WolfeNotes.com

After 15 Years and Thousands Dead & Dying, Whitman issues a self serving non-apology

Whitman’s prior lies about toxic mercury as NJ Governor should have disqualified and blocked confirmation as EPA Administrator

Senators Corzine, Torricelli & Committee Chair Boxer Supported Whitman, Helped Whitewash Record in NJ

Source: US EPA Inspector General Report

Former NJ Governor Christie Whitman is in the news today on the 15th anniversary of 9/11 for what is shamelessly being portrayed as an “apology” and admission of errors in her repeated false statements that the air was safe to breath (see The Guardian who broke the story and The Bergen Record followup).

But Whitman pulls a Bill Clinton in parsing the words of both her so called “apology” and admission of error –

Note how Whitman unequivocally says she’s sorry that people got sick, but qualifies her own responsibility. She goes even further in The Record followup story and injects doubt about whether people even got sick and if it were EPA’s fault, qualifying and diminishing her own responsibility.

Paraphrasing Bill Clinton, I guess it all depends of the definition of “if”:

The Guardian:

“I’m very sorry that people are sick,” she said. “I’m very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I’m sorry.

The Record:

“If people died because we made a mistake, then of course I feel awful,” she said in an interview Saturday.

“If ” people died? Ask the family of Joe Picurro of Toms River, NJ, who died.

In both news stories, Whitman clings to the lie about the science and Whitman’s claims that her statements were based on EPA scientists’ recommendations:

The Guardian:

“Everything that I did or said was based on the scientists, what their readings were telling them. I’m not going to secondguess the scientists because I’m not a scientist.”

That is another Whitman lie even the EPA Inspector General Report destroyed:

EPA’s early public statements following the collapse of the WTC towers reassured the public regarding the safety of the air outside the Ground Zero area. However, when EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was “safe” to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement.

But I want to tell a tragic  story about Whitman as Governor that foreshadowed her EPA 9/11 lies.

Had this scandal been taken seriously by the media and the US Senate at the time, there is no way Whitman would have been confirmed as EPA Administrator.

I know it well, having sacrificed my career at DEP over it and been forced out of DEP by Whitman and her political hacks as a whistleblower.

The Story that should have disqualified Whitman as EPA Administrator

Sworn testimony of a former NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Assistant Commissioner reveals that then NJ Governor Christie Whitman lied to the people of NJ about serious health risks – particularly to pregnant women, nursing mothers and their babies – of high concentrations of toxic methyl mercury in NJ freshwater fish.

The testimony names and implicates Whitman personally, by referring to hand written notes she wrote to DEP Commissioner Shinn in the margin of prior negative news stories about the risks of mercury, stories that specifically criticized the Governor for her false statements on the mercury issue.

The testimony reveals that the lies were part of a scheme cooked up by DEP and Whitman to discredit, inject false uncertainty into, and downplay the findings of a scientific study that found high levels of mercury in NJ freshwater fish.

The testimony names and shows that the scheme directly involved DEP Commissioner Shinn and his legal Counsel Mike Hogan – Hogan later was the Superior Court Judge who ruled in the highly controversial recent Christie DEP settlement of the Exxon $8 billion Natural Resource Damage case.

By lying about the reliability of this study,  DEP could continue to issue permits for planned garbage incinerators and a coal plant in south jersey – major sources of mercury – and avoid economic impacts to the recreational and commercial fishing and food industries, as well as DEP’s own fishing license revenues.

Whitman’s lies about mercury presaged her 9/11 lies and should have disqualified her from her subsequent EPA post in the Bush Administration.

But at that hearing, Whitman was introduced and supported by NJ’s Democratic Senators Torricelli and Corzine, enabling her record as NJ Governor to be whitewashed and not seriously probed by the Senate Committee.

The Whitman DEP appointees – Commissioner Shinn, Legal Counsel Hogan and Chief of Staff Mark Smith – then conspired to retaliate against the whistleblower who exposed this scheme. All are named and specifically implicated in the testimony.

But before we tell the complex story and provide excerpts and links to the sworn testimony, lets first lay the relevant scientific background – the boldface emphases are mine. Keep the boldface text in mind when you read the sworn testimony.

Mercury is highly toxic

Mercury bioaccumulates and biomagnifies up the food chain and is a more potent neurotoxin than lead, particularly for prenatal exposure (see this ATSDR toxicological profile for health effects).

