EQAT Demands Changes That PECO Says Are Unrealistic

Photo Courtesy of EQAT

By Jillian Baxter

As the city experienced its hottest day of the year on July 19th, the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) dropped a 50-foot banner from the roof of PECO’s Market Street headquarters that read: “Climate is Changing: Why isn’t PECO?” Three EQAT members, who hopped a fence to drop the banner while on a tour of PECO’s green roof, were arrested and taken to a nearby police station.

This protest occurs on the heels of a meeting last month between PECO CEO Mike Innocenzo and EQAT, where EQAT members pushed for the company to source 20 percent of its energy through solar power derived from local producers. The group’s demand is unique. PECO typically distributes energy from suppliers, however because solar companies do not exist in this area at that capacity, EQAT’s demands, according to PECO officials, would require the company to set up solar energy generators of its own.

“Mike Innocenzo appears more interested in protecting short-term profits than in aligning PECO with the long-term interests of our region’s residents,” says EQAT campaign director Tabitha Skervin. “We see the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in ashes, its workers holding pink slips, and our kids coughing on bad air today and tomorrow as PECO procrastinates. Now is the time for PECO, and its parent company Exelon, to invest major resources into bringing jobs that advance a democratic, renewable, and equitable energy economy—particularly in communities of color within its service area.”

PECO counters that this is an unrealistic number, saying that 20 percent local solar energy would require more than 827,000 rooftops in this area when fewer than 700,000 exist. 

“Alternatively, cheaper, more efficient solar local energy could come from larger ground-based systems, but that would require 40,000 acres of land — 30 times the size of Center City and 20 times the size of Fairmount Park,” says Afia Ohene-Frempong, PECO communications manager. “We simply do not have the space.”

In a press release about the meeting, EQAT stated that Innocenzo refused to envision a clean-energy future for the Philly area “in which PECO partners with homeowners and businesses to expand rooftop solar capacity while creating well-paying jobs in the city’s low-income neighborhoods and suburban towns.”

According to Ohene-Frempong, even if the funds and space were available, in order to reach that 20 percent commitment by 2025 PECO would have to start building immediately. 

“We would have to hire solar installation companies immediately. They would have to use the personnel they currently have immediately. They would likely be from several other areas and states,” she says. “The idea that we could make this commitment and create immediate jobs for low-income residents in our region that currently have zero training or employment history in solar is impossible. Once solar panels are up, there really isn’t much more ‘work’ to be done.”

Ohene-Frempong also says that EQAT’s demands are financially unattainable as the solar energy quota would cost $15 billion in capital investment. 

“That’s three times more than PECO will be spending over the next five years,” she says. “We’d have to stop everything else we invest in — poles, wires, transformers, substations — and only spend on building solar farms to achieve this demand by 2025. The annual energy bill for customers would increase $1,300 per year. We have an obligation to the city to provide affordable energy above all else.”

EQAT, however, says that these numbers are inflated. 

“It’s clear PECO is repeatedly and deliberately obfuscating our demands and misrepresenting the costs, and in doing so they ignore the cost of their inaction,” Skervin counters. “So far all we’ve seen is they are more invested in excuses than they are in the people of Philadelphia. 20 percent local solar is a realistic goal in the context of an emergency collision between an overheating planet cooked by fossil fuels and a city facing extreme inequality.”

According to PECO, any attempt at compromise has been rebuffed by EQAT. 

“Not only has EQAT stated that the 20 percent demand is an all or nothing dictate, they have also stated that they will not work with PECO on solar jobs or local workforce development unless and until PECO agrees to all of their demands. They’ve refused anything short of 20 percent and have committed to continuing protests not only after we make the verbal commitment, but until we actually reach it,” Othene-Frempong says. “At no point have they come to us prepared with analysis that says this is possible.”

“As we told PECO CEO Mike Innocenzo when we met with him last month, we know a commitment to 20 percent local solar, when done in a just way that prioritizes community-owned solar projects, is reasonable, possible, and necessary,” says Skervin. “Rather than rising to meet the moral urgency of climate change, PECO is repeating inflated, ridiculous numbers and shrugging their shoulders.”

After the banner drop, a subsequent meeting that had been scheduled between EQAT and Exelon CEO Chris Crane was cancelled.

Is the real danger of the PES explosion being measured?

The red thumbtack is the nearest location monitoring air quality. The plume is not traveling over it. Image courtesy of Professor Peter DeCarlo

by Alex Mulcahy

Should you be concerned about the aftermath of the explosion at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery? It depends who you ask.

“If I lived there, I would not be in my home right now,” says Dr. Peter DeCarlo, a professor from Drexel’s College of Engineering, whose research interests include outdoor air quality and particulate matter. “I would be… waiting until the fire was completely extinguished. Then I would return home, and I would open all my windows and doors to… get more fresh air into the home to flush out anything that might have entered from the fire.”

Sounds pretty serious, yet the City seems much less alarmed.

“The Health Department has no findings that would point to any immediate danger in the surrounding community at this time, and the City is NOT recommending evacuation or shelter-in-place,” says Health Department spokesman James Garrow in the City’s press release.

