City couple looks to block incinerator approval

By Sangeetha Ramaswamy

The residents, Mitzi and Peter Bowman, founded the "Ban the Burn" Coalition and have protested the project on 345 East Shore Parkway since 1992. The pair was granted intervenor status by the DEP on Sun., Mar. 22. The hearings are taking place in the DEP's Hartford office, and are being mediated by independent adjudicator David Knishkowy. As of now, the project seems set for state approval. According to Robert Petris, an air pollution engineer of the DEP, "The DEP has made a tentative decision to approve a permanent license for the incinerator."

Nevertheless, the Bowmans continue to fight. They contend that the incinerator, which has operated since the 1980's, was closed in 1992 because it failed to comply with the Clean Air Act. Raymond Smedberg, general manager of the Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) which operates the facility, asserted that the WPCA shut down the incinerator voluntarily. "We sued the design engineer and manufacturer because it wasn't operating due to design specifications," he explained. "We did not violate the Clean Air Act."

The WPCA obtained a permit to re-open the incinerator from the DEP in August of 1996, after completing re-novations to make it more environmentally sound. The incinerator has operated on a testing permit for the past year and a half.

Smedberg described the WPCA as a "quasi-government agency separate from the operation of the city but under the city's ordinance." From 1991 to 1992, the WPCA reviewed various methods for sewage treatment and disposal before deciding to reopen the facility. "We determined that [an incinerator] is the best alternative in the long term and environmentally safe," he said.

Mitzi Bowman disagreed with Smedberg. "An incinerator is the worst alternative [for disposing sewage waste] because it recirculates pollution into the air," she said. Instead, the Bowmans suggest "ecological engineering," a process in which sewage is fed to a marshland of plants and microorganisms in a greenhouse structure. Bowman contended that this alternative is feasible if the current New Haven sewage treatment facility is decentralized.

Merc Pittinos of the Toxics Action Center, a state-wide organization, decried the project's potentially dangerous side effects. "People that live around an incinerator and sewage treatment plant have to put up with the burden of industrial polluters," he said. Pittinos explained that current sewage treatment facilities "have no way of controlling [their] input." When chemicals are burned with the sewage, the incinerator releases "radioactive material and heavy metals, such as mercury and lead," potential carcinogens that also damage the nervous system.

Pittinos will testify along with Dr. Mark Mitchell, a former director of the Harvard Health Department who currently heads the Connecticut Coalition on Environmental Justice. "It's very late in the [hearing] process right now and we're still very concerned that [the DEP] continues to make decisions without public input," Mitchell said.

Mitchell's organization advocates environmental justice for communities of color. Mitchell stated that statistics show "a direct relationship between the percent of people of color living in a town and the likelihood of having environmental toxic facilities in town." He pointed out that "typically, urban communities do not hear about these kinds of facilities until it's too late."

But Smedberg countered that a sewage treatment facility existed in New Haven since the early 1900's. "The neighborhood moved in," he said. He also stated that New Haven is the most practical location for the incinerator because its location is central to the regions that it serves and is adjacent to the New Haven Harbor. Further, he added that sewage treatment in a rural area "would not be cost-effective."

Despite their efforts, the Bowmans are skeptical that the hearings will produce results."There are no lawyers who can take on our cause pro bono," Mitzi Bowman stated. She said that she and her husband are "getting more evidence from scientists who have challenged [WPCA's] claim that the radiation [emitted] is not harmful." But she added, "I don't think we have a good chance of winning because we had so few of the community at our first hearing in New Haven." University Secretary Linda Lorimer, LAW '77, reported that the University had no knowledge of the Bowmans' efforts.

Nevertheless, hearings will resume on Monday and will continue as long as the Bowmans continue to present evidence. The Bowmans and their supporters estimated that the process will end no later than mid-May.

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