Dietary intake is the most important source of nonoccupational exposure to mercury, with fish and other seafood products being the dominant source of mercury in the diet. Most of the mercury consumed in fish or other seafood is the highly absorbable methylmercury form. […]

Members of the general public with potentially high exposures include individuals who live in proximity to … municipal or medical incinerators, or coal-fired power plants. Other populations at risk of exposure include recreational and subsistence fishers who routinely consume meals of fish that may be contaminated; subsistence … and pregnant women and nursing mothers (including their developing fetuses and breast-fed infants) who are exposed to mercury from dietary, medical, or occupational sources,

Methylmercury constitutes over 99% of the total mercury detected in fish muscle tissue, with no detection of inorganic or dimethylmercury (Grieb et al. 1990; Bloom 1992). (Source: see ATSDR Potential For Human Exposure)

Scientists are especially concerned about impacts on children and developing fetus: (see Section 1.6 of ATSDR Public Health Statement)

Methylmercury is the form of mercury most commonly associated with a risk for developmental effects. Exposure can come from foods contaminated with mercury on the surface (for example, from seed grain treated with methylmercury to kill fungus) or from foods that contain toxic levels of methylmercury (as in some fish, wild game, and marine mammals). Mothers who are exposed to methylmercury and breast-feed their infant may also expose the child through the milk. The effects on the infant may be subtle or more pronounced, depending on the amount to which the fetus or young child was exposed. In cases in which the exposure was relatively small, some effects might not be apparent, such as small decreases in IQ or effects on the brain that may only be determined by the use of very sensitive neuropsychological testing. In instances in which the exposure is great, the effects may be more serious. In some such cases of mercury exposure involving serious exposure to the developing fetus, the effects are delayed. In such cases, the infant may be born apparently normal, but later show effects that may range from the infant being slower to reach developmental milestones, such as the age of first walking and talking, to more severe effects including brain damage with mental retardation, incoordination, and inability to move. Other severe effects observed in children whose mothers were exposed to very toxic levels of mercury during pregnancy include eventual blindness, involuntary muscle contractions and seizures, muscle weakness, and inability to speak. It is important to remember, however, that the severity of these effects depends upon the level of mercury exposure and the length of exposure. The very severe effects just mentioned were reported in large-scale poisoning instances in which pregnant and nursing women were exposed to extremely high levels of methylmercury in contaminated grain used to make bread (in Iraq) or seafood (in Japan) sold to the general population.

Researchers are currently studying the potential for less serious developmental effects, including effects on a child’s behavior and ability to learn, think, and solve problems that may result from eating lower levels of methylmercury in foods.A main source of exposure to methylmercury for the pregnant woman and the young child is from eating fish.

Highlights of the sworn testimony

Come back for part 2 of this post tomorrow, where we tell the NJ mercury coverup story, excerpt the sworn testimony, and provide links to all the documents so you can read the whole story.

Beauty I’ve always missed 
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can’t say any more
‘Cause I love you 
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you ~~~ Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues, 1967)

“End Poverty In California” (EPIC) was the motto of Upton Sinclair’s 1934 campaign for Governor of California. Sinclair is far better known as a radical writer than political candidate and the Jersey Guy he was (before he moved to California).

Sinclair wrote a wonderful book about that campaign – I, Governor of California – And How I Ended Poverty  – that told the story of how the media attacked him and the Democrats sabotaged him. For a current piece on the implications of that dirty campaign, see: The Traumatic Birth of the Modern Vicious Campaign.

(and if you ever want a good read on the press, who controls it, and how it operates, read Sinclair’s book “The Brass Check” – read it on line!)

For the “revolutionary” tone of Sinclair’s campaign, here’s an excerpt from his book – don’t you love this pledge: “There are going to be no lawyers and lobbyists for Big Business in my chambers”:

There are echoes of that campaign now, particularly how the Democrats derailed the Sanders campaign and the corporate media and Democrats have attacked the Jill Stein Green Party. Let’s hope the results are not similar (Google and find out how it turned out).

Here is the EPIC Platform:

