WolfeNotes.com

A Challenge to Governor Christie and the Legislature

Today, we do another Guest Post, by retired DEP professional William Honachefsky, P.L.S., P.P., QEP.

Bill has seen it all – his experience goes back over 50 years, starting in 1961 with DEP’s predecessor, the Department of Conservation and Economic Development. Bill was there at DEP’s inception and has worked in land use and water resources planning, permitting and enforcement programs.

We invite and welcome submissions by retired and active agency professionals, and of course will maintain confidentiality and allow writers to post anonymously. If interested in a Guest post, you can send it to me at Bill_Wolfe (at) comcast (dot) net.

By William Honachefsky, P.L.S., P.P., QEP

The intensity at which the State’s legislators and Governor’s office seem driven to destroy (See especially Senate Bill S3156 and Assembly Bill A4335 [Ed. Note: the WQMP bill has since been signed into law]) or at the least emasculate, 41 years of the State’s hard won environmental protection laws, rules and regulations is not only unsettling, it’s mind boggling, and quite frankly one has to wonder if the state legislature and the executive branches of government have completely lost their minds.

In 1987 Gordon Bishop, one of the state’s respected environmental journalists at the time, opined that;

New Jersey is conspicuously perched at the tip of the population needle. More people, cars, buildings, roads, pipes and wires are crammed per square mile within this confined space than in any state in the nation. Wherever America is going in the 21^st century, New Jersey will get there first on those indices that define the quality of life.

Other states, and even some nations, much less densely populated, have looked to New Jersey for a glimpse of their own future. If Mr. Bishop’s prediction, that as New Jersey goes, so goes the Nation, proves accurate, then we all have significant reason to be alarmed over our future quality of life, especially given these latest, legislative initiatives designed, perhaps unwittingly, to unravel an already tattered and stressed life supporting ecological infrastructure combined as an intricate web of air, soil, water and geology.

During 37 of those 41 years of promulgation of the State’s environmentally protective legislation and consequent rules and regulations I worked for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, serving under everyone of the DEP’s Commissioners appointed since the DEP’s inception, including the current Mr. Martin, and 30-40 Deputy and Assistant Commissioners. Prior to that, in 1961 through 1963, I had the privilege of working for the NJDEP’s predecessor, the Department of Conservation and Economic Development, helping construct Spruce Run Reservoir.

In those later three and one half decades of employment with NJDEP, I participated in various permitting, planning, enforcement, emergency response, inspection, and monitoring and assessment programs. In this same time period I collected and analyzed thousands of soil, sediment, water, air, sewage treatment plant, and industrial waste samples from throughout the State. The latter industrial waste samples often collected at sites later to become some of the state’s most toxic superfund sites.

Having had such an intimate, prolonged, and unique immersion in the development and operation of the NJDEP’s mandated environmental protection programs it is clear that both legislative and executive branch sponsors really do not understand the full consequences of the dar  journey they are about to undertake, especially if bills S3156 and A4335 are passed and the Governor’s Executive Orders and disruptive political appointments to the Highlands Council continue unchallenged.

Make no mistake about it, the battered condition of the State’s ecological infrastructure that existed on Earth Day in 1970 has improved, but not so significantly that we can now relax our rules and regulations even for a moment. We learned the hard way for example;

1) that disposing of our toxic industrial wastes by dumping them onto and into the ground and landfills would eventually bring those toxic materials into our drinking water wells and into our homes, and which, in some instances, still defy remediation;

2) that despite limitations set forth in NJPDES municipal and industrial waste discharge permits to the state’s waterways, we had forgotten to simultaneously evaluate the assimilative capacity of those receiving waterways and the impacts on the organisms (fish, benthic macroinvertebrates and amphibians) that call those waterways home. That has been remedied by the establishment of extensive ambient chemical monitoring, lake monitoring, fish monitoring and benthic macroinvertebrate monitoring networks throughout the State;

3) that some permittees will covertly cheat on their permit limits, or more often learn how to defeat those limits by manipulating their flows or processes, both of which would go undetected without consistent inspections and sampling by NJDEP enforcement staff an undertaking becoming more difficult as DEP staff continues to be cut;

