Scientists and health professionals from the region have joined the fight against a sewer utility’s plans to build a fourth power plant in Newark. 

On Wednesday, 130 doctors, medical providers and professors sent a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy, asking him to reject a permit for a 84-megawatt gas-fired power plant. The Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, which serves one in six New Jersey residents and treats waste from states along the East Coast, including New York, said the plant will provide back-up power during storms and prevent the disaster caused by Hurricane Sandy when the facility lost power and 840 million gallons of raw sewage seeped into the Passaic River and Newark Bay.

“We urge you to deny the air permit for the PVSC power plant in favor of a solution that utilizes one hundred percent, zero-emission, renewable energy,” the letter said. “Doing so would be consistent with Governor Murphy’s environmental justice commitment and

climate goals, and decrease further harm against the people of the Ironbound community as well as the whole of Newark.”

The health and environmental experts are joining a chorus of residents and community advocates who have railed against the plan for months arguing Newark is already overburdened by pollution. The plant would be built in the city’s Ironbound neighborhood that is sandwiched by Port Newark and Newark Liberty Airport. The Ironbound also has a fat-rendering plant, a garbage incinerator and hundreds of trucks that crisscross residential streets every hour.

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