April 28, 2020
Via Email
Michael Gordon, Senior Advisor
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Gary Wolf, Chief, Environmental Enforcement Section
New Jersey Office of the Attorney General
Re:

Purple Plume Violation by Covanta Essex Company on April 7, 2020
Dear Mr. Gordon and Mr. Wolf:

On behalf of the Ironbound Community Corporation (“ICC”), Earthjustice and the
Environmental Advocacy Clinic at Vermont Law School submit this letter to inform the New
Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”) and the Office of the Attorney General
(“AG”) that the Covanta Essex Company’s (“Covanta”) Essex County Resource Recovery Facility
(“Incinerator”) in Newark continues to violate its air permit by emitting purple plumes and other
air pollution. In light of the recent recurrence of purple plume emissions and the possibility of
further purple plumes and other violations under DEP’s new compliance advisories, ICC renews
its request to DEP and the AG to take immediate steps to stop this ongoing threat to public health
and the environment.
On April 7, 2020, a Covanta representative informed ICC by telephone that the Incinerator
emitted a purple plume from its smokestack earlier that day for approximately 30 minutes. As DEP
and the AG are aware, the Incinerator has violated its air permit hundreds of times in recent years
and emitted purple plumes at least ten times last year. These purple plumes may indicate the
presence of unpermitted medical waste containing iodine in Covanta’s waste stream, which are
violations of its air permit and solid waste permit. Furthermore, these violations imply a lack of
oversight and knowledge about what type of waste Covanta is burning. On October 23, 2019, ICC
notified your offices of its concerns about the purple plumes and requested enforcement action.
After our meeting on December 3, 2019, DEP shared a draft Purple Plume Prevention Plan
(“Plan”) for the Incinerator. On January 30, 2020, ICC submitted extensive questions and
comments on the Plan.
ICC appreciates the open channel of communication with DEP and the AG on this issue,
but for over six weeks, we have not received any new information on the source of the purple
plumes or updates about the status of finalizing the Plan. We are concerned that DEP may be
delaying its review and finalization of the Plan until after the completion of the permitting process
for Covanta’s proposed sodium thiosulfate injection testing. We urge DEP to separate its review
of the sodium thiosulfate testing from its review of the rest of the Plan. Doing so can ensure that

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 DEP addresses ICC’s comments and approves the other Plan provisions so that they can be
implemented—and enforced by DEP—without delay. Covanta’s delay in implementing necessary
precautionary measures threatens the health and safety of the Newark community and the
environment.
In addition, ICC is gravely concerned that Covanta may seek waivers of its statutory,
regulatory, and permit requirements under DEP’s recently issued COVID-19 compliance alerts,
such as alterations of its operational limits and allowances under Compliance Alert #2020-07 or
extensions for submitting its monitoring and deviation reports under Compliance Alert #2020-09.
ICC is also concerned that the Ironbound community will not be alerted of any noncompliance
notification or similar notification sent to DEP pursuant to Compliance Alert #2020-08. DEP must
make publicly available all such notifications and requests it receives from any facility, including
Covanta, and make available DEP’s disposition of such a request, as other States like Minnesota
are doing. 1 At the very least, DEP must forward to ICC any notification or request that Covanta
sends to DEP pursuant to any current or future compliance alert, and notify ICC of DEP’s
disposition.
Covanta’s daily emissions of air pollution have dire consequences for Ironbound
residents—consequences amplified by the COVID-19 crisis. New research shows a link between
exposure to particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide air pollution and COVID-19 fatalities. 2
According to DEP DataMiner, Covanta emits more particulate matter and nitrogen oxides (“NOx”)
than any other stationary source in Newark, emitting over seven times more NOx than the next
largest emitter. This means that the Ironbound community—which historically has suffered more
air pollution than other New Jersey communities—may face a greater risk of health harms and
death from COVID-19 because of Covanta’s emissions and its repeated air permit violations. This
is unacceptable.
DEP and the AG have a duty to protect New Jersey residents from polluters and enforce
environmental regulations. Thus, ICC urges DEP and the AG to take the following steps to address
this issue: (1) respond to ICC’s questions and comments on the draft Plan dated January 30, 2020;
(2) separately consider sodium thiosulfate testing from the rest of the Plan, and move forward on
improving and approving the other Plan provisions, such that they are incorporated into upcoming
Title V air permit and solid waste permit amendments and enforced; (3) take enforcement action
against Covanta for ongoing violations of its Title V air permit, including assessing a penalty for

1

See Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Requests for MPCA regulatory flexibility due to COVID-19,
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/covid-19/requests-mpca-regulatory-flexibility-due-covid-19.
2

See Xiao Wu et al., Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States 11 (2020),
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm (“[A] small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to a
large increase in COVID-19 death rate of a magnitude that is 20 times the one estimated for all-cause
mortality.”); see also Yaron Ogen, Assessing nitrogen dioxide levels as a contributing factor to
coronavirus fatality, 726 Sci. Total Environ. (2020),
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720321215?via%3Dihub (“[L]ong-term
exposure to [nitrogen dioxide] may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the
COVID-19 virus.”).

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 the latest purple plume incident; and (4) make public any notification, request, or other
communication sent to DEP pursuant to any current or future compliance alert, as well as DEP’s
disposition of such request. In addition, we request a follow-up meeting with DEP and the AG on
these issues. A February 14, 2020 email from Michael Gordon at DEP indicated that a follow-up
meeting should be scheduled as soon as the middle of March, and while we recognize that the
COVID-19 crisis changed business-as-usual, we have not yet received further communication
about setting up a meeting.
If DEP and the AG do not take corrective action by June 1, 2020, ICC will explore other
legal avenues to achieve these results.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
/s/ Jonathan Smith
Jonathan Smith
Victoria Bogdan Tejeda
Jasmine Jennings
Earthjustice
jjsmith@earthjustice.org
305-431-3451 (cell)

/s/ Rachel Stevens
Rachel Stevens
Ethan Johnson
Justin Kim
Michael Skolnick
Environmental Advocacy Clinic
Vermont Law School
rstevens@vermontlaw.edu
678-468-7228 (cell)

On behalf of the Ironbound Community Corporation
CC:
Catherine R. McCabe, Commissioner
Debbie Mans, Deputy Commissioner
Sean Moriarty, Legal Advisor
Riché Outlaw, Environmental Justice
Ken Ratzman, Air Quality
Richelle Wormley, Air Enforcement
Tom Farrell, Solid Waste Enforcement
New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection

New Jersey Office of the Governor
Senator M. Teresa Ruiz
New Jersey State Senate
Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin
New Jersey State Assembly
Zach McCue, Deputy State Director
Office of United States Senator Cory Booker

Aaron Kleinbaum, Assistant Attorney
General
Ray Lamboy, Deputy Attorney General
Will Rozelle, Deputy Attorney General
New Jersey Office of the Attorney General
Kathleen Frangione, Chief Policy Advisor
Matt Platkin, Chief Counsel
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