Today, NJ Transit announced that it would no longer pursue a scheme to build a fracked gas power plant in Kearny. 

For years, climate and community activists have organized a campaign to stop a gas power plant connected to the Transitgrid project, which would increase climate warming emissions and air pollution in communities that are forced to deal with an array of environmental hazards.

In 2020, after 18 months of advocacy and organizing, activists successfully pressured Governor Murphy to direct NJ Transit to  redevelop the project primarily using renewable energy. Activists continued to press the transit agency to embrace a clean energy solution, speaking out at public hearings and offering detailed analysis of viable alternatives. 

In response to today’s announcement, Food & Water Watch New Jersey State Director Matt Smith issued the following statement: 

“This is a victory for the grassroots activists who never stopped pushing the Murphy administration to reject a scheme to place a new fossil fuel project near communities that have suffered from decades of industrial pollution. They did not accept the bogus notion that a fracked gas plant could be a sustainability solution in the midst of a climate emergency. The Murphy administration has professed its commitment to climate and environmental justice. Stopping the Transitgrid gas plant is a step in the right direction.  To deliver on his climate and environmental justice commitments, the Governor must reject a nearly identical project proposed less than three miles away in Newark, where Passaic Valley Sewerage Authority, another state agency, is proposing to build a major fracked gas power plant. ”