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Wm. Penn’s $100 Million “Delaware Watershed Initiative” Is A National Model

Yale Environment Duped Into Publishing Foundation Propaganda

20  Ways Elite Foundations Corrupt Public Policy

A Jersey friend just sent me an article from YaleEnvironment360 pompously titled:

• On the Delaware, A Promising New Era in Cleanup of an Urban River

These folks actually think they’ve created a “new era” – is there a better example of arrogant, delusional, hubris?

What that Yale story really illustrates is no “promising new era”, but an egregious abuse of power by the elite William Penn Foundation – virtually a national model for how an elite Foundation can throw a LOT of money around – like over $100 million – and hijack not only the issues & policy agenda, but the advocacy work of environmental groups and the media too.

But it’s not until the end of the story that we read this disclaimer:

Reporting for this article was supported by a grant from the William Penn Foundation.

The William Penn Foundation is also a “Major Funder” of NJ Spotlight, the primary outlet that publishes reporter Jon Hurdle’s work (a fact that goes unmentioned in Hurdle’s bio.)

[Update: in fairness, here is NJ Spotlight’s Code of Ethics: (emphasis mine)

We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.

I think the evidence suggests otherwise – I have documented  a pattern of sources, news issues/topics, and narratives that so closely fit Wm. Penn Foundation and Dodge Foundation funders that could not be random. ~~~ end update]

Mr. Hurdle writes a lot of stories about the Delaware River. The William Penn Foundation also funds many of the sources used in Mr. Hurdle’s stories and those stories reflect Penn’s narrative, rhetoric, and corporate style.

A William Penn Foundation staffer is given a prominent quote in this Yale story they paid for.

So, we now have a Foundation using millions of dollars to define the issues, control the environmental community’s campaign strategy & tactics on those issues, exclude differing views, and even control the media’s story selection, narrative, and sourcing.

After reading the piece, I went on somewhat of a Twitter rant, which included a thread of 20 abuses by the Penn Foundation, as follows (I’ll begin with the last one):

I wonder if the folks at Yale Environment know what they got sucked into by agreeing to publish this William Penn Foundation paid for Neoliberal propaganda? See this thread for 20 abuses they’ve normalized.

William Penn Foundation distributed over $100 million to environmental groups for Delaware Watershed Initiative https://williampennfoundation.org/delaware-river-watershed-initiative…

They now have bought press too.

Penn is ideologically Neoliberal: anti-government and anti-regulation, while pro-market, voluntary & private actions

The Delaware River is national model for Foundation abuse:

1) use $ to buy environmental group cover

2) use $ to select issues, strategy, advocacy agenda, & tactics

3) co-opt, defund, & take credit for work of locals

4) marginalize “radicals”

5) divert from government, regulations, and corporate power

6) promote ineffective, feel good, symbolic gestures that protect the Status Quo while allowing wealthy white people to feel righteous

7) undermine more effective government regulatory mandates

8) protect corporate interest$ & politicians (criticism of Democrats is taboo, while exaggerated praise of Dems is SOP)

9) deny scope & minimize the severity of problems

10) exaggerate success of Foundation window dressing

11) self promote

12) self deal and keep the money an influence among class collaborators

13) ignore real EJ, but promote EJ sympathies

14) create distrust and conflict within the public interest community

15) use money to buy press coverage & issues covered

16) use money to shape press coverage & content of coverage

17) use $ to assure that Penn Foundation funded groups are the “go to” news sources

18) use $ to make sure those sources mislead the public & promote Penn’s vision.

19) Use Penn program agenda to provide cover for government leaders and allow agency heads to dodge accountability for failed regulatory programs.

This happens by diverting focus away from government regulation & exaggerating success of individual voluntary market based actions.

20) control the behavior of funded groups so that they threaten no economic, corporate, or political interests, while marginalizing and even defunding real grassroots activists & “radical” policy advocates.

Who will tell the people about these abuses?

