New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signs major environmental justice legislation into law on Friday, September 18, 2020 at Tichenor Park in Newark, NJ. Now, a plan for a fourth fossil power plant in the area puts that promise to the test. (Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

At the massive sewage treatment plant in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, crews are building a fortified 12-foot cement wall, with a deep foundation, around the entire perimeter to guard against a repeat of the disaster that took place during Superstorm Sandy.

That storm put the 140-acre facility under water, knocking it offline for 12 days as massive quantities of raw sewage gushed into Newark Bay, the Passaic River, and New York Harbor, a disaster that haunts the place to this day, a decade later.

“That’s a day nobody here will ever forget,” says Greg Tramontozzi, executive director of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission. “We weren’t able to do our jobs, and that led to an environmental disaster. If we had heavy rains, too, we would have had raw sewage backing up into basements.”

For the people who live nearby in the Ironbound neighborhood, the wall is no problem. But to keep the plant dry inside those walls, the PVSC wants to build a small gas-fired power plant in case the electricity fails, as it did for nearly three days during Sandy.

And that has sparked rage in the Ironbound, a tightly packed neighborhood that is stuffed to the brim with polluting industries.

For Gov. Phil Murphy, this is a test with no easy answer. He raised hopes by coming here in September of 2020 and promising to put a stop to it, signing a groundbreaking bill that was designed to protect neighborhoods like the Ironbound. “I’m incredibly proud,” the governor said. “We will no longer allow Black and brown communities in our state to be dumping grounds.”

So, he has to find a green alternative to this if he wants to live up to his own words, to protect a vulnerable neighborhood that’s been abused for generations, to prove that his promise was no political stunt.

To the people living in the Ironbound, this is the last straw. They already live with the stench of sewage, with the toxic fumes coming from three existing power plants, a smattering of chemical companies, the nearby airport, and the non-stop parade of diesel trucks moving cargo along filthy streets full of teeth-rattling potholes, making an average of 7,000 runs each day to and from the largest port on the East Coast.

The state’s largest waste incinerator is squeezed in here, too, and some days its spews pink and purple smoke. The single largest cause of school absences in Newark is asthma, with a rate that’s triple the national average.

Ana Silva, a mother of three children, two with severe asthma, has lived in the Ironbound for two decades. “Once a child gets sick and starts coughing, and you do the nebulizer, it begins to seem normal,” she says. “You kind of get used to it, and that’s the problem. It begins to seem normal. But it’s not normal.”

Joe DiVincenzo, the Essex County executive, convened a meeting recently in his office with some of the key players to search for a solution all sides could live with. “It’s a tough one and I’m working on it directly to see if we can work something out,” he says.

There are two big questions: Does the plant really need its own source of power? And if so, can the PVSC rely on green power, rather than fossil fuels?

The power grid is far more reliable today, and PSE&G officials say it’s extremely unlikely the plant will lose power, even if another Sandy hits. The utility has spent huge sums in the decade since Sandy fortifying the grid, lifting entire facilities off the ground by 10 feet, and building three redundant power cables to the sewerage plant.

But no one can rule out the possibility, and PVSC officials say the utility will not guarantee in writing that power will never be lost. Still, this is the first question the Department of Environmental Protection will consider as it evaluates PSVC’s permit application, a needed approval.

The next question is whether green power can do the job. The DEP insisted that PVSC explore that question, and PVSC solicited proposals, and received six of them. But it won’t release those studies until after its board votes on them.

Community activists and environmentalists have done their own digging and learned some of the ideas in play: A plan to build arrays of solar panels to charge huge batteries that could theoretically run the plant, or burning hydrogen, which produces no carbon, while using scrubbers to filter out pollutants.

But those proposals are impossible to evaluate because PVSC will not release them, and that secrecy that has undermined trust in the Ironbound.

Maria Lopez-Nunez, of the Ironbound Community Corporation, attended the meeting with DiVincenzo, and calls that secrecy an act of bad faith. She wants PVSC to withdraw its request for a permit to open the gas-fired plant while alternatives are being considered.

“If this was a good faith dialogue, the permit would be off the table, and we’d have the information we need,” she says.

PVSC has modified its original proposal to reduce the maximum hours of operation for the plant. But it’s not just for emergencies, as advertized. On its permit application, PVSC spells out several other instances when it could be turned on, for maintenance once a month, to prepare for a bad storm that risks cutting power up to 10 times a year for two-day stretches, and to lighten the load on the PSE&G grid during times of high demand.

Add that up, environmentalists say, and it could average about four hours a day. PVSC challenges that math but would not offer its own estimate on average daily use.

Meanwhile, on June 6, the DEP intends to finally issue regulations to implement the environmental justice law that Murphy signed in 2020. Commissioner Shawn LaTourette says he’s already enforcing the law’s provisions through administrative orders, and that has allowed DEP to pressure PVSC to reduce the hours of use and to study alternatives. But one of the law’s co-sponsors, Assemblyman John McKeon, says the law has much sharper teeth and the delay has done damage.

“They’re understaffed,” he said of the DEP. “When they come out with the regulations, this project is dead.”

The lawyers will have to settle that one. But I would be surprised if the gas-fired plant is ever built. The governor made a promise to protect this neighborhood and he has the power to kill it. DiVincenzo and McKeon want to find a different path, as do civil rights leaders, environmentalists, and a long list of legislators.

Lopez-Nunez showed me around the neighborhood, pointing to Superfund sites, lead contamination, small factories mixed into residential neighborhoods, the huge power plant next door to the sewage plant. “On a hot summer day, you can taste the air,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

Tom Tucci, the affable chairman of the PVSC, gets high grades for listening to the complaints, and trying to accommodate critics. Like the staff at PVSC, he is determined to avoid a repeat of the sewage release during Sandy. But he says he wants to find an alternative to the gas-fired plant, too.

“The DEP are the ones that told us we have to harden the plant to make sure it works,” he says. “We’re not looking to jam anything down people’s throats. I grew up in Newark and I have family that still lives there. My wife is from the Ironbound. We’re the good guys on the block.”

He could prove it by ordering the release of the proposed alternatives, and by withdrawing the application for the gas-fired plant until the public has a chance to offer informed feedback, as Lopez-Nunez demands.

My guess is that’s where this is headed.

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.

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