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Delaware County Resource Recovery Facility permit applications

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Held at: Delaware County Historical Society [Contact Us]408 Avenue of the States, Chester, Pennsylvania, 19013

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Delaware County Historical Society. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.

Overview and metadata sections

The Delaware County Resource Recovery Facility is an incinerator at Front and Thurlow Streets in Chester, Pennsylvania. Construction began in 1987 under the auspices of the Chester Solid Waste Associates, a company founded by Russell, Rea, and Zappala (an investment banking firm from Pittsburgh) and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It opened for commercial operation in 1992, and was operated by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation until April 1997 when American Ref-Fuel assumed ownership.

Currently operating as Covanta Delaware Valley, L.P., the facility generates electricity that is sold to Atlantic City Electric Company and the wholesale marketplace. "Covanta began operating the facility in 2005. In 2012, Covanta became the owner and operator of the facility when the company purchased the facility from GE Energy Financial Services. The plant processes up to 3,348 tons of municipal and commercial solid waste each day.

"At maximum output, the plant generates approximately 80 megawatts of electricity, 90 percent of which is sold to the local utility. The plant not only meets the municipal solid waste disposal and energy production needs of Delaware County, but also provides capacity for up to 500,000 tons of additional waste each year from surrounding counties."

Bibliography:

Quoted text from: Covanta Energy. "Covanta Delaware Valley, L.P." Accessed June 27, 2013. http://www.covantaenergy.com/facilities/facility-by-location/delaware-valley.aspx

Delaware County, Pennsylvania. "About the Delaware County Solid Waste Authority." Accessed June 27, 2013. http://www.co.delaware.pa.us/depts/swa.html

Cole, Luke W. and Sheila R. Foster. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. NYU Press, 2001. Accessed July 1, 2013. http://tinyurl.com/nr8errz

This collection consists of permit applications to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources for the construction of the Delaware County Resource Recovery Facility with other applications, diagrams, and similar materials dating from May 1987. The following items are included: PSD Applications, Volumes 1 and 2 Solid Waste Permit applications: Module I, Form 1, Phase 1; and Form 3, Phase II Module 9, with Appendix #1 Module 10 Storm Water Permit application Health Risk Assessment submitted to Westinghouse Electric Corporation Resource Energy Systems Four "corrected diagrams"

Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.

In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Delaware County Historical Society directly for more information.

Publisher
Delaware County Historical Society
Finding Aid Author
Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Faith Charlton through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
Sponsor
This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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