Why the divergence in response? DeCarlo says it’s because of what they are and aren’t testing on site, and where their monitors are. The City has found that “ambient carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons (combustibles), or hydrogen sulfide” are not present in the air. However, particulate matter, which negatively affects the very young, the very old and those with existing breathing conditions, is key. Particulate matter, which is 1/100 the width of a human hair, is measured by the City by a monitor at 24th and Ritner.

Due to the direction of the wind, the plume is elsewhere.

“The color of the plume was black, which indicates a soot type of aerosols,” says DeCarlo. “This is similar to what you’d see coming out of a diesel truck or a diesel bus: that same kind of black unburned fuel that makes particulates in those situations is also making particulates in this fire.”

The only difference is that with explosions such as the one in Southwest Philadelphia, those particulates are in a very high concentration.

“There will likely be [an] increase in [hospital] admittance, or people going to the emergency room for respiratory issues who live downwind of this plume,” DeCarlo says.

Climate Dads are getting you worried about climate change

By Jillian Baxter

Climate Dads, a group founded by a couple of  Philadelphia fathers, has partnered with This Place Will Be Water  to spread the word that rising sea levels won’t just affect coastal communities. Neighborhoods all over Philly – Port Richmond, Fishtown, Society Hill, and Southwest Philly, just to name a few- all face serious threats of flooding if the earth warms just 2ºC (3.7ºF).

Members of the group have placed biodegradable stickers that read ‘This Will Be Water’ at locations susceptible to flooding as global warming continues. Jason Sandman, Climate Dads co-founder, hopes to create a sort of ‘sticker shock.’ “This is a chance for people to stop and think ‘climate change is local, climate change is happening here’ and actually do something about it. Its a real chance for parents and fathers to think about what steps they need to take to stop climate change and adapt.”

With predictions that the earth could warm anywhere between 1.8°C and 4.0°C (3.2°F and 7.2° F) by the end of the century, Climate Dads hope the stickers inspire action by bringing the consequences of climate change straight to the neighborhood. “If we care about Philadelphia,” says co-founder Ben Block , “we need to take action now. If we don’t, we will soon start feeling the consequences.”

Sandman adds, “Dads in the community have reached out. People see that the things they walk by everyday- storefronts, mailboxes, churches, staples of their community- are all threatened if we fail to act. That sort of visual representation can lead to real tactile effort to mitigate climate change.”

Though it is based in Philadelphia, Climate Dads, is a nationwide campaign designed to connect like-minded parents in their effort to mitigate climate change. “Anyone can join,” says co-founder Ben Block, “Climate Dads is a base for people who want to get together to talk about climate change.”

The Climate Dads mission is to minimize climate change and adapt to protect their families from harm as threats of extreme weather, flooding, and disease become more certain. “The scariest part of climate change is the unknown- we don’t know what’s to come,” says Block, “If we can do anything to minimize the effects of climate change, we as parents have an obligation to do so.”

Judy Wicks launches statewide nonprofit devoted to keeping hemp and cannabis local

by Jillian Baxter

Sustainability icon Judy Wicks does not want John Boehner, or people like him, bogarting the burgeoning cannabis and hemp business. Boehner, former Speaker of the House and longtime defender of anti-marijuana legislation, now stands to make millions from the sale of marijuana investment firm Acreage Holdings as a member of the board. Meanwhile, during his time as Speaker, 420,000 people were arrested for marijuana charges.

“This is like a gift,” Wicks says, “and we are giving it away to big companies.”

As Pennsylvania moves closer to legalizing recreational marijuana, Wicks sees a golden opportunity for small in-state farms and businesses. Wicks wants to ensure state businesses have a chance to play catch-up before West Coast companies move into Pennsylvania’s nascent markets.

The hemp and cannabis trades could help to reconnect and redevelop local supply chains, according to Wicks. “It wasn’t long ago when the urban and the rural communities co-created regional economies—local supply chains based on mutual respect, trust and so on, and their survival was dependent on that. When corporate globalization came along and severed all those local supply chains and started dumping cheap foreign goods and food from other places, it put out of business a lot of family farmers and working-class factory workers.”

Proud Pennsylvania, which Wicks recently founded, is a nonprofit designed to stimulate the growth of local supply chains producing sustainable goods across the state. “Our mission is to unite the rural and urban communities around the shared vision for regional economies that are self-reliant, thereby moving wealth and power from corporations back to our communities.”

Wicks and Proud Pennsylvania are organizing a hemp coalition made up of farmers, entrepreneurs and manufacturers to support local production and local ownership as the industry emerges in Pennsylvania. “What we’re trying to do is actually build local supply chains by connecting the dots between the local owners of these businesses that will support each other, share information and buy from each other.” Most importantly, the coalition works to prevent outside corporations from monopolizing business opportunities.

With some sway in Harrisburg through the Proud Pennsylvania Working Group, a division of the organization made up of senators and representatives advised by Proud Pennsylvania on legislation that supports its mission, Wicks hopes to expunge the records of people with low-level marijuana charges and provide training to make them competitive against corporations like Boehner’s.

Wicks sees Proud Pennsylvania as a culmination of her life’s work. “We can no longer depend on long-distance supply chains to deliver basic needs of energy, food, fuel and building materials. By building regional economies, we’re not only cutting down on the carbons of long distance shipping, but we’re also building our self-reliance and decreasing our dependence on these shipping routes that can be disrupted by weather and social upheaval.”