4) that the expansion of human development and the prodigious amounts of impervious cover it produces (i.e. roadways, sidewalks, rooftops, parking areas and lawns)once overlain on the land, will eventually slough off a cocktail of toxic chemicals, excessive nutrients, dangerous bacteria and recently identified chemical compounds such as prescribed medicines, illegal drugs, and personal care products;

5) that our great experiment with stormwater control structures to reduce contaminants in runoff and reduce the total volume of runoff has promised more than it can or has delivered, and we therefore need to seriously take a step back and re-examine our effort in this regard before we go off promoting more and more land development. If you remain unconvinced in this regard, talk to those living near the Passaic, Pompton and Raritan Rivers;

6) that a piecemeal, case by case approval of new sanitary sewer connections or extensions can severely disrupt and potentially truncate the long range goals embodied in municipal Master Plans and at the same time expand an existing inventory of aging sanitary sewerlines already in dire need of a repair or replacement, so exorbitant, that it could lead to the State’s bankruptcy;

7) that promoting development in pristine, upland watersheds will eventually result in the accumulation, transportation and delivery of water to downstream users, particularly potable water purveyors, laced with contaminants which cannot be removed without substantial added expense, thereby driving up costs to the user, and finally;

8 ) that environmentally protective laws, rules and regulations did not cause the current economical malaise, and will not in any way, shape or form cure it.

Much of the NJDEP’s time was also spent trying to restore portions of the State’s ecological infrastructure that had been terribly abused for over a 100 years or more by our unwitting predecessors, particularly in the Northeast and Southwest regions of the State. That effort has been difficult, exhausting and, quite frankly, in many instances remains undoable.

Make no mistake DEP staff have learned these lessons and many more, often despite policies, imposed upon them by revolving door Commissioners bearing political agendas that are often counterintuitive to the fundamentals of environmental protection.

I therefore wish to make the following proposals and challenges to the sponsors of Bills S3156 and A4335 and other legislators, and the Governor as well:

a) Meet me on any stream of your choice, in your respective jurisdictions, and I will show you firsthand the damage that is continuing to occur on the State’s waterways and which will worsen as a consequence of the proposals set forth in your respective Bills. It is the dirty little secret kept hidden in sequestered Stressor Identification studies completed by NJDEP’s Water Monitoring and Standards Element 2 years ago. I challenge you to try to pry those studies free from NJDEP, something the public has been unable to do.

b) Delay the vote on or withdraw Bills S3156 and A4335 until you have perused the data assessments of the status of stream water quality, lake water quality, fish life and stream insects throughout the State, to be found on the NJDEP’s Water Monitoring and Assessment Element’s website. You may be surprised to find that streams within your district are at a critical tipping point and highly susceptible to the coup de grace which will surely be delivered by your proposed Bills.

I find it fitting to close with the following relevant quote from Stuart Udall’s 1963 book the “Quiet Crisis”:

‘The economic bankruptcy that gnawed at our country’s vitals after 1929 was closely related to a bankruptcy of land stewardship. The buzzards of the raiders had, at last, come back to roost, and for each bank failure, there were land failures by the hundreds. In a sense the Great Depression, was a bill collector sent by nature, and the dark tidings were borne on every silt laden stream and every dust cloud that darkened the horizon.”

Now is the time to prove to your constituents, other than special interests, and especially our children and those to follow, that yes, while we were in charge, we were good stewards of the land, and not its enemy.

Renewable Energy and Environmental Protections Blamed for Job Loss

Last year, NJ Monthly magazine ran an extensive article on NJ energy policy: Brownouts Loom as Demand Outpaces Supply – Brownouts could loom for New Jersey as our growing demand outpaces existing supply

Although reporter Caren Chesler did a good job of counterposing facts and perspectives to implicitly rebut the spin (fair and balanced and all that), beginning with the hyped headline, the article features familiar myths – almost like an Onion parody –   and the same repertoire of scare tactics by the usual suspects; e.g.

