NJ Spotlight Provides Op-Ed Platform For A Hack To Lie About DEP Stormwater Rules

Op-Ed Praises DEP Rule That Ignored Climate Change and Rolled Back Protections

Repackages the builders arguments in current political slogans

A quick note today on an egregiously false and misleading Op-Ed published today by NJ Spotlight, that cynically parades under “green”, climate and environmental justice slogans, see:

• Climate Change is an Equity Issue; Green Infrastructure Can Help on the Water Front

NJ Spotlight provided a platform to another basically corporate voice that opportunistically appears and jumps on the climate and “justice” issues. (while they have ignored this very recent worthless DEP coastal (CAFRA), wetlands, and steam encroachment rule proposal currently open for public comment. More to follow on that literally substantively empty rule proposal in a future post).

While doing so, the author merely repackaged longstanding developer criticisms of the failure of DEP’s regulations to address existing development. But the builders’ use that serious flaw not as a way to improve water quality and reduce flooding, but as a means of avoiding regulation of new development by claiming that they are unfairly bearing a regulatory burden for problems caused by other pollution sources. Here’s that argument, right up front in the subtitle: (emphasis mine)

Newly adopted [DEP stormwater] rules are good, but we must dramatically improve stormwater management on previously developed sites

The primary problem is that the Op-Ed is cynically Orwellian and riddled with falsehoods and spin.

First of all, while the author highlights the climate issue and claims an “equity” mantle, the author praises a DEP stormwater regulation that completely ignored climate change and environmental justice, rolled back existing water quality & flood protections, and codified the Christie DEP’s anti-environmental and anti-regulatory pro-economic development policies. For the details on that, see:

• After 12 Months In Office, Murphy DEP Proposes First Regulation, And It Is Awful

Let’s repeat that: the author highlights the urgency of the climate crisis and environmental justice, but then praised DEP rules that completely ignored climate and justice issues!

The Murphy DEP stormwater rule was so bad, it was blasted by FEMA, see:

• FEMA FLAYS MURPHY DEP STORMWATER PROPOSAL

FEMA flagged many significant and fatal flaws (described as “significant deficiencies“) in the DEP proposal. FEMA wrote: (emphasis mine)

 To highlight, FEMA finds that the abandonment of the nonstructural stormwater management in design and the absence of restrictions in the increase in runoff volume post-development to be significant deficiencies. FEMA is also concerned that the proposed rule does not consider future conditions of increasingly intense precipitation that is expected with climate change. The use of the term Green Infrastructure will not offset the proposed changes to the nonstructural stormwater management strategies and the multiple missed opportunities to reduce riverine and urban flooding impacts.

Flat out lying about all that, the NJ Spotlight Op-Ed author claims – falsely – that the DEP’s “green infrastructure” rules are “good” and are “required“. The author wrote: (emphasis mine)

The rule amendments adopted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection earlier this year, which take effect next March, require the use of green infrastructure to manage stormwater from new developments.

That false claim directly contradicts FEMA’s accurate criticism that the DEP’s green infrastructure regulatory provisions are NOT mandatory and they replace more stringent and more effective requirements. FEMA wrote:

(Note: a “BMP” is not a mandatory numeric standard. DEP relies on BMP’s and presumes that they satisfy water quality standards, without any science, data, or site specific evidence to support that presumption. There is a similar problem with the volume of water.)

The author then again falsely claims that “standards for water quality” remain “unchanged”:

To be clear, however, the Phase One amendments, also known as the green infrastructure rule, may not move the needle much on water quality or flood control because (a) the underlying standards for water quality, groundwater recharge and quantity control are unchanged and (b) the rules do not apply fully to redevelopment.

That is a false statement. The DEP stormwater rule eliminated water quality standards in the prior stormwater rules, including for nutrients and suspended/dissolved solids, the primary non-point source pollutants (also the primary causes of Harmful Algae Blooms that are closing NJ lakes to recreational use).

[Update: DEP proposed a variance loophole too: (@p. 39)

Here is FEMA’s criticism of the fact that DEP’s “green infrastructure” rules are NOT mandatory as the Op-Ed author claims and the fact that DEP eliminated of prior standards for water quality:

The author mentions the upcoming DEP climate PACT rules, but, among many other things, fails to mention the critical issue of the “design storm” (see my quote from a prior NJ Spotlight story)

What ever happened to the DEP policy to begin to regulate based on the 500 year storm event to address climate change, see:

• STATE WANTS SEWER PLANTS TO PLAN FOR 500-YEAR STORMS

“It’s extremely significant,’’ said Bill Wolfe, director of the New Jersey chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, who first reported the changes on his blog, wolfenotes.com. “It will make a difference.’’

Is DEP Commissioner McCabe even aware of this? If so, why did she sign off on such a clearly deficient – and technically inconsistent – rule proposal?

Finally, the author – after these and other factual errors, spin and lies – highlights that:

success depends on credible voices

Not mentioned in the Spotlight authors Op-Ed bio blurb is the fact that she has zero technical credibility with respect to DEP regulations (legal or scientific).

I Googled the author’s background. The author has no scientific, technical or regulatory training (but a BA in English), she is a local politician, and was a staffer to corporate and developer dominated faux environmental groups, including Sustainable NJ and NJ Future.

Here’s a note I sent in frustration to NJ Spotlight reporter Jon Hurdle (Tom Johnson has blocked me):

Jon – no coverage of this recent DEP rule proposal enabled today’s Spotlight Op-Ed to mislead people.

Prior NJ Spotlight coverage of the DEP’s stormwater rule included FEMA’s harsh criticism of a severely flawed DEP rule the the Op-Ed author praises. Shouldn’t readers know that?

Spotlight readers should also know that the author, who stressed the need for “credible voices”, has no technical, scientific, or regulatory background, but instead a BA in English and local political experience. Who is her current employer?

Spotlight needs to do much better.

Wolfe