Out On The Maine Line

Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain’t no use jiving
Ain’t no use joking
Everything is broken. ~~~ Bob Dylan

In The Forest

Swimming’ with the Fishes

‘Cause people let me tell you
It sent a chill
up and down my spine
When I picked up the telephone
And heard that he’d died
out on the mainline.  ~~~ Neil Young

Word.

Petition for rulemaking is a long ignored tool to generate public pressure for reforms and hold DEP accountable

A Citizens Guide To Regulatory Power

A Tool To Reverse Trump Rollbacks

Now for something completely different, a brief note on some good news.

I just read a story in the old Bergen Record about a “petition for rule making” submitted to the DEP by animal rights and environmental groups seeking to block this year’s scheduled bear hunt, see:

• Critics have a new argument for why NJ bear hunt should be canceled: the pandemic

Unfortunately, the story again failed to report on the NJ Supreme Court’s decision that vests regulatory control of the bear hunt with DEP Commissioner McCabe, NOT the Fish & Game Council. That decision perfectly sets the stage for the DEP petition for rule making on the hunt.

Worse, the story was framed through the COVID lens, and missed the real “new argument” and “new wrinkle”:

The new wrinkle is the alleged danger posed by the coronavirus should the bow hunt, which is scheduled to begin on Oct. 12, be allowed to move forward. McCabe has 60 days to accept the Aug. 3 petition, reject it, or ask for more time to study the issue. 

The real “new wrinkle” is the filing of a petition for rulemaking, a virtually unknown but powerful mechanism provided under a little known but key NJ law known as the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).

The APA provides the public with a tool to force government agencies to consider public demands to adopt regulations to protect the public interest.

DEP must consider and substantively respond to the legal, scientific, and policy arguments made in the petition.

The DEP’s decision to deny a petition can then be appealed to the courts.

Because it is a formal regulatory process, it also can be used to request legislative oversight of DEP decisions.

Therefore, the regulatory petition process provides a mechanism and procedural opportunity to hold DEP accountable to facts, science, law, and public demands.

A rule making petition can also provide an excellent opportunity to educate the public, generate media, and organize public support for real change. That all can be used to generate political pressure on DEP.

Unfortunately, while the business community has filed many petitions for rule making to DEP, the environmental community has long ignored this important tool (see DEP’s rule petition webpage – note that the August 3, 2020 bear hunt petition has not even been posted yet!)

Under Commissioner McCabe, the DEP has virtually abdicated its regulatory responsibilities. That is a particularly egregious failure in light of 8 years of Christie DEP regulatory rollbacks, at least 100 Trump regulatory rollbacks, and the escalation of the climate emergency.

Therefore, the Murphy DEP should be barraged with petitions for rulemaking from the NJ environmental community on numerous issues, especially to get out in front of and frame the upcoming climate regulations DEP has named “PACT”.

A rule petition is a far more effective way to influence DEP than to sit around the table and get played in the DEP’s informal “Stakeholder processes”. That’s just where DEP wants you to be – safely in the room, instead of forcing their hand legally and out in the streets targeting DEP regulations for public protest demands.

I’ve been urging NJ environmental leaders to file these petitions for years, so now I’ll rehash that as a template for citizens.

In addition to reversing trump rollbacks (and forcing NJ Democrats to walk the walk) NJ State issues include not only climate and 401 WQC, but to restore protections for Category 1 buffers; repeal of all Christie DEP rollbacks; real consideration of EJ in permitting; strengthen risk assessment; expand the “state of the art” standards in Clean Air permits to address GHG emissions; regulate GHG emission in land use and all other DEP permits; block logging in forest management and “stewardship” (and put teeth and current science in the voluntary and ancient forestry wetlands BMP Manual); make BMP’s comply with water quality standards; restrict abuses of OPRA “deliberative privilege” secrecy loophole; prohibit the use of cost-benefit analysis, unless explicitly mandated by black letter law; and adopt and implement the precautionary principle (and many, many more).