• demand for power is growing and projected to rise

That New Jersey’s energy needs by 2021 will exceed supply is hardly in doubt, and, despite the best intentions of the green movement, many experts say it is going to take more than extra insulation, wind farms and solar panels to meet the growing demand.

But energy demand growth is very much in doubt – demand is falling and projected rates of growth are not realistic. I invite Readers to please submit links documenting this.

• the lights could go out if we don’t build more power plants and transmission lines;

The state is in a bind because no new power plants of significant output are being built here, and yet demand, particularly during the peak summer months, is expected to rise 1.3 percent to 2.8 percent annually over the next 10 years. That means the state’s energy needs could exceed supply as soon as 2012, energy observers say. The result could be brownouts and even blackouts during high-demand periods.

Scare tactic – again readers back me up here with the analysis, I’m too lazy. And regardless of the shape of demand, conservation, efficiency, renewables, and distributed power are the solutions.

• EPA greenhouse gas emissions regulations will shut down coal power plants and jeopardize reliability

The problem could be exacerbated by expected federal pollution regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. The potential new rules could shutter some of the region’s existing coal-fired power plants, cutting deeper into the state’s energy supply.

First of all, EPA’s “tailoring” and “NSR” GHG regulations basically grandfather existing plants or delegate plant closure decisions to States. And even Obama’s industry friendly EPA and Energy Department didn’t agree with the reliability scare – see this, for example.

• nuclear power is the “lowest cost” energy and needed to combat global warming

Oyster Creek puts out 645 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 600,000 homes per year. Along with New Jersey’s three other nuclear generating facilities, it accounts for more than half of the state’s electricity—and at the lowest cost of all power sources currently available here. […]

Nuclear plants are considered favorable for the environment, because they do not emit the greenhouse gases of plants that use fossil fuels.

But, if nukes are the “lowest cost” power source, how can this also be true?

Then there’s the staggering cost of new plant construction, estimated at $10 billion to $14 billion. Experts agree this will increase the cost of nuclear energy from future plants, should they be built. “Nukes are definitely not cheap,” says Steven Goldenberg, an attorney with Fox Rothschild LLP, “but they are necessary from a cost/reliability/greenhouse-gas perspective.”

Does this mean Governor Christie is willing to spend billions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars to subsidize avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions, but only if the money is spent on high cost, above market nuke power plant construction?

Does the Governor have a grasp of engineering economics and what relative or ranked ROI means?

Hint for our Good Governor: Google “Amory Lovins”. Investments in “megawatts”, efficiency and renewables have far higher ROI’s; far shorter implementation timeframes; far higher jobs to dollar invested ratio’s, and lower overall environmental impact and financial risk profiles. HELLO!

• renewable energy is heavily subsidized and not economically feasible;

Proponents of solar say it is clean, renewable and produces energy when needed most—in the middle of the day. Criticism of solar (and wind) energy comes largely from representatives of the state’s biggest energy users, such as the chemical industry. They say solar is unreliable and costly—about 40 to 75 cents a kilowatt hour—and that solar construction is largely driven by state and federal subsidies, a cost ultimately borne by ratepayers.

Bill Potter at NJ Spotlight destroyed this spin, see: Solar Oppostion: Left. Right. Wrong.

• energy policy incentives drive high enery costs;

“Right now, New Jersey businesses pay higher rates than the national average, and we’re one of the highest in our electric grid,” says Sara Bluhm, an assistant vice president at the New Jersey Business & Industry Association. “That puts us at a competitive disadvantage.”

The state’s energy costs are high for a variety of reasons. New Jersey imports a significant amount of its power, which itself costs more. But under the PJM pricing model, we also subsidize power-plant construction in other states. 

New Jersey’s large energy users also complain about fees and charges tacked on by the state, which add up to about 26 percent of a residential electric bill. These include the societal benefits charge, which pays for things like renewable power subsidies and assistance to low-income customers. There’s a also a 7 percent sales tax, a 6 percent transitional energy facilities assessment tax and a regional greenhouse gas initiative charge, which goes toward reducing greenhouse gases. Large energy users say the latter charge alone costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

• high energy costs are killing  jobs and driving business out of the state;

“About a quarter of the bill comes from state policy, so there’s some room for change,” says Bluhm.

