If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Buy ‘Em

Did EPA Use Federal Grant Funds to Co-Opt Opposition?

The Green Mafia Strikes Again

I’ve been highly critical of how corporate and Foundation money is used to manipulate and co-opt environmental groups, whom I’ve criticized as “The Green Mafia”.

This story shows that those same corrupt dynamics are not limited to conservation and “sustainability” groups, and that the co-optation funding tactics used by Foundations and Corporations also are employed by State and Federal governments as well to buy political loyalty.

The EPA’s Superfund decision to cap highly toxic dioxin laced sediments in a small portion of the Passaic River – a plan supported by the pro-corporate anti-environmental Christie DEP (of Exxon repute) – left me scratching my head:

Why would environmental advocacy groups that purport to represent the people of Newark – a disproportionally impacted State designated “environmental justice” community who has suffered toxic poisoning for decades –  support EPA’s compromised cleanup plan that caps pollution in the river and not demand a complete permanent cleanup, EPA’s original preferred remedy of bank to bank dredging?

Why NOT demand the most protective cleanup that can be justified by science and technology, particularly with a large group of multi-billion corporations firmly on the hook for the cleanup costs?

For  summary of the issues and positions taken by the various groups, see EPA’s “Community Acceptance” discussion on page 77 of the ROD – especially note this, which is self explanatory:

Companies that have received notices of potential responsibility that submitted comments all opposed a bank-to- bank remedy, and most supported the CPG’s “Sustainable Remedy.”

EPA’s selection of Alternative 3 (Capping @ $1.38 billion) saved the corporate polluters $1.46 billion – the permanent cleanup (Alternative 2 – Dredging) cost $2.84 billion.

EPA has been elevating cleanup costs and partial caps (‘pave and wave”) over more protective and more costly permanent cleanups, as well as equating Superfund law’s clear “preference for a permanent remedy” with “treatment”. This  is an abuse of the Superfund law which was deigned to protect human health and the environment, promote permanent remedies, and hold polluters accountable.

EPA capping plans have saved corporate polluter Ford millions and sold out the people of Ringwood at the Ford Superfund site – and residents righty blasted EPA.

Recently, we saw strong criticism of EPA by residents and environmental groups for similar partial EPA cleanups of the Hudson River, the Quanta Superfund site in Edgewater, the Cornell-Dubilier Superfund site in South Plainfield and the long delayed cleanup at the Dupont site in Pompton Lakes.

What makes the Passaic Superfund site different?

Why was EPA praised by two NJ environmental groups for a partial cap based cleanup when EPA is being severely criticized for that policy virtually everywhere else?

Even more curious is the question:

Why would those same so called environmental groups that are backing the EPA plan openly criticize NJ Sierra Club for demanding the more protective preferred permanent cleanup of bank to bank dredging? See:

• NEWARK COMMUNITY GROUP FEUDS WITH SIERRA CLUB OVER CLEANUP OF PASSAIC RIVER

Could it be a result of the fact that EPA funds both those local NJ environmental groups that supported the EPA’s Passaic Plan, i.e. NY/NJ Baykeeper and Ironbound Community Corp.?

NY/NJ Baykeeper is funded by EPA and therefore has a conflict of interest.

According to the Record of Decision (ROD) on the Passaic cleanup:

In 2013, the New York/New Jersey Baykeeper applied for and was awarded the [Technical Assistance Grant] TAG, and continues to be the TAG recipient. The TAG advisor also provides technical assistance to the CAG.

But that’s not all – see:

• New Jersey Organizations Use EPA Grants to Monitor Water Pollution in their Communities

(New York, N.Y.) With support of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “citizen science” grants, two New Jersey community groups have begun their final weeks of summer water pollution monitoring. The New York/New Jersey Baykeeper and Friends of the Bonsal Preserve have been using $25,000 grants to monitor water quality on tributaries of the New York/New Jersey Harbor.

Ironbound Community Corp., who also supported the EPA plan also is funded by EPA and therefore also has a conflict of interest, see:

• EPA Grant to Help Newark Community Target Environmental Problems

(Newark, N.J.) In a move that will give the Ironbound community better information about local pollution problems, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it has awarded $100,000 under its Community Action for a Renewed Environment or CARE program to the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC). The not-for-profit organization will use the funding to identify and address pollution problems in the Ironbound community, with a focus on exploring the cumulative impacts of the multiple sources of pollution and finding ways to reduce the risks that they pose.

And then there’s this corporate shakedown that ICC was involved in also might explain the lack of  focus on “environmental justice” in Newark:

We must get the corporate money that buys results and corrupts the process out of politics – and so called environmental groups as well.