I)  A Citizens Guide to Regulatory Power

Here is an example of a Petition for rulemaking I filed – note the legal requirements and format.

Another important and timely issue that should be the subject of a rule making petition is the Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certificate issue. It is the most powerful mechanism to kill pipelines and other fossil infrastructure and DEP is totally ignoring it.

In the 401 WQC context, the legal bases would be the federal Clean Water Act, the NJ Water Pollution Control Act, The NJ Water Quality Planning Act, the NJ Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act, the NJ Flood Hazard Control Act, DEP’s Organic Act (forgot the cite), and the NJ Administrative Procedure Act.

The primary regulatory bases would be the NJ Surface Water Quality Standards (NJAC 7:9B-1 et seq.), the WQMP planning rules (NJAC 7:15-1 et seq), the NJPDES rules (NJAC 7:14A-1 et seq), the stream encroachment rules, the Freshwater Wetlands rules – here’ a link to DEP rule page to provide proper citations.

The NJ state requirements are broader in scope than the federal Section 401 WQC – e.g. apply to more projects (e.g. intra-state non-federal projects) and more “regulated activity”, so be sure to make this clear.

II)  Content for a 401 WQC petition

Here’s what you need to petition DEP to do:

1. Withdraw current regulations applicable to pipeline and related fossil infrastructure construction, e.g.  Wetlands GP#2 and a FHA PBR #36. These DEP regulatory frameworks provide totally inadequate environmental assessment, DEP review processes, enforceable standards, public participation and environmental safeguards – while they ignore the 401 WQC powers and NJ Surface Water Quality Standards.

2. Promulgate comprehensive new 401 WQC regulations, which are integrated substantively with the upcoming Climate PACT regulations such that lifecycle GHG emissions are considered, including secondary and cumulative emissions and fugitive and/or unregulated emissions; enforceable requirements are established to limit emissions as necessary to achieve net zero or science based numeric statewide reductions; all emissions are subject to a 2-1 mitigation (or offset) requirement. These requirements must be incorporated into ALL DEP approvals for all regulated activities that emit (direct or indirect) GHGs.

3. New WQC regulations must include mandatory requirements for at least the following:

a) a water quality analysis – with a compliance demonstration (i.e. project may not “cause or contribute” to a violation, including temporary violations, of any SWQS.

The water quality analysis must require demonstration of compliance with NJ DEP’s Surface Water Quality Standards (NJAC 7:9B-1 et seq.), including “antidegradation policy and implementation procedures”, including anti degradation review, application and enforcement of numeric and narrative standards, and a required demonstration by the applicant that all existing and designated uses are protected.

b) This would include a “reasonable potential” analysis of the project’s “potential” to “cause or contribute” to an “excedence of a surface water quality standard”, including from accidents, and point and non-point sources of pollution.

As per the DEP’s NJPDES rules, this would require a DEP approved QA/QC plan and at least 4 quarters of statistically representative data on the current biological, physical and chemical water quality characteristic of impacted waters, including, among other  things, existing water quality, stream flows, temperature, pH, all water quality parameters in the SWQS, and an inventory of current existing uses, especially macro-invertebrate species that are vulnerable to pipeline construction impacts and things like the blowouts and mud deposition we’ve seen repeatedly.

You might want to suggest that the prior DEP method for reviewing disturbance in a C1 buffer could serve as a template for some of the biological and water quality characterization and that current NJPDES “antidegradation policy and implementation procedures” and “reasonable  potential” analysis should be considered as well.

The same requirements must be established for demonstrating compliance with the NJ DEP groundwater quality standards.

Obviously, you need to lay this all out – might want to look at NY DEC pipeline 401 WQC denies for technical details.

Let’s get this party started!

There is sufficient information teed up to get petitions filed soon.

Members of NJ environmental groups should contact their leaders and professional staff and demand that they get off their asses on this.

