WolfeNotes.com

Politics Trumps Science and the Public Interest (Again)

Yesterday, the Christie DEP issued a drought watch for portions of the State. A watch is just the first step in getting DEP involved in managing the State’s water supply, which is their duty and lead responsibility under State law.

Because Governor Christie has blocked the update of the State Water Supply Master Plan, the public has no information on NJ’s water supply management, or ability to participate in the many critical policy decisions about how NJ’s public water resources are managed during drought (and who pays for and bears the risks and impacts of those decisions).

Those critical decisions are made behind the scenes, mostly by private water companies, DEP political appointees, and local government water authorities. This is a profoundly anti-democratic approach to managing a vital public resource.

The DEP “drought watch” comes very late, is limited in scope, and stresses “voluntary action”. Here’s why:

North Jersey Has Structural Drought Conditions

North Jersey lacks adequate reservoir storage capacity per capita – just 76 billion gallons. That is small, small compared with NY City’s 550 billion gallon storage.

NJ relies on rivers – water is pumped from rivers to reservoirs and also taken directly for water supply. But Rivers are getting too polluted to take water from during low flows.

Plus, up to 20% of water leaks from the ancient infrastructure.

Demand is higher than NYC due to things like lawn watering and swimming pools. And trees – more in NJ than NYC – consume a lot of water via evapotranspiration.

All these factors put huge “stress” on water supplies.

Therefore, given these structural conditions, NJ needs to be far more conservative in issuing drought warnings and more aggressive in water conservation.

DEP Was Not Conservative and Ignored Data

The DEP’s partial indicators of drought – rainfall deficits, low stream/river flows, declining reservoir storage, and groundwater levels – have shown “stress” for MONTHS, yet DEP did nothing.

There are reasons for that delay in acting that are unique to the policy and leadership of the Christie DEP:

1) Christie/Martin (C/M) oppose regulatory mandates from DEP – note the emphasis on “voluntary measures”

2) C/M do not respect government competence and defer to the private sector water companies – ideologically part of their “the private sector knows best and “privatization” policy;

3) C/M defer to local government and oppose “unfunded mandates – See Executive Order #4. They oppose State DEP leadership as top down bureaucratic red tape from Trenton.

4) C/M have no environmental management experience and do not respect or listen to their professionals.

5) C/M oppose and frequently simply reject the concept of planning of any kind and are hostile to or simply ignore science as “esoteric”.

6) C/M are more interested in and focused on the Governor’s political aspirations than in managing DEP and protecting the water supplies of the state.

7) A drought and mandates from DEP hurt the Gov. with the Republican base in primary States, who hate government, environmental agencies, and mandatory government requirements.

Seven sins. And we pay for them.

Premier Delaware River State Park Abandoned and Closed To The Public

Christie DEP Letting Magnificent Park Rot

Delaware River looking north from the tip of Bulls Island (9/12/15)

It’s been our experience that many people care deeply about Bulls Island State Park and would be willing to volunteer time to develop and support a landscape and natural resource conservation based plan to reopen the Island for passive public use.

With some leadership at DEP, I don’t believe it would be difficult to create such a public and professional advisory group to prepare such a plan and to secure public, media, and DEP and D&R Canal Commission approvals and even a legislative appropriations to fund it.

Last we were aware, in November 2014, the DEP had secured approval by the D&R Canal Commission for a demolition plan for existing buildings and infrastructure at Bulls Island State Park – so it seemed progress was being made in developing a plan for reopening the site to public use, see:

• DEP Gets Approval To Demolish Bulls Island Campgrounds & Buildings

We had hoped that the park could be re-opened to the public for the 2015 season.

So the dog and I made an outing today to visit Bulls Island and see for ourselves what’s going on there.

What we saw was deeply disturbing – see photos below, with notes in captions (apologies for poor quality – it was raining and foggy at times).

We have the worst of all possible worlds: 1) public access is eliminated while buildings and infrastructure literally rot and 2) ecologically, natural resources are mismanaged as invasive species and weeds choke native vegetation.

Bulls Island is one of the finest State Parks and a marvelous place to enjoy the beauty of the Delaware River. Some of the finest Delaware river scenes can be had walking along the river front trail, amid the grace of huge old sycamores.

Delaware Rive views obscured by overgrown weeds

The tranquility of the trees and the river can be enjoyed while strolling or from benches. There are multiple points of direct access to the river for fishing, playing fetch with the dog, getting your feet wet, or just watching and listening to the river flow.

this bench used to be a wonderful place to take in river views and listen to the river flow

The fact that the DEP has closed the northern portion of the island for over 4 years now and done absolutely nothing to develop a plan for the park to reopen for limited public use is a scandal.

Almost a year after the D&R Canal Commission approved the demolition, the buildings and infrastructure have not been demolished and are still there rotting and the place is overrun by weeds.

