South Philly Review

Activists from across the country convened last week to converse about something they have in common: their proximity to a refinery.

Inside the Mercy Wellness Center, 2821 Island Ave., 11 people listened to the findings of a new study chronicling the demographic changes specifically around the Sunoco refinery, 3144 Passyunk Ave.

The meeting also linked members of the National Bucket Brigade Coalition, groups throughout the country that monitor air quality in their neighborhoods.

Twenty students and faculty members from the Carnegie Mellon University Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation conducted the study as a class project. The results displayed Dec. 14 were part of a nationwide study tracking trends in neighborhoods near the 144 operating and 90 closed refineries in the United States, center Executive Director David Gerard said.

"We can't speak to what else is going on in the neighborhood, but we can aggregate all the refineries and see what has happened on average near refineries," Gerard said during an interview this week.

Using Census tract data from 1970 to 2000, the study examined population and income shifts in communities within a 2.5- and 5-mile radii of the Sunoco refinery. Household incomes within the 2.5-mile radius, Gerard said, were 15 percent less than communities outside of this area.

The study's data also showed a population decrease in areas within the radii of the operating refinery. This goes against the national trend, where data showed significant increases in people relocating to areas near refineries over the 30-year period.

"We were somewhat surprised by this," Gerard said.

The study also noted the number of white residents living adjacent to and upwind of the refinery has decreased, while the number of non-white residents has increased.

Mable Mallard, a Community Labor Refinery Tracking Committee board member, noted new housing developments in her Grays Ferry neighborhood might have attributed to the population shift.

As a former South Philly resident now living in Southwest, Joanne Rossi, the committee's president, saw truth in the data. Her committee was formed to address health and safety issues at the refinery.

"Living in the community all my life, I can see how this really tracks changes occurring in both South and Southwest Philadelphia," Rossi said.

THE COMMITTEE VIEWED the study as another step to ensure the health and safety of residents.

Rossi's group and Sunoco agreed to a proposed settlement last month to resolve the committee's lawsuit, which alleged the Philadelphia-based company had released excessive emissions at its refinery. The settlement included $130,000 for the purchase of air-monitoring equipment.

Earlier this year, Sunoco also agreed to a $285 million consent decree filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency, the city and the Departments of Environmental Protection in Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Part of the money will be used to install new pollution control equipment at the local refinery.

Though unaware of the study, Sunoco spokesperson Gerald Davis maintained the company's "day-to-day focus is operating to the highest standards safely, reliably and in an environmentally sound manner."

But the refinery could always do more to safeguard communities, Rossi said. She would like to see more regulations to monitor fugitive emissions escaping from the refinery. These emissions "are an important issue living around the refinery because it's not regulated," she said.

Flaring incidents also blow hazards offsite and into surrounding communities, which might explain the population changes mentioned in the study, said Denny Larson, director of Global Community Monitor, an environmental justice and human rights nonprofit that encourages communities to create clean and sustainable environments.

With a preliminary study complete, Larson hopes the information could spark community and nationwide change.