Three dozen city residents and environmental activists
asked Philadelphia port officials Tuesday to disqualify the Philadelphia Energy
Solutions refinery from expanding operations at the proposed Southport marine
terminal at the Navy Yard.
In an emotional outpouring, Maxine McCleary said her
family has lived near the refinery on West Passyunk Avenue "for
decades" and four of her nine siblings died from respiratory cancer.
"I have respiratory problems myself," McCleary
told the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority board at its monthly meeting.
"My little boy, 10 years old now, has had asthma since he was born.
"We are here today because we think all
Philadelphians have the right to breathe," she said.
The former Sunoco refinery complex, purchased in 2012 by
Philadelphia Energy Solutions, has a "long history of violations of the
federal Clean Air Act," McCleary said. "Companies that are not in
keeping with the law should not be given public land to expand."
Philadelphia Energy Solutions said it did not have a
comment.
Six groups are vying to build maritime-related projects
on the 195 vacant acres at the eastern end of the Navy Yard, known as
Southport.
The PRPA, a state agency that owns the land and plans to
lease it, has asked the six, including the oil refinery - the largest on the
East Coast - to submit detailed financial and development plans by the end of
August.
Southport, the city's first major maritime expansion in
50 years, includes 120 empty waterfront acres on the Delaware River just south
of the Walt Whitman Bridge, 75 acres around an old seaplane hangar at the Navy
Yard, and the north berth of Pier 124 on the Delaware.
Philadelphia Energy Solutions submitted a tentative
proposal in January to build an oil import/export facility on the land. Phase 1
would be four 250,000-barrel tanks for storing crude and four 250,000-barrel
tanks for storing gasoline and diesel. PES would build a "buoyed
dock" to off-load and load ships. Large pumps and piping would connect the
facility to the South Philadelphia refinery.
Phase 2 would be two additional 250,000-barrel tanks for
storing crude for export.
Port authority board chairman Gerard "Jerry"
Sweeney responded that the PRPA has not received final proposals yet, and when
the proposals come in, "the review process will have a heavy weighting on
community input."
"We are certainly focused on the objective of
growing jobs in the city and for the region," Sweeney said.
Christine Dolle, a mother of 5-year-old twins and
affiliated with Moms Clean Air Force, said: "We don't have to sacrifice
our health to have jobs. We've had three days in a row of air-quality alerts in
Philadelphia.
"What that means, according to the National Weather
Service, is it was unhealthy for me to let my kids go out and play," she
said. "For some children, it was medically impossible to go out and play
because they have asthma."
Clergy and other members of the community groups ACTION
United and the Green Justice Philly coalition said the Philadelphia refinery
had been cited by the Environmental Protection Agency for "significant
noncompliance" with federal clean-air standards and was "responsible
for over two-thirds of toxic industrial emissions in the city."
"People of color and low-income residents are
disproportionately affected by these violations," the groups said.
"Within a one-mile radius of the refinery, 71 percent are people of color
and 32 percent are below the poverty line."
Proposed uses for Southport include a traditional marine
terminal with ship berths to handle container and other cargoes, an energy
port, warehouses, and automobile-processing and storage. Thousands of Hyundai
and Kia vehicles arrive here annually on ships from South Korea, headed to
dealer showrooms.
Gov. Wolf has said the number of potential jobs created
from Southport would depend on the type of development.
If Southport is developed entirely as an energy terminal,
he said, up to 590 jobs could be created. If the site is developed completely
for a "nonenergy use," Wolf said, up to 3,720 jobs could be created.
Source: Philly.com
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