In the 1990s a group of Chester citizens protested the presence of four polluting foul-smelling industries near their homes:
1) Westinghouse's incinerator, one of the biggest in the US, burning trash from Delaware County, Philadelphia, and the state Delaware;
2) Thermal Pure's autoclave, sterilizing medical-chemical waste by heating it;
3)Soil Remediation Systems' (SRS') proposed plant to burn the soil's toxic gases;
4) Delaware County Regional Water Quality Control Authority's (DELCORA'S) sewage treatment plant, burning sludge.
Besides holding street demonstrations, the group, with the pro bono help of a Philadelphia lawyer, sued Thermal Pure, SRS, and DELCORA for violations of law. The Thermal Pure suit uncovered a troubling link between the Supreme Curt had not the company withdrawn its permit application, apparently to avoid setting a damaging precedent. DELCORA agreed to reduce its smokestack emissions and pay for a lead abatement program. Ultimately Thermal Pure shut down less than a year after it opened. SRS never opened. The incinerator, now owned by Covanta, and DELCORA's sewage treatment plant, are still.
Today the City of Chester still suffers from one of the worst cases of environmental racism in the U.S. Nearly all of the polluting industry in Delaware County is concentrated in or near Chester.
