The Big Poop Debate: Proposed Waste Plant Causes Outcry In Newark

NEWARK, NJ — Why does Aries Clean Energy want to build its new treatment plant in Newark near the Passaic River? The reason is simple, a spokesperson for the Tennessee-based company says: They’re just following the feces.

An environmental standoff has been building over the past few weeks in New Jersey's largest city, where a proposed waste treatment facility is drawing fire from local residents.

If it gets approval from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and the city’s planning board, the facility at 400 Doremus Avenue will process up to 430 tons of wastewater-treated “biosolids” a day from New Jersey and New York, including human feces. The poop-laden payloads will be heated at 1,500 degrees, turned into a substance known as “biochar” and sold as a concrete thickener to nearby construction companies.

Aries Energy is hoping to strike a deal with the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, which would give it access to an ongoing source of “potential biosolids feedstock,” spokesperson Chris Kidd told Patch.

No agreement is in place yet, but it’s likely that the Newark Aries plant would be able to process whatever the PVSC can throw its way and more, Kidd said, adding that there will also be some biosolids that are brought in from other sewage and wastewater facilities.

“The highest concentration of poop in this country is right here in Newark and New York City,” Kidd said. “That’s why we want to put it there, because we want to take care of it locally.”

Aries Energy says there won't be any odors, and that any emissions from the facility would be well below state and federal standards. But despite the company's assurances, its plan has been raising an outcry among residents in the Ironbound section of the city, which is home to roughly 50,000 people who are predominantly African American and immigrants from Portugal, Brazil and Central America.

Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law group, outlined several concerns about the proposed plant in a Feb. 17 letter to the Newark planning board on behalf of the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC), the local nonprofit leading the charge against Aries. See the full letter here, and read more about the company’s position below.

The ICC's worries include:

‘SLUDGE’ – “We are concerned that the facility may accept municipal sewage sludge that is not adequately pretreated and also industrial sludge, both of which are more toxic than properly pretreated sewage sludge.”

ODORS – “Aries’s application does not appear to include odor mitigation measures, such as limits on how long the facility can store sludge or biosolids on site or possible odor impacts from trucks. The proposed facility is only 2,000 feet from the Darling fat rendering plant and the open-air Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) sewage treatment plant, two of the worst contributors to putrid smells in the Ironbound.”

BIOCHAR – “Our understanding is that while biochar produced by other means may indeed be carbon-rich and reusable as fertilizer, the gasification technology that Aries is proposing will remove all of the carbon in the biosolids and convert it into carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) emissions. The resulting ‘biochar’ is thus really only ash laden with toxic metals that do not vaporize during the gasification process.”

AMMONIA – “The Aries facility will store on site large quantities of ammonia, a substance regulated under both the Clean Air Act and the New Jersey Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act for its flammability and ability to cause explosions and industrial accidents … The Ironbound is already home to multiple facilities that store ammonia on site like the Newark Bay gas plant, Newark Energy Center gas plant and Covanta Essex incinerator, and does not need another site of potential industrial accidents.”

TRAFFIC – “Far from reducing truck traffic, the Aries facility is likely to only add to the already congested truck traffic on Doremus Avenue, leading to additional idling and diesel emissions.”

PRISON – “The [nearby] Delaney Hall Detention Facility has a capacity of 1,200 persons and the Essex County Correctional Facility has an authorized capacity of 2,434 persons. Aries must assess the impacts of its facility on these detained and incarcerated people, who do not choose where they live, cannot choose to leave, and have no voice when it comes to the foundational question of where surrounding facilities are constructed.”

Although plans for the Aries Newark facility have been in the works since August of 2019, the company's push to expand into the Brick City comes at a tricky time, as New Jersey readies to ramp up its "environmental justice" efforts in the wake of a bill that became law in September 2020.

The legislation changes the way the NJDEP issues some of its key permits, making it harder for the owners of major sources of pollution to build a new facility, expand an old one, or renew an existing permit in areas that are considered "overburdened."

