When New Jersey’s landmark environmental justice law was enacted in September 2020, there was plenty to celebrate for activists who had fought so hard to prevent more of the unrelenting pollution that has long plagued the Ironbound section of Newark, the state’s largest city.
More than five years later, the fight is still going on—but the stage has shifted largely to the courts.
In January, the state’s intermediate appellate court unanimously upheld the rules implemented to enforce the law. The recycling and construction industries that challenged the rules have asked the state Supreme Court to hear an appeal, but the state’s highest court has not yet decided whether to accept the case.
There are other legal skirmishes too—all revolving around the plan to build yet another power plant in the Ironbound. This plant, which would be the fourth in the Ironbound’s expansive industrial zone, has been proposed as a backup source of power at the Passaic Valley sewage treatment plant, the state’s largest waste treatment facility.