Indeed, state officials recently removed the retail margin tax. The fee, which ends in June, was meant to incentivize businesses to shop around for power. The tax cost business more than $12 million a year, Bluhm says.

“We’re encouraged [the Christie administration] will be looking at other taxes and fees and how they can chip away at that 26 percent,” Bluhm says.

Each and every one of those premises is either incomplete, half true, irrelevant, misleading, or flat out false.

But, if you link and follow the logic of this chain of falsehoods and half truths, the overall policy solution is pretty clear: scale back renewable energy goals; scrap costly global warming mitigation programs; build more in state power plant capacity and distribution infrastructure; eliminate subsidies to renewables to lower energy costs in order to grow jobs and the economy.

Obviously, if you build your policy solution on a problem diagnosis based on myths and lies, you enter the realm of the medieval doctor’s prescription of leeches – you bleed the patient to death.

At that is exactly what Governor Christie is doing. Taking the wrong energy path, to invoke energy guru Daniel Yergin.

But I really don’t want to focus now on a point by point rebuttal of these energy policy half truths, spin and outright lies. I’ve done some of that before (see:

• Enter the Twilight Zone of Energy Poilicy
• Christie BPU: $3 per year to Support Solar “Too High“
• NJ Pays Over $1.5 Billion to Keep Obsolete Coal Plants Open
• Christie RGGI Withdrawal Plan Slammed at Trenton Hearing
• Fact Check Christie Claims on Energy

Rather, I’d like to show how blatantly false claims by lobbyists form the foundation and political cover for both energy and environmental policy rollbacks under the Christie Administration.

It is important to note at the outset that Christie energy and environmental policies share very similar – – in some cases the same – foundational lies and half truths, that are told by the same people and organizations, for the same reasons.

Let’s start with Hal Bozarth, of the NJ Chemistry Council

Following Hal’s lead, Hal’s sidekick testified (lied) to the  Assembly Environment Committee last month by using the lowest form of innuendo to imply that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative was responsible for the loss of almost 30,000 manufacturing jobs in the NJ chemical industry.

Really, he did. I guess Politifact missed that one.

Now if a lie falls on the legislature’s forest, but Politicfact is not there to hear it ….

Not to be outdone, Hal Bozarth himself set the tone and deployed this whopper in the NJ monthly story – on the record and for attribution:

Hal Bozarth, executive director of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, which represents some of the state’s biggest energy consumers, claims the cost of energy here is driving companies out of the state—to the tune of about 4,000 jobs. In February 2009, for instance, Griffin Pipe Products shuttered its Florence plant, resulting in a loss of 400 jobs. More recently, Gerdau Ameristeel Corp. said it was closing its Perth Amboy plant and reducing production at its Sayreville plant. Bozarth ties these moves to energy costs coupled with the bad economy.

“New Jersey’s unusually high cost of electricity is killing us,” Bozarth says. “These people literally vote with their feet.”

So, let’s look at the Griffin Pipe and Gerdau AMeristeel plants to see if we can find out what drove them to shut down operations in NJ.

Griffin Pipe.

Griffen Pipe closed down for the same reason the US Pipe plant just down the road closed: lack of demand due to global economic recession.

Here is what the New York Times had to say:

“We were expecting a temporary layoff, maybe three months,” said Mark Babula, 38, unit chairman of Local 2040B of the United Steelworkers, the union that represents 175 hourly employees at Griffin. But the economy was worse than anyone had ever imagined: Housing starts had plummeted, and so had the demand for water pipes. Just a year earlier, just three miles downriver in Burlington, another old foundry, U.S. Pipe, had closed.

Hal Bozarth is full of shit – strike one.

Gerdau Ameristeel

Gerdau Ameristeel shut down its Sayreville NJ plant for the same reason it shut down its Sand Springs, Oklahoma plant – “due to lower demand for its products resulting from the downturn in the economy”:

Star Ledger

MIDDLESEX COUNTY — The Flordia-based steel company that operates two steel plants in the county has announced they will be suspending its Sayreville steel mill and will close its Perth Amboy facility due to a decrease in demand for products, according to a report by NJBIZ.com.

