This story was produced by Spotlight Delaware as part of a partnership with Delaware Online/The News Journal. For more about Spotlight Delaware, visit www.spotlightdelaware.org.
Edward Harrison couldn’t stay in Delaware for more than three days.
Harrison’s asthma would become intolerable when he visited his mom from Philadelphia as a child. Harrison’s mom lived in Rosegate, a historic community along the Route 9 corridor in New Castle County.
After visiting for a few days, Harrison had to return to Philadelphia to soothe his flaring asthma.
Years later on a recent afternoon, Harrison, now a full-time Rosegate resident, expertly wielded a pair of hair clippers at his establishment, Pryme Styles Barbershop and Café. A handful of men sitting in leather barber chairs filled the shop with jovial conversations and laughter.
The barbershop was located along the Route 9 corridor, which is peppered with heavy industries ranging from trucking to asphalt contractors. Communities along the corridor have been found to face higher cancer and health risks due to their proximity to polluting industries and chemical facilities.
There was a time when Route 9 residents could not open their house windows because of the overwhelming smell lingering from nearby industries. The Croda chemical plant could be seen looming over the community in front of the barbershop, with its metal stacks rising within eyesight of the front door.
In 2018, Croda’s chemical manufacturing plant leaked nearly 3,000 pounds of ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic and explosive chemical, into the air less than a mile from the Route 9 communities. The leak temporarily shuttered the Delaware Memorial Bridge while it took nearby residents hours to learn about the highly flammable chemical released into the air.
Delaware residents, from Seaford to Wilmington’s Eastside, have long raised concerns that communities were not properly engaged or notified during the state permitting process for polluting and disruptive facilities.
New legislation aims to curtail the polluting effects of heavy industry on surrounding Delaware communities.
House Bill 422 seeks to more heavily scrutinize industries that would contribute to the cumulative pollution in overburdened communities throughout the state. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Kendra Johnson, D-Bear, would require industries to submit an environmental impact report before expanding or establishing facilities near overburdened communities.
Residents of communities with industrial neighbors welcomed the legislation, applauding the increased oversight and accountability that would be applied to Delaware’s permitting process.
“Sadly, still today, the community is the last to be informed,” said Dora Williams, advocate and longtime resident of Rose Hill Gardens along Route 9. “The bill creates a layer of oversight that will help our community be able to be engaged and informed.”
Overburdened communities are geographic locations where at least a quarter of residents identify as minorities, immigrants or members of a tribal community. Communities with a majority of people living below the poverty line or with limited English proficiency also fall into the category.
The current state environmental permitting model considers emissions from facilities in isolation only and ignores the cumulative health effects on low-income and communities of color, according to the bill’s text. The outdated model “inadvertently perpetuates” environmental racism and injustice, according to the bill.
Critics of the bill raised concerns about how the bill would impact businesses, expressing worries that the legislation may have a chilling effect on industries expanding or establishing new facilities near overburdened communities.
“Our members, many of them, already do a significant amount of community outreach into the communities that they operate,” said Tyler Micik, director of public policy and government relations for the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce. “House Bill 422, as currently written, is arguably one of the most significant changes to Delaware’s permitting process in the state’s history.”
The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control declined to comment on the legislation when reached.
The legislation would create the Environmental Justice Board to make recommendations based on impact reports and increase public awareness and participation during the permitting process. The majority of the board’s members are required to live in overburdened communities.
“It’s about time,” Harrison said. “I just hope that this is something that’s actually enforceable […] because it can be better for people who have to live here.”
As Harrison spoke about the legislation in the shop, Rosegate native Carlton Wilmore chimed in from a barber’s chair and began listing the different industries that lined Route 9.
“‘The refinery, the asphalt plant, the concrete plant,” Wilmore said. “It’s just one thing after another that you’re breathing in.”
First State residents and advocates have long raised concerns that DNREC’s permitting process for industrial facilities did not sufficiently notify or engage surrounding communities. The plans for new or expanded facilities are often greenlit before the community can have input, residents say.
In Wilmington’s Southbridge and Eastside neighborhoods, residents have long been concerned about the lack of engagement before permits for polluting industries near their communities are approved.
In September 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency accepted a civil rights complaint filed by community members against DNREC, which alleged that the state agency discriminated against Black, Latino and Haitian residents living near the Bioenergy Devco’s Bioenergy Innovation Center in Seaford.
DNREC failed to provide adequate public participation opportunities to residents living near the facility during the permitting process, and failed to inform and involve residents with limited English proficiency, the complaint alleges.
That same month, DNREC approved permits for an anaerobic digestion system and a biogas plant at the facility. Once finished, the facility will process 250,000 tons of poultry waste annually, according to DNREC.
Trucks from the biogas plant would run through two nearby mobile home communities where residents predominately don’t speak English and have little broadband internet access.
The bill would apply to any facility within a half-mile radius of an overburdened community. A new planned facility, an expansion of an existing facility or an existing permit renewal would all be assessed for their cumulative environmental impact on the nearby community.
No new permits would be granted unless facilities submit an impact report to DNREC. The Environmental Justice Board would then make its recommendations on whether to approve, deny or modify the permit to DNREC based on the impact report and any public hearing.
If the DNREC secretary issues a permit decision that goes against the board recommendation, the secretary must write the reasons for the decision alongside additional actions that will be taken to reduce pollution in the community where the facility is located.
The written reasoning document will be made available to all board members and to any member of the public upon request.
The board would be composed of nine members with three appointed by the Speaker of the House, three by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and three others from the public or private sector appointed by DNREC.
The six members appointed by the chambers of the Delaware Legislature must live in an overburdened community. At least one of the DNREC-appointed members must have an expertise in public health.
The impact report would be required at least 60 days before the necessary community information session and public hearing. All written materials and presentations presented at the public meeting must be translated into the most frequently used non-English language in the community.
The industry permit seeker must mail a notice and summary of the proposed use of the permit to all residents of an overburdened community at least 60 days before the community information session.
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