Newark resident: Power plant ‘Not just, not right, not fair’

By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Residents of a pollution-choked neighborhood in New Jersey’s largest city say they’re tired of being used as a dumping ground for projects that foul their air, yet exclude them from the economic benefits of industry. In an online public hearing Tuesday night, people from Newark’s Ironbound section denounced a plan by a sewage treatment plant to build a backup gas-fired power plant. It’s designed to keep the plant operating when the power goes out, and prevent a repeat of a huge spill when the power cut during Superstorm Sandy. Residents of the Ironbound say the cumulative effects of decades of industrial pollution there have been devastating.