Councilmember challenges administration on ties to Chester incinerator as waste‑contract RFP proceeds
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Summary
Councilmember Gauthier pressed Clean & Green Director Carlsa Williams about whether the city will renew a contract that sends waste to Chester’s incinerator; Williams said the administration is evaluating options via an RFP and will consider environmental impacts across disposal methods while exploring alternatives such as anaerobic digestion.
Councilmember Gauthier raised a pointed environmental‑justice challenge to the Parker administration, asking whether the city would continue a seven‑year contract with waste‑to‑energy operators that she said "pollutes Chester and other Black and brown communities." She urged the city to refuse any contract that would continue pollution in neighboring municipalities.
"If we go again with Reworld Covanta, which not only pollutes Chester, but other Black and brown communities like Camden, and others, we will be in a 7 year contract, again," Gauthier said, framing the decision as a matter of intergovernmental responsibility and racial equity.
Carlsa Williams, director of Clean & Green, responded that the administration is not ignoring Chester’s concerns and that the current process — an RFP and a comprehensive evaluation — is intended to weigh environmental, fiscal and operational factors. "We have to evaluate every option possible for the city of Philadelphia so that we can have the most fiscally sound environmentally sustainable contract for the citizens of Philadelphia," Williams said. She added that the administration is exploring a long‑term waste plan and alternatives such as anaerobic digestion while reviewing multiple studies and commissioning an "intense" cross‑facility study.
Health Commissioner Palak Reval Nelson described a related public‑health step: the deployment of new air‑quality sensors (Breathe Philly) to provide more granular, near‑real‑time data across neighborhoods; Nelson said the sensors are intended to inform interjurisdictional conversations with neighboring counties and Chester.
What happens next: Officials said the RFP process will continue; the administration pledged to work with Chester and other stakeholders. Councilmembers signaled they will monitor the RFP outcome and may press for stronger environmental safeguards in any contract award.