There is no plan to restore and reopen the Island – literally nothing is being done.

DEP Commissioner Martin and Rich Boornazian the real estate hack he installed as Assistant Commissioner over NJ’s State Parks system should both be ashamed of themselves. Take a look:

Even the “Area Closed” signs are overgrown by weeds

scores of park benches rotting beneath weeds

Christie DEP’s Asset Management

this used to be the lovely central campground area

building neglected, rotting in place, and not yet demolished

playground still not demolished and removed

gorgeous river views obscured by weeds

“An Address To The Public”

Site of the July 6, 1892 Battle of Homestead, Pa on the Monongahela River (7/17/12)

Seeing that I could find no statements or press releases or demands from my environmental colleagues expressing solidarity with labor, celebrating the achievements of the labor movement, and calling for a massive new jobs program to rebuild crumbling infrastructure and transition to renewable energy, I thought I’d post a little labor history.

I was able to visit the Homestead site with my friends from Pittsburgh, Loretta and Ken Weir, and Mel Packer of the Merton Center – wonderful people who are incredible labor, anti-fracking, and social justice advocates and activists.

You can read a summary of the Battle of Homestead – but here are the workers’ own words, which resonate so strongly today in our New Gilded Age of Oligarchs:

“An Address to the Public”

Issued by the Advisory Committee, the Knights of Labor, and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steelworkers – Homestead Pa., July 22-23, 1892

The most evident characteristic of our time and country is the phenomenon of industrial centralization, which is putting the control of our great national industries into the hands of one or a few men and giving these men an enormous and despotic power over the lives and the fortunes of their employees and subordinates – the great mass of the people; [it is] a power which eviscerates our national constitution and our common law … a power which, though expressed in terms of current speech as the right of employers to mange their business[es] to suit themselves, is coming to mean nothing less than to manage the country to suit themselves.

The employees in the mill of Messrs. Carnegie, Phipps & Co. at Homestead Pa., have built there a town with its homes, its schools, and its churches; have for many years been faithful co-workers with the company in the business of the mill; have invested thousands of dollars of their savings in said mill in the expectation of spending their lives in Homestead and working in the mill during the period of their efficiency …

Therefore the Committee desires to express to the public as its firm belief that both the public and the employees aforesaid have equitable rights and interests in the said mill which can not be modified or diverted without due process of law; that the employees have the right to continuous employment in the said mill during efficiency and good behavior without regard to religious, political, or economic opinions or associations; that it is against public policy and subversive of the fundamental principles of American liberty that a whole community of workers should be denied employment or suffer any other social detriment on account of membership in a church, a political party or a trade union; that it is our duty as American citizens to resist with every legal and ordinary means the unconstitutional, anarchic and revolutionary policy of the Carnegie Company, which seems to evince a contempt for public and private interests and a disdain for the public conscience …

“Workmen Cannonading the Barges” (1892) (shot on (7/17/12)

Going the way of the update of the Water Supply Master Plan

We will combine three issues today that share common themes, with quick commentary based on news reports.

Christie Seeks To Kill Obama EPA Climate rules

Confirming my post yesterday, both DEP Commissioner Martin and BPU President Mroz revealed their corporate stripes in a political assault on the Obama EPA’s “Clean Energy Plan”. Issued just hours before their assault, my timing was impeccable!

Playing to the Republican primary base, Christie’s DEP Commissioner Martin again compromised the integrity of DEP by politically attacking the Obama EPA climate plan.

The timing of Martin’s letter to EPA, the red meat rhetoric used in the letter, and the high profile press release are strong evidence that the DEP is playing partisan politics to support Governor Christie’s presidential campaign ambitions.

Beyond any doubt, Martin’s words are campaign talking points – ideological red meat for the right:

… Obama administration inappropriately reaching far beyond its legal authority to implement more onerous and burdensome regulations on businesses and state governments alike.

Yet the media uncritically transcribes them without explaining that they reflect a radical right wing view of the historic consensus on federalism under the Constitution and the Clean Air Act and that they flat out contradict the US Supreme Court’s “Massachusetts” decision.

The Christie spin about “burdensome regulations” flat out contradicts the cost-benefit analysis of the EPA proposal, which found huge positive net economic benefits.

BTW, NJ DEP regulated greenhouse gases as “air contaminants” (i.e. pollutants) under NJ’s Air Pollution Control Act way back in 2005, a context that should be part of this story.

Bob Martin’s letter will live in infamy – again on the wrong side of the science and law, he follows Christie Whitman’s legal advisor Bob Fabricant’s infamous legal memo that set back EPA regulation of greenhouse gases by over a decade.

I’ve written about that but very few people know this inside story and the press, by failing to cover it, has given Christie Whitman a pass.

In part as a result of that decade of delay, we very likely have passed irreversible tipping points to runaway climate chaos.

