing. There's never -- well, I'm not going to do it because they haven't done it. There's always a time to do the right thing. (Applause.)

Always. And it should not be dependent upon somebody else. You are Philadelphia, Philadelphia. We are the oldest city in Pennsylvania, but you are the oldest government. And what can Philadelphia not do? Come on now. Y'all home of the Eagles. Come on. You know, that alarmed me a little bit. So Covanta Reworld will tell this committee that they're good community partners. They gave out food to 250 families. Well, we have 12,000 households in Chester, so it's minimal, a crumb of a crumb of a crumb. They give out $25,000 in scholarships. They give $2,000 to this organization, blah, blah, blah. They gave an AED to a church, blah, blah, blah. They will not talk about the poisoning of an entire community. They don't want to talk about that. They do not want to talk about the people in our community that we are losing. They won't say who pays the cost when a child has an asthma attack and the parent is at work and has to leave work to get their child medical attention for that child. Covanta will also tell you that their burning of trash falls within the allowable limits of their permit. The facility is 33 years old. Old technology, outdated. There's no way to make it safe. By their very nature, they will never be safe. That's why they have to be issued a permit to pollute all of us. They are issued a permit to pollute, not to be good neighbors. WTE, I'm so glad that everybody today has called them the incinerator because that's what they are. It's nothing magical about what they do. As a byproduct of what they do, which is burn, they generate electricity. Now, the logic would be since you have a city that's in a poor community, well, hell, let's give the electricity to the community. That might actually lift people out of poverty. That would be a good community partner. No. When they initially started -- I don't know where the electricity goes at now because I don't have time to track it, but they used to send it over to grid Atlantic City and it serviced the casinos there. So you see everybody profits off of the suffering of the community of Chester. You talked about finances. I heard a person up here say that you all pay $78 a ton to have trash disposed. Well, the city of Chester receives $2 per ton, $2. 50 to $2. Nobody knows why, but the deal was done in secrecy and away from the residents. That's primarily and particularly one of the reasons why he's no longer the mayor. You've heard about, you know, we have 35,000 people. We don't have one doctor in our city, but people are telling us that we should be grateful to have Reworld in our community pumping out poison because they have jobs. Well, I don't know if it's 6, or now, 8 but those are the number of people 9 from Chester that work in Reworld 10 Covanta in the city of Chester. 11 They have 115 or so employees. So 12 it's not a good point. 13 All right. So I'm going 14 to hurry up so we can get out of 15 here. In July of this year, we 16 lost a member of CRCQL. His name 17 was Joshua Shockley. He was newly 18 married, had a pregnant wife. He 19 called me up and he told me he had 20 cancer. The day that his son was born was the first day of his chemo treatment. He died two weeks before his one-year anniversary and when his son was 5 months old. Josh was 38 years of age. We are not statistics. We will not live in a kill zone for other people's comfort. We matter to us. Our children matter. Our community matters. Because of Josh's son and all the children, Chester, Philadelphia, CRCQL will continue to fight. Okay. When Philly went through the trash strike, one side of me I felt very sad, but the dark side of me is like, yes, now they can see the crap that they send to my city every single day. It manifested itself in the smells, the odors, the stinkiness that just ugh. But that's what they send to us every day. It was a real representation of what we have to do, you know, people make garbage, it goes out and nobody thinks anything else about it.

Oh, my God, get it out of our house, it smells. There's no cost associated, not real cost. They don't see the suffering. We buried a 38-year-old man and his doctors determined because he had a rare form of cancer -- I can't pronounce it right now -- that it was due to environmental factors. In the year prior to that, a year and three months prior to that, his mother died from cancer. I've lost my mother, my brother, my 15-year-old sister, cousins, and it's a situation of, you know, I've testified at hundreds of hearings like this throughout the years, always with the mindset what facts do I need to cite. What can I say that will stick in their brains and what story will pierce their hearts and make them understand. This is more than a financial decision. It's a health and it's a moral decision that needs to be made. Will you commit and continue to become complicit in environmental racism because it's not environmental justice? There is no justice right now. When we shut it down, that will be justice. And we will shut it down. We will shut it down --

Thank you so much.

-- they asked earlier whether or not there have been any conversations with the trash from New York. Actually, it comes from Queens and Manhattan. We are in monthly conversations with their advisory solid waste advisory boards. I've already given testimony. They have a longer -- every contract is not set in stone forever. You can break a dang contract.

Thank you so much. I'm going to have to recess the hearing for a few minutes. Is there any last comment that you would like to give?

Yes. Just a couple. The city of --

I would ask that you summarize.

Yeah. The City of Philadelphia has the ability to do whatever they want to do. Okay. You have a product that they want. You're not in a position of weakness. You're in a position of strength. I'm good. I'm done. (Applause.)

Thank you so much for everything.

Thank you all for having us. Remember your morality and your heart and to do the right thing. It's not dependent upon money. Money is gonna send a whole lot of people to hell. Okay. Thank you so much.

And to everyone here, we're going to take a brief recess. minutes 10 or so. Don't go anywhere. We'll be back. (Brief recess.)

Thank you so much everyone for your patience. So this is what we're going to do. We're going to vote. We're going to close out -- well, we're going to close out the hearing. We're going to vote and then we're going to go back to public comment, because otherwise I'm not going to be able to keep a quorum. So thank you for your patience and flexibility. Seeing no one else here to testify on this bill, this concludes the public hearing. We will now go into a public meeting to consider the action to be taken on the bill heard today. Can the Clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Ahmad.

Present.

Councilmember Driscoll.

Present.

Councilmember Harrity.

Present.

Councilmember O'Rourke.

Present.

Vice-Chair Bass.

Present.

Chair Gauthier.

Present. All righty. The Chair recognizes Vice-Chair Bass for a motion on Bill No. 250768.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that Bill No. 14 250768 be reported from this committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at the next session of Council. (Duly seconded.)

It has been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 250768 be reported from this committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at the next session of Council. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)

Those opposed? (No response.)

The ayes have it and the motion carries. Bill No. 250768 will be reported from this committee with a favorable recommendation with the request that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading at the next session of Council. This concludes the business of the Committee on the Environment today. Thank you all very much for your attendance. And remember, we're going back to public comment. All righty. This is how we're going to do public comment. We have a few people that we had to push into public comment. We're going to give those folks two to three minutes to give their testimony. We're going to ask that everyone else because there's a very long list, give their comment in a minute and a half, and we're going to do our best to time it and keep it moving along or we will be here for many, many hours. Okay. Will the Clerk please call the first person for public comment -- the first several people, rather.