Suburban News

American Recycler (Trade journal)

Gerdau Ameristeel Corporation is suspending production at its Sayreville, New Jersey steel mill and closing its rolling mill in neighboring Perth Amboy, New Jersey due to lower demand for its products resulting from the downturn in the economy. The company said these actions are expected to occur gradually over the next several months. The company indicated that it would restart operations at the Sayreville facility when business conditions warrant.

The company is also entering into discussions with the United Steel Workers regarding the potential closure of the Company’s steel mill located in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

Hal Boarth is full of shit – strike two.

But I saved the best for last – so go back up and take a look at the graph at the top of this post. It shows recent trends in industrial sector natural gas prices.

First of all, the Gerdau plant uses lots of natural gas in manufacturing – not electricity as Bozarth suggested.

Second, the Gerdau plant, In August 2007 –  shortly before the global economy crashed and the decision was made to shut down the plant – under went an Energy Savings Assessment (ESA) by the US Department of Energy.

The ESA found that the Gerdau plant management was “very active in exploring and implementing energy savings practices” and  “extremely interested in pursuing energy savings opportunities“.

The  DOE ESA concluded:

Reported values of natural gas consumption for this plant are in excess of 450,000 MMBTU per year, approximate annual natural gas cost for the plant is estimated to be about $8 per million Btu.

Potential opportunities: Major energy saving opportunities identified during this assessment are described briefly below. A large percentage (>85%) of the total natural gas used in the plant is used in reheat furnace and the plant has installed a modern furnace that is designed for very efficient operation. In additional to this the pant operating practices allow them to use 50% or more hot charging in the furnace. This has resulted in excellent operating performance for the reheat furnace.

Main areas of improvement are reported for three heating equipment: Reheat furnace, Tundish heaters and Ladle heating stations. The opportunities are in the areas of: reduction excess O2 in exhaust gases from heating systems, combustion air preheating, and use of improved heating system for tundish heaters.Identified energy saving opportunities includes potential savings varying from $14,800 to more than $270,000 per year for the furnaces/equipment assessed during this visit. Near term (<1 year payback) opportunities identified during this assessment may save 1.5% to 3% and the medium term (< 3 years payback) opportunities may save >3% natural gas cost. The long term (> 3 years) opportunities related to process changes etc. can result in substantially more savings (not estimated at this time).

Those ESA savings opportunities and paybacks were based on a gas price of $8 per million Btu’s (that about $7.89 per thousand cubic feet).

If you go to the top and look at DoE natural gas prices, you will note two important things:

First, gas prices are FALLING, were projected to fall further (from a high of about $18 in early 2008, to less than $6 in 2012). So, just before the 2008 economic collapse, Gerdau management was planning energy conservation investments at the plant.

Obviously, energy prices had very little to do with the closing decision – worse, Bozarth targeted electric energy costs when natural gas is the main source at Gerdau.

Bozarth is wrong about the cause for plant closure, wrong about energy economics and fuel at plant, and relied on a fundamentally wrong economic dynamic – Bozarth is full of shit strike three!

The same people, using the same lies, to promote the same economic interests have falsely claimed that “red tape”, DEP bureaucracy, and environmental regulations have killed jobs and impeded investment.

They have the same credibility as Hal Bozarth’s energy fairy tales.

[Update 2/24/12: Delaware Riverkeeper calls out Senator Mcllhinney for misleading his constituent about the fracking law. Read the kick ass letter here! – end update]

On Thursday Feb. 16, 2012, Delaware Riverkeeper Network and PA Sierra Club  held a series of protests outside legislative offices across Pennsylvania to hold  legislators accountable for their vote in favor of a new gas drilling law known as the bill HB 1950.

The political deal on the 174 page bill was negotiated behind closed doors by Republican leadership and Governor Corbett and rushed through the legislature in just 48 hours, making it virtually impossible for citizens and local officials to understand what is in the law or participate in the legislative process (here is the Conference Committee report).

