NJ Transit scraps plan for gas-fired backup power plant, heartening environmental justice advocates

By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press

New Jersey’s public transit agency is scrapping plans for a backup power plant that would have been fueled by natural gas, heartening environmental justice advocates who targeted it and several other proposed power plants in largely minority areas. NJ Transit said Friday it is redirecting $503 million that would have been used to build the backup system to other resiliency projects scattered around northern and central New Jersey. The backup plant was to have been built in Kearny, a low-income community near Newark, the state’s largest city and home to another hotly fought plan for a similar backup power project for a sewage treatment plant.