1. A legislative enactment for the establishment of State land colonies, whereby the unemployed may become self-sustaining and cease to be a burden upon the taxpayers. A public body, the California Authority for Land (the CAL) will take the idle land, and land sold for taxes and at foreclosure sales, and erect dormitories, kitchens, cafeterias, and social rooms, and cultivate the land using modern machinery under the guidance of experts.
2. A public body entitled the California Authority for Production (the CAP) will be authorized to acquire factories and production plants whereby the unemployed may produce the basic necessities required for themselves and for the land colonies, and to operate these factories and house and feed and care for the workers. CAL and CAP will maintain a distribution system for the exchange of each other’s products. The industries will include laundries, bakeries, canneries, clothing and shoe factories, cement-plants, brick-yards, lumber yards, thus constituting a complete industrial system and a new and self-sustaining world for those our present system cannot employ.
3. A public body entitled the California Authority for Money (the CAM) will handle the financing of CAL and CAP. This body will issue scrip to be paid to the workers and used in the exchanging of products within the system. It will also issue bonds to cover the purchase of land and factories, the erection of buildings and the purchase of machinery.
4. An act of the legislature repealing the present sales tax, and substituting a tax on stock transfers at the rate of 4 cents per share.
5. An act of the legislature providing for a State income tax, beginning with incomes of $5000 and steeply graduated until incomes of $50,000 would pay 30% tax.
6. An increase in the State inheritance tax, steeply graduated and applying to all property in the State regardless of where the owner may reside. The law would take 50% of sums above $50,000 bequeathed to any individual and 50% of sums above $250,000 bequeathed by any individual.
7. A law increasing the taxes on privately owned public utility corporations and banks.
8. A constitutional amendment revising the tax code of the State, providing that cities and counties shall exempt from taxation all homes occupied by the owners and ranches cultivated by the owners, wherever the assessed value of such homes and ranches is less than $3000. Upon properties assessed at more than $5000 there will be a tax increase of one-half of one per cent for each $5000 of additional assessed valuation.
9. A constitutional amendment providing for a State land tax upon unimproved building land and agricultural land which is not under cultivation. The first $1000 of assessed valuation to be exempt, and the tax to be graduated according to the value of land held by the individual. Provision to be made for a state building loan fund for those who wish to erect homes.
10. A law providing for the payment of a pension of $50 per month to every needy person over sixty years of age who has lived in the State of California three years prior to the date of the coming into effect of the law.
11. A law providing for the payment of $50 per month to all persons who are blind, or who by medical examination are proved to be physically unable to earn a living; these persons also having been residents of the State for three years.
12. A pension of $50 per month to all widowed women who have dependent children; if the children are more than two in number, the pension to be increased by $25 per month for each additional child. These also to have been residents three years in the State.

A Lot of Work To Do After 7 Years of “Malfeasance”

The Senate Environment Committee released a bill (S-2468) to mandate DEP adopt the scientific recommendations of the Drinking Water Quality Institute (DWQI) on public health based drinking water “Maximum Contaminant Levels” ( MCLs), see the NJ Spotlight story:

• LAWMAKERS PUSH STATE DEP TO SET LIMITS FOR TOXIC CHEMICALS IN WATER SUPPLY

I’ve been writing about and working on this issue for years, so it is heartening to see the bill move, but passage is questionable and Gov. Christie’s veto is certain. An over-ride is very unlikely.

Incredibly, to give you a sense of how egregious the DEP’s neglect has been, even conservative anti-regulatory Ocean County Republican and Christie loyalist Senator Thompson voted for the bill!

(see: DEP ACCUSED OF DELAYING CHEMICAL REGULATION A YEAR AFTER SCIENTISTS ADVISED LIMIT)

Bill Wolfe, a former DEP staffer who now monitors the department’s work on water quality, called the PFNA case “just the tip of the iceberg of neglect” by the DEP that he said did not adopt the DWQI’s recommendations for MCLs on a number of other chemicals that were under consideration before a four-year hiatus in the panel’s work starting in 2010.

“The Christie DEP has abdicated the DEP’s regulatory role in protecting public health and the environment — whether via failure to adopt standards or failure to monitor and enforce them,” Wolfe said.

This shameful legacy of Gov. Chris Christie and his DEP Commissioner Bob Martin will have to wait until the next administration to repair.

To begin to get a real drinking water protection reform agenda on the radar, I sent the sponsor Senator Lesniak and Chairman Smith the following note:

Dear Senators:

Thanks for for sponsoring and moving S2468, to mandate that DEP adopt MCL’s recommended by the Drinking Water Quality Institute.

I would like to suggest 3 amendments to perfect the bill and avoid this DEP politicization of science and abuse of discretion in the future.

The first amendment would be prospective in nature, such that whenever the DWQI recommended an MCL, DEP would be required to adopt it, just like the backlogged chemicals listed in the bill.

This would permanently eliminate political considerations from delaying MCL’s, ignoring science, and abdicating the DEP’s responsibility to protect public health.

The second amendment would incorporate all existing DEP groundwater quality standards that are based on the science of human health impacts, including “interim specific groundwater quality standards” (ISGWQS).

These DEP groundwater quality standards are just as scientifically rigorous as the MCL’s recommended by the DWQI and adopted by DEP. They are often developed by the same DEP scientists who staff the DWQI. The legal and scientific bases between and GWQS and an MCL are different, but not in conflict.

A good example of this problem is the recent discovery of 1,4,-dioxane at the Ringwood Superfund site, Pompton Lakes drinking water, and numerous public water supplies in north jersey.

The DEP has adopted an ISGWQS for 1,4,-dioxane of 0.4 ug/L (parts per billion). Yet that standard is being ignored in site remediation cleanup decisions and local drinking water treatment and public disclosure requirements for MCL’s.

