Chester environmental activist Zulene Mayfield was recently invited to testify before Germany’s parliament, the German Bundestag, about the negative impact a liquefied natural gas export terminal would have if it was built in Chester’s vicinity.

Mayfield is cofounder of the environmental justice organization Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living.

The terminal would have been the largest on the East Coast but a proposal to build it was paused by the Biden Administration to study its climate impact.

Chester already hosts a garbage incinerator, a toxic waste site and several industrial sites, wrote Lisa Badum in an opinion piece for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Badum is a legislator in the German Bundestag. She visited Chester in March and met Mayfield.

“Due to all this pollution, 27 percent of the children in Chester have asthma, which is more than four times the national [US] average,” Badum wrote.

Badum wrote that German legislators were surprised to learn an argument was being made that American allies in Europe would be hurt if the terminal project was paused.

“This is not true. Liquefied natural gas is expensive and harmful, and we do not need more of it than we’re already getting,” Badum wrote.

Read more of Lisa Badum’s opinion column in The Philadelphia Inquirer.