B.P. Lyles, Russell Zerbo, Dr. Lloyd Batson. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

State your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

Lloyd Batson. And good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to testify. I'm Lloyd Batson and a resident of the Francisville area of Philadelphia and a professor of Chemistry and Sustainability at Widener University in Chester and I am in strong support of the Stop Trashing Our Air bill. So thank you for your support of the bill and moving it on. Reworld Chester is the largest and one of the oldest trash incinerators in the country and operates in high priority violation of the Clean Air Act with frequent citations from the Pennsylvania DEP. Chester is a well-known example of environmental racism that is used as a case study at colleges and universities across the country. This is because Chester is littered with polluting facilities, including a trash incinerator, a sewage incinerator and five chemical facilities along the waterfront. Additionally, Chester suffers from the pollution of nearby oil refineries and power plants. These cumulative and additive impacts create serious air quality issues in Chester. The risk assessment that we heard about and talked about today by AECOM fails to account for these multiple additive, cumulative and synergistic impacts of multiple pollutants from multiple facilities. The study also emits key emissions from a number of pollutants that I won't list here for sake of time. Additionally, the risk assessment utilizes emission data from annual testing under optimal operating conditions, and there are numerous studies indicating that annual emission measurements significantly underestimate chemical exposure to the surrounding community. We've heard from a number of people that air pollution, particularly ozone and nitrogen oxides, are strongly linked to asthma. I want to talk about NOx a little bit. So nitrous oxide, NOx, contributes to lung tissue damage by reacting with water and producing nitric acid, nitrogen dioxide reacts with sunlight to initiate a series of chemical reactions that creates ozone, which has been linked to lung damage and asthma. According to Reworld's own stats, they produce 14% of Delaware County's NOx emissions. That's from one facility. 14% of the total NOx in the county. Chester's asthma rates we have heard about, so I will not restate those. And we've also heard the pollution that is in Chester affects the entire region. Philadelphia is downwind from Chester. So I'm also not going to repeat all of that data. But we must improve the air quality in Chester and the Philadelphia region and reduce the amount of NOx, ozone and other pollutants in our ground level air. Philadelphia can do its part by stopping the incineration of our trash, and I certainly prefer that Philadelphia work and get to zero waste and there are lots of ways to do that. And incineration is not the answer to the problem. Incineration, as we've heard, is much more harmful than landfilling, and that's largely because, as was admitted, they inspect 5% of the trash that goes into the facility. So we do not know what is being burned. And because Reworld lacks continuous monitoring of many of their air pollution of the chemicals of concern, we don't know what's going into Chester's air. Hence, we do not know what is in Philadelphia's air. We just do not know that -- so I am very thankful for you moving the bill on to City Council. And I really hope that City Council will stop sending Philadelphia's trash to Chester. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Will the Clerk call the next several names. And when your name is called, if you could come up and sit at the table and in the chairs adjacent to the table, we can move this along.

Nolan Fontaine, Ms. Margaret Brown and BP Lyles. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Good afternoon to all of you or evening maybe almost. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Nolan L. Fontaine. Well, first off, I'd like to thank you, Chair Gauthier. I am a lifelong resident of Chester, Pennsylvania. I'm a veteran. And Chester, Pa of course is the traditional land of the Lenape and Okehaake. I serve as the President of Urban Indian Heritage Society, but I am here today as a Chester Resident Concerned for Quality of Living member, a CRCQL member, to advocate on how this pollutant industry and the amount of trash sent to 19013 has an often mortal effect on our lungs and livelihood. I currently serve as the Youth Coordinator for Choices, which is our youth environmental leadership group, and unfortunately working with those students, more than half of my students have either asthma or a COPD-related element. However, our students are resilient. They are academics, artists, athletes, AI designers, and full of alacrity. They also have spearheaded a musical resurgence around the issue of trash and the ability to breathe clean air in Chester. Now, you have probably seen the consultant reports that Reworld has provided today from multiple sources. I can assure you, though, our students along with the amount of Algebra homework, a shoestring budget and Tiktok accounts have single- handedly taken back over the narrative of green washing that has been perpetuated by our nation's largest trash incinerator. Now, I do want to let folks know I am absolutely pro-worker. And I come from a working class family, but let's talk about why the working class in our specific areas always get some kind of weird, toxic roll-up-your- sleeve jobs. I'm tired of our people getting the short end of the stick. Philly, you're a very good neighbor. You can change this with this act. Resolution 250769, in regards to our other neighbor, Covanta Reworld Trash Incinerator, who has went through more name changes than the Kardashians combined in the past myriad of years. But believe me, Covanta Reworld is much more odious in how they exploit employees and our air in our community. 3 milligrams without activated carbon. They plan on putting an active charcoal filter on within the next 12 months. Yet, have they even completed the procurement paperwork. I don't know. Where's the urgency? Where's the empathy? I know where I can find it, but (inaudible), you find it, let me know. Now, ask yourself is that neighborly. Years ago, I could recall when thermometer with mercury could shut down a whole school and prompt the top story slot at 6ABC or Fox29 News. 3 milligrams of over 9 square miles in Chester is okay. Please stop playing in our face. I'm here today to remind Covanta Reworld that this is not a corporatocracy. This is a constitutional republic. You have no power here to the committee, to chair Gauthier, to Vice-Chair Bass, to Council, to your constituents. I applaud you for your efforts in moving the Stop trashing Our Air Act forward, for the livelihood of our families and our next seven generations. In the spirit of American Indian heritage month, I asked the Council to remember the Treaty of Shackamaxon extended by one of my many tribes, the Lenape, where we agreed we would live in peace. But unfortunately, the trash sector from Philly feeds the environmental polluting war machine and aids the lungs of the people of Chester and Delaware County to continue to be polluted. In the words of Ms. Zulene Mayfield, there is no 17 Wakanda shield over Chester that prevents this particulate matter from dissipating to every nook and cranny of our region. We have no 21 (inaudible). We only have vitality. In closing -- I'll shorten it. This is not a Roberta Flack or Fugees (inaudible). Please stop killing us softly. I would like to thank this committee, Vice-chair, Chair Gauthier, Councilman O'Rourke, appreciate you staying and hearing my testimony. I look forward to seeing this resolution come to the floor for first reading. )

Thank you so much. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.