I wrote about that issue here, and provide links to all the regulatory documents:

• Ford Ringwood Superfund Debate on Chemical 1,4, Dioxane Illustrates Flaws In Drinking Water Standards
• Pompton Lakes Drinking Water Contaminated With Same Toxic Chemical Recently Found At Ford Ringwood Superfund Site

The third amendment – significantly broader in scope than the current bill – would require that DEP prepare a Report and hold at least 6 public hearings across the State regarding a strategy to address the more than 500 unregulated contaminants DEP has found in NJ drinking water supplies.

Developing a regulatory strategy to address the unregulated contaminant issue via a “treatment based approach” was a significant policy reform initiative of the Corzine DEP.

Here is the DEP Report that addresses those issues. The Report was prepared by DEP scientists who staff the DWQI and submitted to the DWQI back in 2010, but it was derailed by the Christie Administration, see:

Investigations Related to a “Treatment-Based” Regulatory Approach  to Address Unregulated Contaminants in Drinking Water

I am copying DWQI Chairman Dr. Keith Cooper of Rutgers so you can solicit his scientific expertise and input.

I appreciate your timely and favorable consideration – apologies for being unable to appear to testify on these issues yesterday.

Bill Wolfe

The debate over public access to the shore and inland rivers has been re-engaged by the Christie DEP’s proposal of new rules yesterday intended to respond to an Appellate Court decision that found that DEP lacked legislative authorization to regulate public access requirements.

We have not yet reviewed the DEP proposal, but pending that review want to talk about the mistakes that got us to this point.

NJ Spotlight has a slanted story on the DEP proposal that leaves out how and why we got to this point and simply does not mention the strategic blunder made by the NY/NJ Baykeeper and Hackensack Riverkeeper in their lawsuit that forced the issue, see:

• DEP PROPOSAL COULD REIGNITE BATTLE OVER BEACH, SHORELINE ACCESS

The lawsuit argued that DEP lacked legislative authority to regulate. The Court agreed.

In challenging the Christie DEP’s rollback of Corzine DEP public access rules, the environmentalists could have argued that the Christie DEP rules violated law by abdicating DEP’s public trust obligations by delegating control over public access to local governments. That would have taken the issue of State versus local power head on and been a strong defense of the public trust doctrine.

But they didn’t – instead they argued that DEP lacked legislative authority to regulate. They cowardly ducked the primary issue of local versus state power on the shore.

Did they think about the real world implications of success of that legal attack? What would happen if the Court struck down DEP’s rules for lack of legislative authority?

That legal attack and the Court’s agreement with it sent the issue to the legislature, requiring that they pass new public access legislation.

New legislation requires the signature of the Governor.

Did they think that Governor Christie would sign legislation that was broader in scope and more stringent that his own DEP’s weak regulatory initiative?

Of course Christie would veto any bill passed by the Legislature that was stronger than his own DEP’s rules.

The Democrats do not have the votes to over-ride the Governor’s veto, so the Gov. dictates the public access policy.

That’s why the legislature was duped into passing weak emergency legislation that basically codified the Christie DEP’s rules that were struck down by the Court.

As political cover for that surrender by Legislators, Senate Environment Committee Chairman Smith set up a Stakeholder group and tasked them with coming up with consensus recommendations for new public access legislation.

Of course there was no consensus reached – a consensus model gives business community and local government opponents of public access an effective veto over policy.

Those same groups on Smith’s Stakeholder group have significant political power to shape legislation and force compromise.

Which brings us back to the huge blunder that NY/NJ Baykeeper and Hackensack Riverkeeper made in their lawsuit.

Because by taking the public access issue away from DEP and regulatory power, they forced the issue into the Legislature.

By doing that, they handcuffed a future Governor and future DEP Commissioner from adopting stronger rules or simply re-adopting the Corzine DEP rules that were rolled back by the Christie DEP.

The next Governor must get a public access bill through the Legislature.

We are now witnessing the Legislative gridlock that the business community and shore local government interests can generate, effectively exercising veto power.

And even if the gridlock is ultimately broken by a Democratic majority, any bill that does pass will be a compromise (just read Smith’s Stakeholder Report to see how that compromise would be crafted. Good luck in “working out the details“.).

There is no way the legislature will pass a bill that was as broad and strong as the Corzine DEP rules.

And the Appellate Court decision and emergency legislation responding to it raise new legal questions about whether the public access requirements in thousands of existing DEP permits are enforceable. If DEP lacked legislative authority to regulate public access, as the Court found, then maybe all those permits with public access requirements are illegal too.

So, the next time the public access issue comes up, think about who is to blame – and to my environmentalist friends, think before you litigate.