Daily Times (Primos, PA)

Put your money on Covanta, not elite protesters

- Richard Ailes, Swarthmore

To the Times:

Reading the article on the anti-Covanta “diein” which occurred at the Delco Government Building last Wednesday, left me bewildered. When looking at any map where you can easily find the site of the Covanta plant, you will notice that the plant in nestled in the tiny corner of Chester almost at the borderline of Trainer. My bewilderme­nt stemmed from the lack of people from Trainer in the demonstrat­ion. Why is that? Do not the ill effects of the Covanta plant affect them more than most of the inhabitant­s of Chester? Or do the laws of physics have a mystifying property to drift only towards the majority of Black and brown residents of Chester?

Another thing that was striking was the participat­ion of students from Swarthmore College. Were there any participan­ts from Delaware County Community College? You can Google the tuition for Swarthmore College and find that in 2019 that tidy sum came to over $54,000 per year. You, who are reading this letter to the editor, should be asking yourselves the same questions. Do the demonstrat­ors speak for you, or do they speak for an elite group whose actions want to make your lives more difficult and expensive? Covanta’s waste to energy technology might stand some improvemen­t but for my money they offer a solution which not only takes care of a significan­t

trash problem and provides income to cashstrapp­ed Chester, the technology also feeds electricit­y back into the grid. This is technology which the Europeans have been using for years in over 400 locations. One organizer offered her solution to our trash problem. It was “charge all residents across the board $200 a bag for trash”. Well, that’s one place to put your money. I’ll put my money on Covanta and you should too.

 ?? MEDIANEWS GROUP FILE PHOTO ?? The Covanta trash plant in Chester
MEDIANEWS GROUP FILE PHOTO The Covanta trash plant in Chester

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