To qualify, a neighborhood needs to have 35 percent low-income households, 40 percent minority households or 40 percent of households with limited English language proficiency. There are an estimated 310 municipalities with 4.4 million residents that could qualify under the law, officials said.

And Aries’ proposed Newark plant is a perfect example of why it was created, activists say.

According to the ICC, the neighborhood has long been plagued by an overabundance of waste processing facilities and other environmental hazards. A recent target of their frustrations has been the Covanta trash incinerator on Raymond Boulevard, which burns 2,800 tons of garbage per day from 22 municipalities in Essex County and New York City, and is a 15-minute drive from the proposed Aries facility.

• See related article: The Color Purple: Newark Residents Fed Up With Incinerator Smoke

Another source of activists' ire – a rendering plant on Wilson Avenue that recycled animal byproducts and grease – was hit with a lawsuit from the state in 2019 after residents filed a wave of complaints about "animal carcass odors" plaguing the neighborhood.

• See related article: Newark Plant Sickening Community With Putrid Odors, Lawsuit Says

In recent years, Doremus Avenue has appeared on lists of "toxic sites" and has seen industrial fires and explosions.

ICC members aren’t the only ones rallying for a greener future in the Ironbound.

A coalition of immigration advocates plan to hold a demonstration on Saturday, March 6 at Raymond Plaza near Newark Penn Station to demand the release of all federal ICE detainees in New Jersey and the U.S. That includes those being held at the Essex County Correctional Facility, which is located across the street from the proposed Aries plant.

And organizers said they're well aware of the controversy surrounding pollution in the neighborhood.

“Where we will rally in the Ironbound, air pollution is among the worst in the nation, leading to asthma rates triple the average, weakening lungs and making them more vulnerable to the coronavirus,” the coalition stated in a news release.

“We demand an immediate halt to all further concentration of waste processing in Newark and the immediate initiation of a state-financed project – paid for by taxing the rich – to eliminate the toxic sources of air pollution from all waste treatment, industrial sites and diesel truck traffic,” the groups stated.

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ARIES RESPONDS TO CRITICS: ‘NO SLUDGE, NO STINK’

When contacted about the concerns surrounding the proposed treatment plant, Kidd didn’t beat around the bush.

“There have been a number of inaccuracies and what I call ‘alternative facts’ – to be nice,” he told Patch.

Kidd said there are three main points people should know about Aries' proposed Newark facility. First of all, the plant wouldn’t be an incinerator, such as the nearby Covanta facility.

“Gasification is not incineration,” Kidd emphasized. “We don’t have any ash particulate that goes out into the air. There’s no flame, there’s no burning.”

Second, the biosolids that would be treated at the Newark Aries facility wouldn’t be “sludge,” or untreated human waste that comes into sewage and wastewater plants. In Newark, the incoming material would already be treated with chemicals and have much of the liquid taken out, along with most of the pathogens. What remains is known as a “class B biosolid,” and would have the consistency of wet dirt.

Third, there will be no odors that result from the gasification process – one of the biggest worries among the local community, Kidd said.

“That seems to be the big concern, that we’re going to burn [feces] and it’s going to stink,” he told Patch. “And of course, if we burn that, it would stink.”

According to Kidd, the Newark plant would share a lot in common with Aries’ other New Jersey biochar production facility, which is located about a 30-minute drive away in Linden.

The Linden plant, which got approval from the NJDEP in 2019, is the state’s first, biosolids-only gasification facility. See more information and construction updates via Aries here.

Like the plant in Linden, the Newark facility would have a closed-loop system that doesn’t allow stinky odors to escape the “negative pressure environment.” The process of thermal conversion, which takes place inside a high-temperature vessel that approaches 1,500 degrees, would also be similar.

The biggest difference between the Linden and Newark plants? The former is located at an existing wastewater treatment facility within the Linden Roselle Sewerage Authority complex. And in that case, the term sludge is somewhat accurate, Kidd said.