My name is Margaret Brown and I'm here on behalf of Chester and the Chester incinerator. This would be a great day for all of us to be alive, breathing clean, healthy, fresh air. Chester residents want to do this, to do just that, be alive, be healthy. I'm skipping so many parts because it was already said you have been to Chester and you viewed our incinerator and the neighborhood that it stands in. The neighborhood did not used to look like that. I lived there all my life. We desperately want Philadelphia not to renew the contract. Chester is a polluted city of 35,000-plus citizens being challenged in a war of economics, fear, crime, greed, power and systemic racism. We don't ask nor do we want it to continue to be this way. We don't merely want the trash to go away. We want the incinerator to go away. Environmental justice for good quality air is at its worst. The atmosphere has caused so many problems to the citizens and those beyond. We deal with cancer, our children, lung and heart disease as adults, they have the poorest asthma in the city and the state of Pennsylvania. It not only causes the health issues, but it causes learning disabilities. I live on a street three blocks from the incinerator. On a daily basis -- I don't watch all the time -- I can come out at 2:00 in the morning and see trucks lined up from the Commodore Barry Bridge all the way down to the incinerator at times when people get up for work and things, they don't let traffic on the side streets out. And this can go on until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. On my block there are only 14 livable homes, and that means there's people in them. People have died and homes stay vacant and they just go away. Of those 14 homes, 12 people have died of cancer within the last seven to eight years. My mother died of cancer. I have an that aunt died of cancer. I just had a cousin. Today is the month that we funeralized her. She went to the doctor in March, find out she had cancer and she's gone already. It took her away. She had multiple cancers with really no signs of it until the end. Chester truly deserves better. Its future partially depends on Philadelphia's decision to say no to renewing your contact. Breathing cancer-causing particles can and does kill. I had my phone -- a sound of the furnace that burns the trash at night. Time you lose sleep, because it's that loud and it blinked off. But you can hear, like I said, I'm just three blocks away, the sound coming through a closed window that I thought for a long time there was airplanes driving over my house. That's how loud it is.

Do you want some time to find it and play it for us or was that not what you were suggesting?

I'd have to get it, which one it was.

Once you wrap up your testimony, if you would like to play that for us.

I can come back and play it for you. The asthma with children in school, I worked in the Chester School District for 38 years. We didn't have nurses every day for children. I myself had two children that grew up with asthma. I know what it is. The girl went to girls school and the boy went to the boys school. But I know what it is from elementary school on to get a call from a teacher or the principal saying you have to bring their medicine up. It got to the point that I found another alternative, both schools were next to hospitals, one Sacred Heart and one up in Darby. The hospital up there next to the schools, it was arranged that instead of me running the medicine there twice a week, they were walked by another student with their parents permission to take my boy and my girl to the hospital to get a shot or get a treatment for asthma, because at times they would forget there were inhalers. Two grandchildren attended the school I worked in. They didn't know what it was for a long time to go out to lunch because they had to come and sit by my desk and take nebulizer treatments. My great-niece had a baby last year. It was born. They rushed it to ICU. Wasn't breathing properly. They only did a 24-hour watch to keep the baby. The baby was sent home. She died seven days later, lung problems. So I'm begging, I know the effects, what asthma does to children, does to adults. So if there's any way possible, I am asking as part of a community to stop the trash from coming to Chester. I myself, I speak very low because gradually my esophagus is closing up on me. I have no 16 disease, but I've had all kinds of tests, undetermined diagnosis. But it's closing up and they can't find why. I had surgery last year, abdominals, my hernia is shrinking, while the intestines is shrinking, which caused them to remove four hernias in my body. And during all the tests I had, they only found two, until they opened me up and saw two more. So like I said, it doesn't just hit lungs, liver, pancreas. It will hit every single organ in your body and not have a cause. All right. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you for being here and for sharing your story. And you said that you spoke softly, but I think you spoke very loudly. Thank you. Next, can you please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony. And before you go, B.P., I just want to also thank you for being here. Thank you for all of your work and advocacy. We would not be here without you. Please state your name for the record and proceed.

Thank you. P. Lyles. It's a pleasure to be here before you, Chair Gauthier. For those who have left, the Vice-Chair, and especially good to see you as well, Councilmember O'Rourke, we thank you. I am nearly a 50-year resident of the city of Philadelphia. I have six generations, at least, that is either currently or formerly connected to or residing in this city. I'm going to abbreviate my testimony. So since you all have moved this result, this act forward, I just want to highlight a couple of things that I think are important to think about and to understand. One thing is, regardless of the name that's used for an incinerator, it at the end of the day and at the beginning of the day is still an incinerator. So whether the name that is used is energy technology or thermo- mechanical treatment facilities, it's still an incinerator. Waste to energy is still an incinerator. What happens is that it's confusing at times to understand where some of the pro-incinerator testimonies are coming from. In fact, the positions almost always come from entities that take money from the incinerator industry. That's important for the City of Philadelphia to know. Well, this obviously is the case for the industry itself, especially Reworld. It is true for scientists like Dr. Marco Castaldi from the City College of New York. He's long been a leading voice in waste to energy technology. And as a matter of fact, he's been a part of the Waste to Energy Research and Technology Council. This council is a council that involves academics and waste to energy professionals, and their intention is to further advance their own calls. Their interest is in promoting waste to energy processes and technologies to assist governments and industries and universities and colleges in implementing such technologies in their specific environments. What does that mean? What that means is that we need to follow the money and not just think about a name. The other thing that I want to share with you is that AECOM was hired by Reworld to conduct the study. And I am very pleased with Dr. Ahmad and I'm very grateful for her calling a spade a spade and calling them on the fact that what they said was nonsense. I would call it foolishness. There's another term. I am from North Philly. There's another term we would use, but I won't say that here. Calling it what it is. AECOM is an engineering company. It is a construction company. Their focus is building buildings. Their focus is in promoting their company. They are, as you heard earlier, flimsy on scientific research at best. And it is imperative that Philadelphia and that the Councilmembers who will make this large decision moving forward understand that if we rely upon industry that promotes itself and that promotion is about tearing down communities, then the conversation on environmental justice becomes moot. And so, Philadelphia is a city that is one currently, we're a mixed bag. We have some -- we have a lot of good. We have some bad. We have some injustices here, but we have a lot of great things going on in the city. And I believe that what we have an opportunity to do here moving forward is to continue educating the public, letting Philadelphians know and understand how important it is to develop very healthy, very sound, proven ways that are technologically reasonable and ethically sound as it relates to human life and health. So I will never believe that that includes incineration. I will never believe that the toxicity that's emitted from incinerations are ever acceptable. And I will never believe that we, being a big brother or big sister to our neighboring Chester, will have a right or should be involved in the continuation of health disparity. I will also never believe that Philadelphia should continue its really unethical practice of causing other people to suffer harm, along with its own citizens.