[End Note: I just got a great email question from a dedicated citizen activist:

Being fairly new to this , why don’t the enviro groups use this more?

Here’s my reply:

It’s perceived as too aggressive. It puts DEP on the spot and forces them to make a decision. It embarrasses the Commissioner and the Gov. Many ENGO folks don’t want to do any of that or bite the hand that [grant] feeds them. They would rather “work with DEP” and play the “Stakeholder” games.

Plus, most of them know absolutely nothing about regulations – or are too lazy to work on them. Not sexy. Too much like work.

NJ Spotlight once again puts lipstick on a pig

DEP minimizing the scope of the problem & abdicating regulatory responsibility

Right now, I’m up in wonderful “green” Vermont. I spent the last 2 nights in Breadloaf Wilderness.

I’m here because I left Burlington in disgust after learning that Lake Champlain has a toxic algae bloom – they call it a cyanobacteria bloom here, but the politically framed excuses in Vermont were the same as those in NJ: i.e. after being warned NOT to allow my dog to swim, I asked an official what was going on. I was told that record low lake levels and warm water were the problem (thus implying a “natural” uncontrollable cause and omitting the man made causes of excessive nutrient loads from over-development, lax regulation, and catastrophic climate warming).

With that bad taste still in my mouth, I opened my email this morning to find another misleading NJ Spotlight story about NJ’s HAB problem.

According to NJ Spotlight, the story was based on a DEP  “online news conference on the status of the problem”.

Why does the press always react to the DEP spin?

Why not just do some real investigative journalism, report the facts, and examine the actual effectiveness of DEP programs and regulations that are designed to prevent the problem?

After reading the DEP’s promotion of “green infrastructure” (a slogan from their flawed stormwater regulations), this DEP spin really set me off:

Last summer, more than 30 lakes were affected by the blooms, and the number is about the same so far this year, DEP officials said.

There are 16 confirmed blooms so far this year, slightly more than the 12 that were confirmed by the same point of 2019.

I have written several times, emailed NJ Spotlight reporter Jon Hurdle multiple times, and have been trying to get the word out that DEP rolled back last year’s warning & lake closure threshold of 20,000 cells/ml to 80,000 this year.

Once again, Spotlight failed to report that.

But, by reporting DEP’s comparison of last year’s data to this year, Spotlight has gone even further and actively misled readers.

It is not valid to compare last year’s HAB episodes with this year’s episodes because DEP changed the threshold!

On top of that, once again, NJ Spotlight gave DEP a pass on massive planning and regulatory failures – serious failures that should be the focus of a critical story and not some after the fact response by Jeff Tittel to DEP’s spin.

I fired off this email to Mr. Hurdle:

Jon – it is not valid to compare and report the number of lakes this year with last year, because DEP changed the thresholds!

When will you report that critical fact?

Because the threshold is much higher (80,000 cells/ml this year compared to 20,000 cells/ml last year), the actual number of lakes impacted and the risks to public health (and pets) is MUCH BIGGER AND BRODER THAN DEP IS REPORTING.

Again, if DEP ever raised the ground level ozone standards and the number of bad air days were reported as the same as last year, that would not pass the straight face test and would be widely denounced.

Similarly, the DEP has adopted very weak and totally ineffective “Total Maximum Daily Loads” (TMDLs) for lake nutrients. Those TMDLs are the legal and regulatory mechanism (science based and quantitative and thus enforceable) under the Clean Water Act to address this problem.

Worse, DEP has actually rolled back specific regulations that were designed to prevent and reduce nutrient loads, including Highlands, Category One buffers, WQMP (septic maintenance), stormwater management, wetlands, and stream encroachment.

There are also huge gaps in current DEP regulations regarding land use, septics, non-point pollution, water quality standards for nutrients, and climate change (hydrology).

WHY IS NONE OF THAT REPORTED and instead, DEP IS GIVEN A PLATFORM TO SPIN ALL THIS AT A PRESS CONFERENCE?

Wolfe

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