Philadelphians deserve a return on investment — not abatements, but breathable air and drinkable water

How would you describe the environmental conditions of hell? In Dante’s “Inferno,” each of the nine circles is marked by its own punishment, each set in a hostile, unlivable landscape. But in Pennsylvania, you don’t need medieval literature to imagine the underworld. The source material is all around us.

Air too toxic to breathe. Water that poisons you. Ground that burns and caves beneath your feet. This isn’t fiction. It’s the legacy of industry — where fuels that once powered prosperity now poison the people left behind.

Pollution is expected in any city, but in Philadelphia, it’s pervasive. Chemical spills, gas leaks, homes exploding. No longer anomalies, explosions have become part of city life.

Philadelphia risks becoming a skyline built on burning ruins.

This isn’t abstract for me. I grew up in West Philly. At 13, crossing the Passyunk Avenue Bridge to school, I feared the South Philly refinery’s smoke. It’s going to blow, I’d think. In 2013, it released more than 350 tons of air toxins — benzene, sulfuric acid, hydrogen cyanide. The city’s largest air polluter.

Caused by the ignition of a noxious vapor cloud, the blast came in 2019. A vessel was launched across the Schuylkill, and five workers were injured, with benzene levels remaining dangerously high for months.

In February, a gas main rupture forced an evacuation at Central High, my alma mater. Philadelphia Gas Works manages 3,000 miles of pipeline — half of it outdated cast iron or bare steel, some over 100 years old. PGW is tied to at least 13 deaths since 1979. Yet, it funds a lobbying group that pushed the Trump administration to cut clean energy funding. So Philadelphia ratepayers bankroll both their poisoning and its political defense.

Philly is just one front. Underground mine fires plague Pennsylvania’s former anthracite region. Of 11,249 abandoned mines, nearly 10,000 still pose health and safety risks. Residents report illness and backyard heat vents — only for the state Department of Environmental Protection to say there’s nothing wrong.

Journalists like Rob Manch and Kaylee Lindenmuth have shown how residents are forced to self-monitor while the state delays action — that is, unless a coal company wants a blasting permit.

This can’t continue. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called phasing out coal the single most important step to avert crisis. But Pennsylvania still clings to coal — economically, culturally, politically.

The costs of fossil fuel dependence are everywhere. In July 2024, carcinogens were found in the soil at Bartram’s Garden, leaking from a defunct oil terminal. No city alerts. No signage. Just like the 2023 latex spill that tainted a tributary of the Delaware, residents got only cursory guidance.

My mother never let us drink tap water. “Everything in America is poison,” she’d say. I used to roll my eyes. I don’t anymore.

This isn’t just neglect. It’s a pattern: environmental deterioration, bureaucratic retreat, displacement, then reinvestment. Collapse clears the way for redevelopment, just not for those already living there.

Under Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, 70 affordable homes in University City were demolished for luxury labs and condos. Her HOME initiative touts “affordable luxury.” But it’s clear who that’s for — and who gets left behind.

The rise of a new speculative elite depends on the collapse of working-class communities — on disrepair, vacancy, and silence. When land devalues and political resistance erodes, redevelopment rushes in, cloaked in the language of “innovation.” The Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery site, once a source of poison for Black and working-class Philadelphians, is now reborn as the Bellwether District — a warehouse hub sold as opportunity, built on ruin.

I love Philadelphia — but not blindly. I love its history, its people, its gardens and museums. When outsiders criticize it, I get defensive: “You don’t know her like I do!”

But like Los Angeles, where capital and cars privatized everything, Philadelphia risks becoming a skyline built on burning ruins.

I remember the rage I felt reading a fellow University of Pennsylvania student’s post: “I love Philly but could never raise a family here.” What made them say that? The visible homelessness? The violence they hear about but rarely face? The pollution?

When I tell friends about gas leaks and explosions, they urge me to leave. “Come to New York!” “Try London!” But what about the people who can’t just leave?

What happens to a city when the people thoughtful enough to notice its wounds decide to go?

I ask myself that all the time — not just about Philly, but the country. Do I leave for my own sanity, or stay and fight?

Industry veterans scoff at change. “This is just how it is.” But that’s not true.

Cincinnati’s Duke Energy launched a plan in 2015 to replace 1,200 miles of high-risk mains. Memphis began replacing cast iron lines in the 1990s, cutting leaks by more than half. Omaha, Neb., replaced 243 miles of mains over 10 years and aims to finish by 2027. These projects aren’t cheap, but they show that with regulation and investment, aging infrastructure can be fixed.

And Pennsylvania’s coal country isn’t unsalvageable. In Herten, Germany, the Ewald Colliery was reclaimed — without erasing workers or history.

Pennsylvanians aren’t disposable. What must be discarded are the politicians who promise equity while delivering tax breaks to developers.

We deserve a return on our investment — not in abatements, but in breathable air, drinkable water, and stable ground.

What is this silent violence where residents must measure their own poisoning?

Citizens turned scientists build backyard sensors, track leaks, test soil and air. This isn’t civic triumph. It’s institutional abandonment.

If Philadelphia is to have a future — not just for the wealthy, but for everyone — it won’t come from City Hall or Harrisburg. It will come in spite of them, dragged into being by people who refuse to disappear.

Ashley B. Ray grew up in Overbrook, studied anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, and is now writing their way through the onset of a technocratic dystopia. They are unsure if it’s helping.