We are, as Councilman Gauthier said, we are very high on the list of asthma capital and cancer capital in the country. We're number four right now, and the reality is we need to do something in order for that to change. So I'm grateful for that, that you all have decided to move this forward. But in moving it even further, it is imperative that we know who we're listening to and why they're speaking. And it is also important for us to understand that we have an obligation, not only to this city but to the entire region. Thank you. )

Thank you so much. Thanks to all of you very much. Will the Clerk please call the next several public commenters. Please come up when you hear your name called.

Linnea Bond, Mitch Cannon, Patty Smith. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

I'm Linnea Bond. I had a lot of things to say today. I spent a lot of time crafting it, but I think we all want to go home and I just want to tell you how much I really -- I just want to tell you all how much I really, really appreciate this work, and we're going to stay with you, pushing to move this all the way through and the longer term issues that we have around our single stream and with our energy and combustion as well. (Applause.)

Thank you so much. We appreciate Physicians for Social Responsibility. Thank you very much.

I'll keep it quick too. My name is Mitch Chanin. I am the Chair of the Climate Justice Caucus in Reclaim Philly. I also wanted to speak on behalf of another group that I work with in Northeast Philly where I live, which is 215 People's Alliance. It's doing a lot of organizing and around short-dumping in the Lawncrest neighborhood in the Northeast. As Linnea said, extremely excited that the bill has advanced out of committee. I've been paying attention to these issues around incineration since I was a kid. When Councilmember Bass was reminiscing about the 1980s, I remember really well the very long debate about whether or not to build a so-called trash-to-steam plant, which is an incinerator at the Navy Yard. And really glad that City Council led the way in saying no to that proposal for a polluting facility. I remember that we had incinerators here in Philly. We had I think five or six of them. One of our members at 215 People's Alliance who was here earlier, he had to leave Dallas. Herbert worked as an operating engineer at the incinerator at Spring Garden and Delaware Avenue. So that was an incinerator. The Northwest Transfer Station that was referenced several times in Roxborough was an incinerator. That was an incinerator that led to a notorious international incident when a barge was sailing all over the world trying to find a place to dump thousands of tons of toxic ash from a Philly incinerator, they dumped it on Haiti. Then they had to go back and retrieve it because it was illegal to dump it there. It led to an international convention on the -- (Applause.)

Yeah. Anyway, this is just one more step in a long, long, long, multi-decade process of phasing out an extremely toxic and damaging industry. And one of the things I wanted to say before the bill advanced out of committee was, you know, we decided not to burn trash in Philadelphia because we didn't want the toxic air pollution in our city. So why would it be okay to send it to Chester or somewhere else to be burned when we decided not to do it. We had incinerators here. They're gone. We decided not to build them here. And just the last thing I'll add, you know, really hope this bill will be approved by the full Council. I was really disappointed, underwhelmed, frustrated by the testimony from the administration earlier. I don't understand why another study is being conducted. And I don't have any idea how they expect to be making the decision about what contracts to sign. There was zero clarity about how they would weigh different criteria, how they're evaluating evidence about the health risks, the harm caused by incineration. It just really brought home to me hearing the testimonies why it is so critical for City Council to take leadership in this. I just have no faith that absent Council's leadership, the administration will make the right decision. So I've never seen in the decades I think since the '80s when we decided not to build the incinerator at the Navy Yard, this kind of leadership from City Council on this really critical issue. And I'm just really thrilled, really grateful, really honored to be here today to see this step taking place. So thank you so much. (Applause.)

Thank you so much. Will the Clerk please call the next several public commenters.

David Golic. Alisa Shargorodsky, David Evans. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Thank you. Thank you to this Council for hearing these comments today. I'll also try to keep this very brief. My name is Alisa Shargorodsky, the Director of ECHO Systems. We are a local nonprofit that focuses on waste reduction, specifically reuse and circular economy movements here in Philadelphia. I would like to just bring up the fact that our city here in Philadelphia, there were some comments brought up by Councilmember Harrity about cost and expense. And I just wanted to touch on something, that our city has no line item budgets that contribute towards solid waste, prevention strategies, unlike other cities like San Francisco, New York City that has done its due diligence to ensure that the reuse economy is bolstered so that we can keep the volume out of our waste stream. Philadelphia does not have that focus. So 40% of the waste that we're generating is food packaging. Our food sector is flooded with toxic food packaging that is full of PFAs and chemicals that also cause cancer here amongst our residents. So I would implore the city to focus more on how we can spend our dollars and cents to prevent this waste, to lower the volume of trash that we're generating here in our city. Our organization is specifically focused on doing that. We have an initiative called Philly Unwrapped that is looking to educate our local businesses. So these types of things are really critical, educating our businesses, educating our residents on how we can do solid waste prevention is key. And I also have severe asthma and have suffocated here. Living here, being a Philadelphia native, I depend on my inhalers and my medications. And I can tell you that this is no joke. Not being able to breathe is no 11 joke. So I just hope that we can move our city towards regenerative and accountable, just systems. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you so much for your testimony, your comment, but also everything you contributed to this project. We appreciate you. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

Dave Golic. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I am the coordinator of a diverse Chester-based community group focused on addressing the pollution from a filthy crematory in our neighborhood, which is another pollutant thing besides the incinerator. We are a member group of Delco Environmental Justice and Energy Justice Network, and work closely with B.P. and Mike for those support groups. I also serve as President of the Chester Historical Preservation Committee. When learning about the utterly, unregulated crematories are in our state with no real pollution monitoring requirements or controls, it was eyeopening to find how much large trash incinerators are also poorly regulated. Reworld talks about how they have continuous monitoring of their emissions, but chooses to leave out the fact that this is true only for four of the many pollutants that they release into our air. One of the pollutants they release is large amounts of hydrochloric acid. This is one of the four that they continuously monitor, and their continuous monitoring data shows that the actual emissions are 62% higher than what once per year. Stack testing shows they get their stack tested once a year. So it's like I have a whole thing here, but I'm not going to take the time, but if you know they're going to test your stack, then you're going to make sure the stack, the stuff that comes out, is within the limits, and that's what Reworld does. And they have charts about the emissions, and they include every single thing in Delaware County, you know, the car that drove down the street, the whatever it is. They have all that. So then they can say, well, we only have 14% of the emissions, which --

Thank you so much. Just wanted to give a quick time note if you can. Thank you so much for your testimony.

Thank you to both of you. Will the Clerk please call the next several people for public comment.

