Third official Eco-Challenges Ride

For our third official ride a group of us on May 22 rode section E of the BikePA route, also the East Cost Greenway, which runs through the community of Chester and Marcus Hook refinery complexes. We got to see first hand fossil fuel infrastructure and reflect on the impact to local communities. Chester is a fence line community, one that is closer to toxic and damaging pollution caused by the concentration of refineries and waste incineration and other polluting facilities. A 2010 study found that children in Chester experience asthma at rates 5 times the average for the rest of Philadelphia. I appreciate how PA IPL is committed to working on these issues of environmental justice and was sobered by the challenges that lay ahead for all of us in this work.