“We actually are taking – from them – undigested sludge,” he said. “It’s not a lot, about 30 tons a day.”

But that wouldn’t be the case if the company gets the go-ahead in Newark, Kidd added.

“There will be no de-watering, no sludge that’s coming in … it will all be class B biosolids,” he said.

There’s another important difference to note between the Linden and Newark plants, Kidd noted: the local population.

“There’s a lot of discussion around putting these types of facilities in [overburdened] communities and targeting people of color who live in these areas,” he told Patch. “And that is just absolutely false.”

“Linden, if you look at the demographics there, I mean, it’s got double the median income of Newark,” Kidd commented. “And that’s where we went first.”

According to Kidd, Aries Energy has also been looking at Middlesex County, where it’s currently responding to a request for qualifications to build a gasification facility at the Middlesex County Utilities Authority.

The company is also looking into other possible locations in South Jersey, with an eye to possibly tapping into sources of biosolids from Philadelphia, Camden or Atlantic City.

According to Kidd, biosolids are sometimes disposed of via incineration in New Jersey, but more often, they're taken to a landfill or a compost facility.

“So they’re trucked out to landfills in Pennsylvania or upstate New York, or they’re put on a train and sent down to Alamaba or Georgia, or out to Colorado or Ohio to be disposed of in someone else’s backyard,” he said.

Besides helping New Jersey to literally clean up its own poop, the Newark biochar plant would also give a boost to the local economy, Aries Energy claims. During construction, the plant would generate anywhere from 100 to 150 union jobs. And when it’s up and running, the facility would create up to 25 “high-paying” jobs, where the total salary and benefit package approaches $75,000.

Are there plans to hire local in Newark? “Absolutely,” Kidd told Patch.

And as for property taxes and a possible community benefit agreement such as the one provided in Linden, the company is open to working with the city, Kidd added.

“We want to be a good corporate citizen,” he said.

For now, the company will continue to keep the door open if activists and residents want to launch a “civilized conversation.” But it’s pretty clear what direction that ship is sailing in, he said.

“I started reaching out in October of 2020 and have been basically told, not no, but hell no,” Kidd recalled.

NEWARK ACTIVISTS: 'NO MORE CRAP'

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka discussed the controversial plan during a recent video chat, saying that "the problem here locally is that we don’t know how to play offense."

“People have a right to protest and talk about what they don’t want in their communities,” Baraka said. “They have a right to say, ‘I don’t want this in my neighborhood.’”

But that doesn’t mean the proposed facility is exactly what it’s being portrayed to be, either, the mayor added.

According to Baraka, the city found out about the application at the last minute, and has been trying to respond to community concerns ever since. Why can’t officials just say “no” to Aries, like many activists have asked? It’s not that simple, the mayor claimed.

Baraka pointed out that the facility would be built on private property, and if the NJDEP chooses to give Aries the green light, there’s only so much the city can do to fight the decision.

“The issue is that these people get permits from the state, and you really don’t have any kind of legal authority outside of the fact that you have the planning board and all these other things,” he said.

“I wish we could just say no to the wealth gap,” Baraka continued. “I wish we could say no to police brutality. There’s a whole bunch of things we can’t just say no to.”

A planning board hearing on the application was delayed to gather more community feedback. A city-led virtual meeting on the issue will take place on Thursday, March 4 at 6:30 p.m. Learn more here.

Activists have been ramping up their campaign against the Newark facility in the leadup to Thursday’s community meeting, and have been disputing several of the company’s claims, including the amount of pollutants it will emit and the economic benefit it will provide.

“The ICC’s position on Aries is absolutely not,” the group recently tweeted, adding the hashtag #NOMORECRAP.

“Not more dumping in the neighborhood of the Ironbound,” the ICC emphasized. “No more dumping in the City of Newark. We’re not interested in meeting with them, because there is no middle ground with this proposal.”

“Let the countdown to the community meeting begin,” the group proclaimed.

Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com

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