Shari Hirsch, Lois Williams, Tia Tynes. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Good afternoon. It's so good to hear from you today.

Hi.

Good afternoon. Good to see the team. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

I'm Shari Hirsch. I live in Philadelphia. I'm a member of Trash Academy and a participant in the Clean Philadelphia Now Coalition. We have a citywide campaign to end illegal dumping in Philadelphia by 2028. So thank you, everybody. Thanks for staying. We feel that if Philadelphia is serious about becoming the cleanest and greenest big city in America, we must end incineration and ultimately landfilling too and ensure that our sanitation contracts include robust waste diversion requirements. We can't make one community clean by trashing another. The 4000 tires removed from Tacony Creek Park were sent to Covanta. Tires in a landfill is not acceptable either, so we just want to say that our current recycling rate is at 13%. That's far below the 22% we achieved before COVID. Sanitation contracts should include composting to divert food waste, curbside textile collection, programs that recover construction and demolition materials. That's 17% of our solid waste in Philly. It's all being incinerated or landfilled. These measures will help Philadelphia build a sustainable, equitable approach to waste management that makes all communities healthier and stronger. Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have waste diversion rates of 53% showing that it's possible. So for clean and green to be enduring, we urge you to actually go beyond this Act which we're thrilled about, and we have 100% support. We think there needs to be an advisory group that develops a policy on solid waste. So those things that someone just so beautifully articulated, Mitch or someone did about what is the quantity, what are they looking for in those contracts. There is Remark Glass, there is Rabbit Recycling, there's Bennett Compost. We have all kinds of amazing waste diversion programs in Philadelphia. We need to have small contracts to not just giant contracts. We need to be more progressive. (Applause.)

Thank you. Thank you so much. And I love that recommendation. I would love to be a part of establishing that committee and moving that conversation forward. Thank you for being here.

That's fantastic.

Hi. I'm Lois Williams and I'm a concerned citizen of Philadelphia and I'm also a member of Trash Academy, hence the vest. All of the incinerators are in Black and Brown neighborhoods. The people there are sick with breathing problems and are dying from the same. We need the contractors to divert the waste so we have a lot less waste. And, yes, I have mine right here. So of course, I want this here to end. Thank you.

Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Tia Tynes. I'm one of the Co-directors of Trash Academy. Pretty much everyone here has said something that I would have said so I can give you a remix? No, okay. Well, can I still get oop-oop. Well, actually, I'm just going say this, I'm a person with asthma as well and sometimes my triggers are not very big. Okay. It could be something like fresh cut grass, and I love fresh cut grass. I love cayenne pepper. I'm very heavy-handed on it, but sometimes it can give me an issue. Chester is in the soup. They got to deal with this every day and it's not fair. And here in Philly, we have a problem with illegal dumping. Chester has a problem with legal dumping. Okay. Philadelphia is one of those legal dumpers and we need to do something about that. Because it's not fair that a city that wants to be clean and green and is doing all this work on illegal dumping, that we're legally dumping on them and putting them in that soup, so we have to do something about that. As Shari said, it's about waste diversion. As someone else says, cutting our consumption. And yeah, we just need to be mindful of the things that we consume and the after effects of that. So there's my slight remix. (Applause.)

Thank you so much, not just for today but for all of your work. Thank you. Will the Clerk please call the next several public commenters.

Vanessa Zapata, David Gibson, Jada La Fontaine. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Good evening. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

Good evening, Chair Gauthier and members of the committee. My name is Vanessa Zapata and I'm a staff attorney at the organization nonprofit Just Zero. Our organization is an environmental advocacy organization and we work nationally to advance equitable and community-centered zero waste solutions. We advocate for the end of climate damaging and toxic waste disposal practices because we believe that all people deserve zero toxic exposures. And I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today in strong support of Bill 250768, the Stop Trashing Our Air Act. You heard devastating stories as well as clear data on the adverse public health impacts of incineration. So I won't restate, but I do want to add that incineration also releases PFAS, which is increasingly an area of concern. Additionally, the toxics that are emitted not only pollute our air, but they do infiltrate our soils and water as well. This bill 15 is a critical step to real zero waste solutions. It closes the door on costly, toxic and outdated incineration and this bill would push the city to invest in meaningfully, prioritize safe and sustainable opportunities to reduce waste. In fact, nearly half of what the city throws away is compostable and recyclable. For these reasons, Just Zero commends the Committee in giving this bill a favorable report and our organization would like to provide any assistance in achieving the city's zero waste goals through meaningful zero waste policy. So please call me up if you want help with that. And I want to thank you again for your time and for your commitment to protecting Pennsylvania communities. (Applause.)

Thank you so much.

Good evening. My name is Jada La Fontaine. I'm a West Philadelphia native and lifetime resident of District 4. My short career so far has revolved around environmental equity and connecting residents to decision-making processes that shape their quality of life, like the one we're gathered for today. Most recently, I worked in the Office of Environmental Justice at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection or DEP. And there, I learned about the extent of negative health impacts our neighbors in Chester are subject to via industrial pollution, including those stemming from this incinerator. It's worth considering that just in the past five years alone this site has accumulated over 40 environmental health and safety violations according to DEP eFACTS database. A handful of violations within recent months, include an incident in late June when the facility failed to properly operate and maintain a pollution control device. A week earlier, it was cited for incorrectly running one of the pollution-producing sources in its air cleaning system. And two weeks prior to that effect, showed the radiation related violations that Councilwoman Gauthier described earlier. These types of offenses and others are repeated throughout its decades of long inspection history and often translate into real-life events where unpermitted levels of toxic chemicals, sometimes visible and foul-smelling, are released into the local community, sometimes for hours on end. It's also worth noting that Reworld is currently being sued by a former 13-year operations supervisor, Eric Bass, who claimed he was wrongfully fired for refusing to falsify emissions data at the Chester facility in discussion today as the largest incinerator in the United States. It is not hyperbole to say that Reworld is making a killing. Philadelphia routinely makes socially responsible contracting decisions and this bill 10 presents us with an opportunity to apply those same standards here. Chronic noncompliance and disregard for worker and community health should not be rewarded with another taxpayer contract. Beyond all of that, it is time to move away from burning trash. As you've heard today, the science now shows us that it is more detrimental to public health and the climate crisis than its alternatives. For Philadelphia, the financial cost of landfilling versus incineration may be comparable. But when factoring in health and climate impacts, incineration is far costlier. Today, we have moved forward an opportunity to stop trashing our air. Overburdening communities with pollution is a form of violence and Philadelphia does not have to remain complicit. After today the questions remain, will Council use this. The claim that more studies are needed to continue business as usual with a chronic public health offender or ultimately will Council seize this opportunity to be serious about being clean and green. Divest from environmental racism and shift towards upstream waste solutions that protect health, promote circularity and build real economic opportunity. I'm hopeful in Council's ability to chart a new path forward. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony today. Please state your name and proceed with your testimony.