The focus of the criticism was on provisions of the new State law that [allegedly – confirmed by Conference Report – see Section 3304 below] over-ride and strip towns of land use zoning powers to regulate fracking and related gas operations (well drilling, pads, access roads, pipelines, pump stations, wastewater processing and disposal, et al).

I went over to nearby lovely Doylestown, to take part in the protest at Senator Mcllhinney’s office [R-Bucks]

Despite a cold rain, about 50 protesters turned out. After gathering downtown, they marched on Mcllhenney’s Office. While the protesters agreed among themselves not to meet with the Senator, I took the opportunity to sit in on a meeting that 2 of the Senator’s constituents at the protest asked for.

The Senator denied any local preemption or restrictions on zoning. He said he had never heard that fracking wastewater contained radioactive compounds. He was unaware of the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from fracking. He claimed that all fracking wastewater would be recycled on site and create no environmental harms or risks. He said that use of water was a private property right in Pennsylvania that could not be restricted, equating fracking with agricultural water use. He acknowledged that the law grandfathered existing fracking wells and operations. He claimed that towns could still prohibit all aspects of fracking, but if they did so they would not be eligible for local impact fees. He denied that the impacts of fracking were regional and towns adjacent to fracking wells and infrastructure would be impacted.

[Update: I just read the conference report, I can’t write about the whole thing but it is nothing like the law the Senator described.

This provision alone is a killer – this means none of the new location restriction regulatory standards in Section 3215 apply to drilling on all lands with gas leases. Those wells can’t be stopped or even limited, e.g. “alter or abridged”:

Nothing shall alter and abridge the terms of any contract, mortgage or other agreement entered into prior to the effective date of this section.

And this provision in 3222.1 would gut the chemical disclosure requirements:

• A vendor, service provider or operator shall not be required to disclose trade secrets or confidential proprietary information.

Section 3304 contains the local preemption, mandatory promotion of gas and numerous other state mandates of what local zoning ordinances must include to promote gas ::

• Preempts local ordinances adopted pursuant to the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code from regulating matters regulated in Chapter 32 or any other technical aspects of oil and gas operations.

• All local ordinances regulating oil and gas operations must allow for the reasonable development of oil and gas resources.

I found the Senator’s remarks in favor of the legislation and knowledge of the practice and environmental and land use implications of fracking to be incomplete, misleading, or flat out false.

Here are some photos:

The Superfund Sites Next Door that You Never Heard Of

[Update #2 – 2/17/12 – As I said:

“EPA has yet to explain why it decided not to list sites that otherwise qualified for Superfund and why it deferred cleanup oversight to what its own Inspector General found was a failed cleanup program,” Wolfe added, pointing to the DuPont contamination of Pompton Lakes–which is still suffering from the worst vapor intrusion in the nation–as Exhibit A for immediate federal intervention. “The people of New Jersey have a right to know how these critical decisions are made and whether EPA or the Governor’s Office are delaying or derailing Superfund listing.”

Congressman Frank Pallone agrees (see: Abury Park Press Pallone asks EPA to explain 27 sites left off superfund list.

Read Pallone’s letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (hit this link)

Update: 2/16/12: This story got good newsplay.

I was disappointed that the Bergen Record (who covered the original EPA lawsuit story on page one: “EPA sued for release of toxic rankings“; the Star Ledger (who also covered the lawsuit story prominently” NJ environmental group asks feds to release rankings of toxic sites“); and the Trenton Times (who editorialized in support on 10/28/11: EPA should release information on contaminated sites all missed it.

News coverage rundown:

• Tom Johnson of NJ Spotlight wrote a good story, which also ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer (see: NJ’s Overlooked Superfund sites
• Gannett wrote a national story, out of DC office, while NJ Gannett outlets ran the Morris Daily Record version: Group: 4 Morris sites left of Superfund list
• The Fair Lawn Patch wrote: Toxic Site in Fair Lawn Left Uncontrolled By EPA – end update]

From our good friends at PEER.

EPA documents obtained by a PEER lawsuit show that EPA is sitting on at least 27 NJ sites that qualify for Superfund based on risks to human health and the environment, but for some reason is not listing them.

