DEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson briefs Governor Corzine.A Joint Joint Senate and Assembly Committee will conduct a hearing on April 15th concerning much needed reforms to NJ’s toxic site cleanup program. The hearing is in response to a series of fiasco’s at toxic sites across the state, from the Meadowlands Encap landfill debacle to the South Jersey Kiddie Kollege tragedy, where 60 toddlers were poisoned at an industrial building that had been converted to a day care center.
DEP Commissioner Jackson testified before the Senate Environment Committee on October 23, 2006 to present the Corzine Administration’s reform agenda (for links to Jackson’s testimony and other key information, see: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=909
I urge folks to contact their legislators and will be writing on this issue in depth http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/BillsForAgendaView.asp
In the meantime, I thought I’d share with the public a leaked memo, from DEP Assistant Commissioner Kropp – that lays out the current Corzine reform agenda. Interesting to compare that to Jackson’s October testimony.
From: Irene.Kropp@dep.state.nj.us
Subject: Site Remediation Program Reforms
Date: April 8, 2008 6:47:20 AM EDT
To: [deleted]
As you all know, at the request of Senator Smith the Site Remediation Program managers held a series of stakeholder meetings last year to discuss Site Remediation Program Reforms. Eleven white papers were drafted as a result of this process and distributed to the stakeholders for comments. Final versions of the white papers will be posted to the web this Friday.
An additional result of that process is the development of legislative reforms that will be presented at a Joint Senate and Assembly hearing on April 15th. Commissioner Jackson and I will be providing testimony at that hearing. Consistent with recommendations provided during the stakeholder sessions and our internal roundtable discussions, the legislative reforms we present will address the following:
1. Establishing a licensing program for all environmental consultants who perform remedial investigations and actions in New Jersey in order to hold them more accountable,
2. Providing the DEP with new remedy selection authority,
3. Improving the long term effectiveness of our remedial actions by adopting a permit program for long term monitoring of institutional and engineering controls,
4. Ensuring our limited resources are dedicated to the most important cases,
5. Establishing a new remediation guarantee fund to protect against remedy failure,
6. Adopting new business processes that ensure timely remedial decisions, and
7. Strengthening our enforcement authority.
I envision there to be much public debate about these and additional reforms that may be offered up by other stakeholders. As such, I do not anticipate new legislation being passed much sooner than September. I will be discussion future reforms at an upcoming series of staff meeting in the public hearing room in the near future and I will continue to keep you posted on the progress we make. Thank you, Irene
Irene Kropp
Assistant Commissioner
Site Remediation and Waste Management
NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection
609-292-1250