David Gibson. First of all, let me thank you for this opportunity to speak and congratulations on putting this bill out of committee. I'm the Co-coordinator of Peace, Justice, Sustainability Now. It's an associate member group of Peace Action, and we have members and supporters across the state of Pennsylvania, with a particular concentration in the Philly area and the surrounding suburbs. We also coordinate a statewide network of over 30 organizations across Pennsylvania, including many here in the city. I just want you to know I've crossed out this, this and this, so I'll be able to get through this pretty quick.

Thank you very much.

And our name, Peace, Justice Sustainability Now is our purpose. We believe everything is connected. And we stand today to speak in favor of this legislation, because as constituents and consumers, we're dedicated to protecting and restoring our ecosystem. We know that incineration is worse than landfilling when it comes to air quality and climate emissions. Incinerators are the most expensive and polluting way to manage waste or to make energy. They're documented EPA data showing that it's dirtier than burning coal, that's pretty dirty. They're also documented to be worse than using landfills. Reworld likes to boast about how many homes are powered by their trash burning, as if power production is why they exist. We saw earlier that Reworld has got to get in the real world. In fact, they produce very little power to begin with. No power company would ever think of building a trash incinerator to produce electricity since it's the most expensive way to do so. The six trash incinerators in Pennsylvania together produce just .65% of Pennsylvania's electricity in 2024. About 30 organizations have signed on to this bill. I don't have to read them here. That would take up too much time, but I can send you that list. You probably already know it. We recognize that landfilling too has its drawbacks, but it makes no 5 sense to make matters worse. What's really needed is more investment in alternatives. CM Squilla spoke to this a bit. And I want to touch on a few things we can do as a city that could help us move in a better direction. We can start -- and these are, by the way, moral solutions.

Can you start by quickly wrapping those up. Thank you.

We can start by reprioritizing investments in city resources into a robust mitigation, improved recycling and composting programs. And just a word for the workers, my brothers and sisters over here. We also need to include green transition funding in anything we do so that these folks don't get kicked to the curb. So that's it. I'll wrap it up with that. Thank you. (Applause.)

No, thank you very much for your testimony. Very much so heard and noted. Will the Clerk please call the next remaining testifiers to come forward. And as folks are coming forward, as you can see we have moved into the winter months almost and it's getting darker by the second. So please if you don't mind, try to consolidate and summarize your testimonies to about a minute and a half as we want to make sure that we get everybody in as the night draws nigh. Thank you so much. Clerk.

Erica Brown, Kim Quick, Lynn Robinson. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Has your name been called? If your name has been called, please come forward.

Erica Brown, Kim Quick, Lynn Robinson. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Thank you very much, my brother. Please state your name and begin your testimony.

Yes. My name is Bigga Dre, member of CRCQL, Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living. I just wanted to, you know, give my experience of living in a city of a five-mile radius that has been adversely impacted by a process that's outdated. Chester's a five-mile radius. Philadelphia is about 100 times larger than Chester, Pennsylvania. This is the City of Brotherly Love. There were some comments that were echoed here at this session of where the trash is going to go. I think we should reasonably reflect and say, well, the trash can go back to where it originated from. According to statistics, the children in Chester's blood lead level is 60% higher than the recommended level of the CDC. Philadelphia's burns about 37% of its trash, and about a third of it is processed in this five-mile radius city of Chester, Pennsylvania. I hear about feasible studies and I'll end on this part right here. How many feasible studies have to take place before we actually take action? (Applause.)

Thank you so much for your testimony. As was reminded to us earlier, the time is always right to do what's right. So we thank you for making emphasizing that particular point. Please state your name and begin with your testimony. And again, just be mindful of trying to summarize about a minute and a half.

Thank you very much. My name is David Kronheim. Philadelphia's landfills are for construction and commercial waste. The rest of Philly's trash goes outside of Philly to landfills, incinerators, including the nation's largest in Chester, which is about seven miles from your airport. Over 40 years ago, my wife and I were living in Northwest Philadelphia, 63rd and Haverford. May 13, '85 a bomb was dropped in West Philly on a rowhouse where the MOVE commune was. We lived a little more than a mile from the MOVE fire. There's a continual, huge black column of smoke we saw rising from the inferno. That fire burned for over six hours. For the last five years, my wife and I have lived in the city of Chester, a little more than a mile from the Covanta Reworld incinerator. Sometimes smoke columns from Covanta Reworld are visible. Sometimes they're not. Regardless, the columns of smoke enter our air hours a day, seven 21 days a week, every day, every week, 22 dwarfing the columns of smoke that 23 came out of the MOVE fire by 24 sending trash to the Chester incinerator. Philly has been collaborating for over 33 years in the poisoning of Philadelphians and in the region, allowing for a generational health and environmental disaster dwarfing the disaster of the MOVE bombing. Make June 30, 2026 the last day of Philadelphia's contract with Covanta Reworld. Make today the day when every member of City Council commits to voting for the Stop Trashing Our Air Act and the Mayor commits to signing it. (Applause.)

Thanks. Thank you very much. Your testimony is very stark and shocking. I was appreciating Dr. Bettigole causing us to remember the fires burning in Canada, and how many of us smelled and that were impacted by that. Despite a couple years now that was up in Canada, right, to say nothing about what is being done just a couple of miles away from our city limits. And I appreciate your calling us to remember even what happened just in six hours with the MOVE bombing. This is very important. And I appreciate your testimony. Please state your name and begin with the testimony.

My name is Lynn Robinson. I'm a Germantown resident and I'm going to scrap what I brought to say. But I just want to point out a couple of things. First of all, I didn't hear Article I, Section 27 mentioned today. But it's our constitutional right to breathe clean air. And it occurred to me as I was preparing this that the right to breathe clean air is to protect our fundamental freedom. You cannot have freedom without your health freedoms. But anyway, I just want to point out that there was a mistake made today by the administration. Reworld does not sell their ash. They pay landfills to take their ash because it's completely toxic. And so, if we stop burning our trash in Chester and we send our trash to landfills, those landfills will be healthier because they will not be receiving the ash that we're burning in Chester. The ash is when it goes to a landfill, it leeches out all kinds of heavy metals and other major toxic materials quickly because it's already been burned down into very small particles and it goes out into the environment. So those landfills may have more volume, but they're going to be less toxic because it won't have our incinerated ash. The other thing -- I think there was something else I wanted to say, but -- oh, yeah. To delay this, saying they're looking into different options is completely immoral and stupid. There's no reason to delay the decision to end the contract with incineration. Even if we send everything to landfills for four more years and it takes four years for them to figure out diversion programs and whatever else, there's really no excuse. That's all. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you very, very much for your testimonies. Will the Clerk call the next witnesses to testify.