Failure to list these sites deprives NJ communities of information, resources, community involvement in cleanup decisions, and the priority attention of EPA and Congress that Superfund National Priorities Listing confers.

We had to sue EPA to obtain these documents, which are marked “confidential”, so EPA does not want this information in the public arena.

EPA may be intentionally seeking to minimize the Superfund NPL list due to opposition by powerful chemical companies responsible for cleanups.

Those lobbyists have blocked re-authorization of the Superfund tax, which funds cleanup at orphan Superfund sites where “responsible parties” are not available.

Or, EPA may be limiting Superfund listing for budget reasons – Obama’s proposed FY 2013 budget includes $755 million for Superfund.

Or EPA may be deferring to NJ Governors, who might oppose the 10% State cost share requirements for federal Superfund site cleanup costs.

But why would EPA defer cleanups to the State DEP program after EPA’s own Inspector General found NJ DEP the worst in the country, forcing EPA to revoke DEP lead at several Superfund sites?

Worse, since then, NJ’s cleanup program has been privatized, further limiting transparency, community involvement, and accountability.

NJ received $160 million in federal stimulus (ARAR) Act funds last year for cleanup of 8 NJ Superfund sites, and well over a billion in total Superfund monies.

Regardless, politics and economics should not over-ride Superfund’s risk based framework of protecting human health and the environment.

EPA has some explaining to do! Read all about it and review the lawsuit, HRS scoring sheets for these 27 sites, and other documents, from PEER:

Twenty Seven New Jersey Superfund-Eligible Sites Left Off List

EPA Still Reviewing Status of Unknown Number of Garden State Toxic Hotspots

Washington, DC  – New Jersey already has the most Superfund sites of any state but could have many more according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents obtained through a lawsuit by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  More than a score of sites in New Jersey pose risks equal to or greater than Superfund-listed sites, yet these uncontrolled sites were not added to the Superfund National Priority List for clean-up by EPA.

PEER sued EPA in late October under the federal Freedom of Information Act after the agency failed to turn over the Superfund Hazard Rankings for non-listed sites in New Jersey.  The Hazard Ranking System (HRS) numerically scores risks to public health and the environment from exposure to contaminated groundwater, surface water, soil and air.

Sites that score above 28.5 points on the HRS qualify for Superfund NPL listing.  Documents surrendered by EPA reveal 27 sites that score greater than 28.5, with scores ranging from 30 to 70 on the HRS scale.  Passed-over sites include Pompton Lakes, Fair Lawn, Plainfield, Gloucester, Berlin and Union Township, stretching across 11 counties.  Scores reflect releases of high levels of chlorinated solvents and other toxic chemicals to soil and groundwater with the following major impacts:

• Off-site pollution of residential and municipal drinking water;
• Seepage of toxic vapors into nearby residential buildings; and
• Contamination of adjacent wetlands, streams and lakes.

“Priority for protecting communities is supposed to be based on risk, but several high-risk communities in our state got swept under the rug by EPA,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe.  “All of these Hazardous Ranking System scores should be published so that there are apples-to-apples comparisons to help prioritize sites for clean-up and target responsible parties.”

EPA’s decision to bypass these sites leaves the sites under state auspices but the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has a history of prolonged but ineffective cleanups. After the EPA Inspector General looked at a 20-year history of state-supervised clean-ups, it concluded DEP had the worst track record in the country at toxic remediation and recommended federal takeover.

This list of passed-over toxic sites in New Jersey may grow substantially, however.  PEER is still litigating to force EPA to disclose the HRS scored for other sites where its National Priority listing decision is still pending.  Those decisions could more than double the list of highly toxic sites without federal intervention. New Jersey already leads the nation with most Superfund sites (144).

“EPA has yet to explain why it decided not to list sites that otherwise qualified for Superfund and why it deferred cleanup oversight to what its own Inspector General found was a failed cleanup program,” Wolfe added, pointing to the DuPont contamination of Pompton Lakes–which is still suffering from the worst vapor intrusion in the nation–as Exhibit A for immediate federal intervention. “The people of New Jersey have a right to know how these critical decisions are made and whether EPA or the Governor’s Office are delaying or derailing Superfund listing”

###

See the HRS scores for Superfund-eligible bypassed sites

View current New Jersey Superfund sites

Look at the PEER lawsuit

Revisit the horror story of Pompton Lakes

Examine the pattern of languishing state clean-ups

New Jersey PEER is a state chapter of a national alliance of state and federal agency resource professionals working to ensure environmental ethics and government accountability

EPA will release major fracking Report in 2012 and fund impact assesments

[Update #2 – Asbury Park Press carries the AP story – this is not funded by EPA’s budget, but it is a cut that is bad for the environment:

On his list of programs to cut, Obama singled out the James J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory at Sandy Hook. The 50-year-old facility is a key fisheries lab in the region, studying the effects of climate change and human activities on marine populations along the Jersey Shore.

Update: 2/14/12 – As expected, NO NJ News coverage. Guess editors and enviro’s don’t want to embarrass the home town girl.

But here’s a credibility check on my emphasis, in light of national coverage:

• WaPo: Obama’s EPA budget: 1.2% cut would reduce aid to states, but Chesapeake Bay  would get more funds
• Bloomberg: Obama seeks third annual cuts in EPA’s budget by trimming grants
• ENS: US EPA 2013 budget cuts programs, supports states, tribes

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson held a press conference call to brief reporters on President Obama’s FY 2013 proposed EPA budget.

EPA funding will be cut by $105 million (to $8.344 billion) while the State Revolving Fund that supports clean water infrastructure will be cut by $359 million.

It seems extremely shortsighted and counter-productive to be cutting infrastructure funding during a period of such high unemployment, especially when unfunded clean water infrastructure deficits are so large.

Oh well, so much for the Obama fiscal stimulus policy.

Jackson read a prepared statement, stayed on script, and kept her remarks and responses to questions brief. She sounded stiff, almost robotic, and was completely out of the character I know.

Jackson’s rhetoric echoed DEP Commmissioner Bob Martin in emphasizing that EPA “core priorities” will be protected from cuts. There was a lot of rhetoric about “difficult choices” and “tough fiscal times”.

Jackson noted that there would be new funding for air and water impact assessments of natural gas fracking, and that EPA would issue a major Report on fracking in 2012.

It was unclear how the new impact assessments and the Report relate to each other, and whether it is premature to issue the Report until impact assessment is complete. I asked EPA press officer those question but have not yet received a reply.

In contrast with prior budgets, one reporter asked a question and noted that there is no specific budget line for climate change programs. Jackson did not provide a reason for that or say whether climate change program funding was cut.

Here is EPA’s summary of the budget highlights:

Key FY 2013 budget highlights include:

Supporting State Governments. The budget proposes $1.2 billion in categorical grants for states that are on the front lines implementing environmental statutes such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The increases from FY 2012 levels include nearly $66 million for State and Tribal Air Quality Management grants, nearly $27 million for Pollution Control (Clean Water Act Section 106) grants, and about $29 million for the Tribal General Assistance Program.

Protecting America’s Waters. The proposal provides $2 billion for Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving funds (SRFs). This will allow the SRFs to finance over $6 billion in wastewater and drinking water infrastructure projects annually. EPA will work to target assistance to small and underserved communities with limited ability to repay loans, while maintaining state program integrity.

Cleaning Up Contaminated Sites in Communities. The proposal includes $755 million in funding for the Superfund Cleanup program which maintains funding to support cleanup at hazardous waste sites that address emergencies (Superfund Emergency Response and Removal) at the nation’s highest priority sites (Superfund Remedial).

Investing in Cutting Edge Research. EPA’s proposed budget provides $576 million to support research and innovation. Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grants are funded at $81 million to conduct research in key areas such as hydraulic fracturing, potential endocrine disruptors, and green infrastructure. Building upon ongoing research and collaborating with the Department of Energy and the US Geological Survey, a total $14 million investment will begin to assess potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on air quality, water quality, and ecosystems.