Contaminated soils poison community and the Hackensack River
What are tarps for?
THis is what happens when there is little DEP oversight and no enforcement. Yet instead of increasing oversight and strenghening enforcement of our toxic site cleanup laws, the Corzine Administration is proposing to privatize the program.
Do you trust the polluters to voluntarily cleanup sites and police themselves?
DEP enforcement is not the only one asleep – this site is located less than a mile from the HQ of a major metropolitan newspaper.
Maybe if journalists and editors just went outside and looked around, they might find some very interesting stories.
Bill leaving DEP enforcement oversight to journalists and editors is not the way to go here. Can’t you convince colleagues/public interest law firms/NJPIRG/Citizens Action to join law suits to compel DEp COMPLIANCE? it seems so futile trying to move DEP through this blog.. Take your evidence/positions to the next level, AG’s office or the NJ Public Advocate or specific legislators. Otherwise it is pointless to try and do it through this blog. I feel your pain but can’t endure if much longer.
ferdek – There actually is a strategy behind this blog and I actually believe in, certain principles and values, like democracy, open deliberation, and the role of media in both.
I am not simply leaving DEP enforcement up to journalists.
Pragmatically, its been my experience to learn (after 13 years working there and 10 working in environmental community) that DEP (and most of state government yo refer to as “the next level”)) responds to bad press. DEP priorities are driven by press and much as by science or law.
I know from feedback that this blog is read by journalists, legislators, policymakers, and other shapers of opinion – public opinion is the countervailing force we have to the money and political power of the bad guys.
Theoretically, we live in a democratic society where the media’s role is to hold government accountable and to educate and inform people so that they may become engaged in civic affairs and realize the power of citizenship. Democracy can not function without informed choice and accountability. The information I provide here is designed to empower citizens – johnny appleseed-like – so they can collectively act.
The media as an institution is failing – I try to make up for some of those failures on environmental issues.
Last, with respect to “convincing my colleague” – I have no control over NJ environmental organizations but I do know that my work is read (and appreciated in some quarters) and does educate and influence their strategies and decisions.
Ferdek, Wolfe is on target regarding the variety of people who read this blog–and his other postings on various listservs . Not to mention that if they bother to go, they hear his testimony at public hearings.
If people don’t pay attention to what they read of Wolfe’s, don’t incorporate the info into their strategies or turn it into praxis, it is a case of willful ignorance, or, as the poet Wm. Blake said in the Marriage of Heaven & Hell:
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
thankfully, Bill doesn’t seem to care if his information or passion offends.
Bill I am totally in sympathy with the dire pictures of neglect you bring to our attention. But you did not answer my question: Why haven’t the Public Advocate, other enviro groups, NJPIRG, etc taken up these cases of neglect and possibly criminal negligence? If I had 72 hours a day I still couldn’t possibly get into all of the issues raised in just your blog let alone the hundreds of other s just in the daily papers. What I am saying is that Government is supposed to deal with those issues not blogger. So how do we compel Government to do their job using Government provided resources and institutions? If you are right DEP is simply dysfunctional/illegal/mismanaged/a criminal conspiracy which some Judge somewhere should shut-down! Our lives are going down the toilet while we rely on your efforts to “push back” on these polluters it’s a hopeless battle.
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