Steve Simmons, Jasmine Bahamonde, Dr. Marco Castaldi. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Was there anyone who was called that has not come forward? Clerk, was there anyone who was called that did not come forward?

Jasmine. I think that she's making her way towards the --

Okay. Perfect.

Good evening. My name is Steve Simmons. I'm a consultant in the solid waste industry. I'm a resident of Chester County, Pennsylvania, where I serve on the Board of Directors of the Chester County Solid Waste Authority. I've worked on waste issues in and around the city of Philadelphia for 30 years. Thermal waste energy facilities have a long and successful track record as an environmentally safe, reliable and secure option for the management of waste which is not otherwise recycled or composted, which should be our first priority. So we all agree that communities in our region have utilized these facilities as a preferred management option for over 30 years. Three counties in Pennsylvania; Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery, along with two in New Jersey, provide almost 40% of the waste disposal capacity in this region. Also of note is the fact that over the past decade, the region's available landfill capacity has declined and continues to do so. In the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Southeast region, which is comprised of the City of Philadelphia, Berks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, there's only one remaining commercial landfill. The cost of transporting our waste out of our region, whether by truck or rail, to landfills and communities far away from Philadelphia is ever increasing and the landfills are ever farther away. If the city were to adopt the policy of banning waste energy treatment facilities as a waste management option, in the future it may be left with only one disposal option in the PA Southeast region. Thank you.

Thank you. Please proceed with -I'm sorry. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment. Thank you so much.

Marco Cristaldi. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to broaden my thoughts on Bill 250768. I'm a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chairman of the Chemical Engineering Department at the City College of City University of New York. I'm a Technical Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. I've been conducting research and engineering assessments on sustainable waste management solutions ranging from reuse to landfill for nearly 20 years. I've received the Fulbright Global Scholar Award in recognition for that work. I hope my comments provide helpful guidance. Managing waste is a problem that requires several technologies as well as appropriate public responsibility. The concept of zero waste or zero waste to landfill is fiction. All waste management processes, except for reduction efforts, will have a residual waste. The average U.S. MSW generation rate is 4 pounds per person per day, which is an enormous rate. Therefore, attempts to manage MSW must match the scale of generation and be reliable and resilient. Currently, there are only two solutions that can completely manage all the MSW generated by society. They are waste to energy and landfilling. All other solutions can only manage a portion and together will not match the generation scale. There are robust air pollution control systems in place that have brought every category of WTE emissions significantly below regulatory limits. Finally, European epidemiological studies have not found the connection between modern, well-run and maintained WT operation to adverse human health effects. Thank you to allow me to provide this perspective to the great City of Philadelphia.

Thank you so much for your comment today. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

Good afternoon. And thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Jasmine Bahamonde, and I am the HR Manager at Reworld in Chester and also a lifelong resident of Philadelphia. As a proud Latina who grew up in this region, I take true pride in working for a company that is not only committed to sustainability, but also to the people who make our community thrive. Reworld is a sustainable solutions company focused on helping cities and businesses reimagine what their waste can do. But for us, sustainability goes beyond environmental goals. It also is about creating sustainable opportunities for people. When I joined Reworld in February of 2023, only a few employees lived locally in the Chester area. And through intentional hiring practices, community partnerships and a strong commitment to equity and inclusion, we've increased that number to over 20, specifically of Chester employees and growing. These individuals bring invaluable perspective, pride and representation to our workforce. As team members move on or retire, we remain intentional about filling those roles with talent from the Chester community. This focus on local hiring strengthens our local impact. It's about more than filling positions. For me, it's about opening doors to meaningful, long-term careers. One example is Bruce Griffith, a Chester high school student who has been with us for over 33 years. Today he's our training and operations supervisor, mentoring others and showing what's possible when local talent is given the opportunity to grow and lead. We're proud of the progress we've made and we're committed to continuing to expand local career opportunities right here in the Philadelphia and Chester region and we will continue to be inclusive. Thank you so much, Madam Chair and the rest of the committee.

Thank you so much for your comments today. Thanks to all of you. Will the Clerk please call the next several public commenters.

Anne Dixon, Alyssa Wilde, Marvin Gomez. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Anne Dixon with Reclaim. Thank you, Environmental Committee. And thank you for staying for the bitter end. So the results of this past election show that all around our country people are aligned with progressive values. The Mayoral election in New York City brought out the most voters in 50 years and brought a big win for Zohran Mamdani. This was because his policies are clearly very different from what people have been living with. City Council, please pass on this message to your fellow Councilmen that for your own best interest, break with the tired policies of the past and ride this wave of progressiveness. Note that only that -- let's see. We've been inhaling poison from burning our own trash for many decades. Voting for the Stop Trashing Our Air Act will make you more popular with your own electorate. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

My name is Bruce Griffith. I'm here for Alisa's spot because she left, if that's okay.

That's fine.

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to us on this matter. My name is Bruce Griffith. I'm a lifelong Delaware County resident, seven-year United States Marine Corps veteran, and I was born and raised in the city of Chester. I'm still Training and Operations Supervisor at the Chester Reworld facility. I've been fortunate enough to work at the facility for 34-plus years, starting out as a laborer. I got that and knew nothing. Laborer through the training, went in the maintenance department, the operations department. years in the control room, which you need a federal license of running boilers, so you know what's coming out that stack, and progressed into several management positions. Worked my way up. I was operations manager for a few years. Stepping back and I'm getting ready to retire. We produce sustainable electric generation, which reduces the dependence on burning fossil fuels. We recycle both ferrous and non-ferrous and we reduce the weight of the MSW substantially by 90%, as before mentioned by others. Just as important to our continual commitment to our surrounding communities, though we do city cleanups, provide meals to the service center, clothing drives, food drives throughout the year. I personally take pride in assisting the opportunities for employment with the people of our community, specifically my city of Chester, passing on my knowledge to the new employees, which provides me with a feeling of knowing sustainable solutions for the evergrowing concern that waste management can continue to move forward. I personally conduct numerous tours at the facility and discussions with high schools, elected officials, colleges, professional individuals and personal just seeking for information on our process and what's the result of it. The facility provided me stability for me and my family when Pennsylvania Ship Building was closed down. After I got out of Marine Corps, I worked there. Six years it closed down. I went there as a laborer and I've been there for 34 years. It's afforded me the opportunity to learn and grow my knowledge and the challenge of field of thermo chemical operation that I can provide to the people that still live in my city. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment today and thank you for your service to our country.