Asset Management: Gone Down The Same Black Hole as The Water Supply Plan Update

Dan Van Abs has a good piece on Asset Management in today’s NJ Spotlight, read the whole thing:

• REQUIRE WATER UTILITIES TO SPEND MORE NOW SO THEY WILL COST LESS LATER

But Van Abs left critical information out of his analysis, as I wrote about last week.

DEP and the NJ Environmental Infrastructure Trust rolled out their “Asset Management” initiative years ago. They have touted the effort rhetorically in press releases and legislative testimony, but done very little in implementation.

DEP sent signals that they were planning to implement asset management via exactly the regulatory mandates Mr. Van Abs suggests (with which I agree), but DEP got strong pushback from the private water companies and the public authorities.

As a result, DEP blinked and did the traditional thing: delayed doing anything.

A strategy recommendation from DEP staff is now on DEP Commissioner Martin’s desk.

But based on the DEP staff briefing to the Water Supply Advisory Council last week (a meeting Mr. Van Abs attended) and the industry’s strong opposition to a DEP regulatory approach – coupled with this administration’s animus to regulation, which is particularly rabid with the Gov. on the campaign trail – the initiative is as good as dead – down the same black hole that swallowed the Water Supply Plan Update.

Pollution Worsens Drought Threats to North Jersey Water Supplies

Jim O’Neill at the Bergen Record gets the Passaic basin drought – pollution story wrong again.

He not only commits an error of omission by avoiding the critical issues, but states as a fact that passing flows were set to protect aquatic life, while they in fact were also set to protect public health from pollution in the river from sewage treatment plants.

Here are the two stories he ignores –

• Passaic River Running like An Open Sewer (Again)
• DEP Water Supply Plan Still Buried In Gov. Christie’s Office

Those interested in the history and basis for DEP passing flows, see this excellent technical paper by the NJ Geological Survey:

• History of Passing Flows in New Jersey, with Contemporary and Future Applications

I will be writing about the implications of this paper soon.

Another New Fossil Power Plant

Christie’s Energy Policy In Action

Today, the day that the public comment period closed on the Christie BPU Energy Master Plan (EMP) update, PSEG announced that a new fossil fueled power plant will be built in Woodbridge (the second one), see:

• New $600M power plant to be built in Woodbridge

Those boys at PSEG have some sense of timing, eh?

So much for public planning – it was nothing more than a choreographed charade. PSEG made it absolutely clear about who calls the shots on energy policy. And announced on an ozone non-attainment day to boot!

[The fact that the announcement was made public in response to the project clearing the PJM Auction is proof positive that so called “free markets” rule – as a result of deregulation, government has no power in controlling energy production. Democracy is sacrificed completely to the greed of the private market.]

(to give you a sense of the corruption, this was the Star Ledger’s headline of the story announcing the first one:  Christie, Sweeney tout bipartisanship at groundbreaking of Woodbridge energy plant.)

Of course, the Star Ledger wrote the story entirely off the PSEG press release, and ignored the EMP, climate issues, or public health threats related to ozone non-attainment and ultra-fine particle emissions or fracking.

According to PSEG, it will be a 540 megawatt plant, fueled by natural gas (fracked) with back up oil fuel.

We’re sure, given the “diverse portfolio of clean in state generation” touted by PSEG – the rationale PSEG used to spend $1.3 BILLION of ratepayer money on dirty dinosaur coal plants in Mercer and Hudson Counties – that even if BPU had jurisdiction over the plant (which they don’t as a result of Whitman deregulation), they would make the same kind of finding they did in support of the BL England gas plant – both BPU and DEP are rubber stamping virtually any fossil infrastructure that the private sector would finance based on the Christie EMP policy:

The PSEG announcement today amounts to a huge FUCK YOU to citizens and climate advocates, who just turned out in droves to demand that BPU accelerate conversion to renewables and impose a moratorium on new fossil fueled pipeline infrastructure and power plants.

Here’s the note I wrote the reporter for his stenography – with a copy to editorial board chief Tom Moran, my homie who once left the Ledger to work for PSEG:

Hi Anthony – you should report the context of today’s announcement, which amounts to a huge middle finger to the public

1) the public comment period closes today on BPU’s Energy Master Plan revisions.

Hundreds of people attended and most all testimony demanded more renewables (wind & solar) and a moratorium on new fossil fuels.

PSEG’s announcement is either extremely arrogant and oblivious or an intentions slap in there face to the public and environmentalists.

2) New science suggests that natural gas is as much as a global warming fuel as coal is, when lifecycle emissions are considered.

3) NJ fails to meet the Clean Air Act’s health based ozone standard and EPA is about to lower it to 60 ppb.

This plant will make that problem WORSE. That means more asthma attacks for NJ kids, more deaths of NJ seniors, and far worse air quality in NJ cities.

4) the plant is designed to use OIL as a backup fuel.

Do a followup story, please!