It was my pleasure. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Good afternoon. My name is Marvin Gomes. Chairwoman Gauthier and members of the Environmental Committee. I'm the owner and President of Caribbean Operators, a proud, certified minority-owned business and certified local entity. I've been a long-time hauler here in the city of Philadelphia. I started my business in 1999 beginning with just one truck as a subcontractor. And over the years, I've been fortunate to grow my business into a company that provides 50 jobs in Philadelphia region and hauling materials, hauling across the city of Philadelphia. As a local business owner, I seen firsthand how important it is for the city to support companies and invest in our community and create local jobs. My team and I take great pride in being part of the fabric of Philadelphia, hiring local, supporting small businesses and help to keep the city clean and striving. Reworld has played a big role in that journey. When I first met them, I was just starting out. Our partnership and their commitment to local businesses has helped me expand workforce and hire more people who live and work right here in Philadelphia. I appreciate the opportunity to share my perspective today and I want to thank the Council for your continued attention to the needs of the local operators like myself.

Thank you so much for your comment, for your work in the city and for being here today. Thank you. Thanks to all of you. Please call the names of the next several commenters.

John Scott, Carol Hagler and Abby Bustraan. And I apologize if I mispronounce any names, if you can come up. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Good evening. Thank you so much for joining us today. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your comment.

Sure. Thanks. My name is Abby. I'm a college student in Chester. I go to Widener and I also work as a social worker in Philadelphia, which I'm here today, I skipped my lunch break and my boss let me take the afternoon off to be here today because this is an important issue to the people that I love. I'm not a science person, but I can talk about a story that I have relating to this issue. On one of my first days at Widener during orientation week, I remember walking out of my dorm to a smell that I will never forget. It was a sweet smell, but it wasn't a nice smell. It was sort of like a sickening sweetness. It smelled to me like a rotting -- I asked my friend at the time who was with me that grew up in Chester, what that smell was. And she responded as if it was nothing, that's the incinerator. And I asked why it smelled sweet. And she said, that's the chocolate scent that they used to cover it up. So every couple days you wake up in Chester, you smell a disgusting, chocolaty smell. It's something that they put on the trash before they burn it to cover up the smell of the trash. Of course, that covers up nothing. Now, I have an apartment. I live there full-time. I smell that sickening, rotten smell of trash every few times a week when I remember what it means. I hold my breath on the way to my car. And I talk from a place of privilege. I didn't grow up in Chester. I've only lived there for four years. And I didn't breathe in that trash growing up developmentally the way that most of the residents do. Many are not that lucky. The kids that I see walking to school in my neighborhood have unusually high rates of asthma, and lung cancer ravages the community. My partner grew up in Chester his whole life. His entire family has asthma and his grandfather has terminal lung cancer and is going to probably pass away later this year. I want to appreciate the individual workers of Reworld, but the company as a whole should be embarrassed of itself. The incinerator ruins lives. It represents a total overlooking of the Chester community. It represents environmental racism. I've only lived in Chester for four years, but it's been a wonderful home to me. It's been nothing but kind to me as a guest and it deserves much better than what it has right now. So thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you for being here and thank you for sharing such a personal story. And thanks to your boss for giving you some flexibility. Please state your name for the record and proceed.

Good evening, Chairwoman Gauthier, Councilman O'Rourke and Councilman Harrity. Thank you all so much for having this hearing. My name is John Scott for the record. You know, I'm here representing Reworld. Chairwoman Gauthier, I wish I could say this in front of Councilman Driscoll, Councilwoman Bass, and Councilwoman Ahmad, but I do want to say that tonight we had over workers here 7 from the city of Chester that work 8 at the facility. 9 These are workers that 10 are sons and daughters of Chester. 11 These are folks that have played in 12 biddy basketball. These are folks 13 that are former Chester Panthers. 14 And so, for the record, for folks 15 to paint us out as if we do not 16 care about the city of Chester, 17 it's just not true. 18 I am someone who, you 19 know, I've worked in Chester for 20 over 13 years now. It's adopted me 21 and it's been a pleasure to work 22 there and also have friends that 23 come from there as well. As it 24 relates to this bill, in understanding what the administration said, I do believe that there is a need to look at and evaluate all disposal options. The legislation as it's currently written does not. And I understand that we all want to be great environmental stewards and we want to do what's right, and I think there is a chance to do that by evaluating all of the options. So in terms of the rush or as some other people put it, I'd like to say let's be thoughtful in how we evaluate and how we look at things, understanding that, you know, there's context, and we don't want to set a precedent in which we can't come back from or that signals negativity. So I'm sure that this great body will look into that and they'll do the right thing as well and in lockstep with the administration, which is what they proposed. As it relates to development on the waterfront, Reworld operates in a lot of other communities where development happens. There are multi-million dollar condominiums in several other communities that we operate in. So from the standpoint of saying, hey, development can't happen if Reworld is there is just not true. So I do want to kind of point that out as well. And this is the first time -- I've attended Council before, in which there's been public comment done after a full committee vote. But there's a new time for everything and hopefully, as we look to evaluate our options, we can do so thoughtfully and without rush and in a measured approach. So thank you again, Councilwoman Gauthier.

Thank you for your comment. I appreciate you being here. Just to touch briefly on the topic of negativity, some conversations are hard. Every day we have hard conversations in this chamber. And then as far as the proceedings for the hearing, it's not ideal but it happens quite regularly that if we're running out of quorum, we're going to lose committee members, we will break, we will vote and then go back so that everyone is heard. Thank you for your patience and for being here today. We appreciate it. Before we end for the day, I would be remiss if I did not recognize my Legislative Director, Mary Jones, who just walked into chambers. (Applause.)

Mary worked so hard on this legislation, on this hearing, and this is not the only big or tough topic she has taken on in the year since she's been a part of my Council office. And we appreciate her hard and excellent work. Thank you. (Applause.)

And with that, we are now adjourning this hearing of the Committee of the Environment. I want to remind everybody still watching and here today that the Committee voted Bill 250768 out of committee with a favorable recommendation. Thank you so much for being here today. (Committee on the Environment concluded at 5:40 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL