Below is an extraordinary debate between a DEP toxic site cleanup professional and an industry consultant about the implications of the toxic site cleanup privatization bill now on Governor Corzine’s desk.
The debate takes place in comments on this Bergen Record story:
Contractors to oversee waste cleanups
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
http://www.northjersey.com/environment/Contractors_to_oversee_waste_cleanups.html
This is the kind of honest expert perspective you don’t read in the newspapers and never hear in DEP testimony to the Legislature. Please read and contact the Governor to urge him to VETO THIS BILL:
1. DEPstaffer says:
Just wait 5 to 10 years and there will be “Love Canals” all over New Jersey! Contracted “LSPs” will have minimal experience while the lowest bidding company charges high fees and then to top it all off the state assumes the liability because they rubber-stamped the work! The only thing that is brilliant about this set-up is how developers and the Chemical Council managed to convince everyone that it is the solution while simultaneously dismantling the DEP with early retirement incentives, hiring freezes and wage/promotional freezes. Residents are the ones who will be “paying” for this fiasco in the future.
2. 3/18/2009 7:48PM EST
DEPstaffer says:
PS. The holdup of cleanups is not the DEP’s fault. Industry lobbyists have seen to it that DEP has no legal authority to force anyone to clean anything up! Hence they stall for 20 years! I can’t believe this article………..what a lie. Your editors must be taking their orders from Corzine/Chemical Council/developers too. I’m really disappointed in The Record on this issue.
3/18/2009 7:49PM EST
UCPole83 says:
OK, DEPstaffer, don’t you think its time to admit that the program is broken and needs a radical fix? I’ve read your stuff for far too long and held my tounge, but now its time for another voice to be heard here. Obviously you are in the building, and have an axe to grind. Why are’t you part of the solution instead of part of the problem? There are over 20,000 active contamination cases and the number is growing every day. Don’t you think a 75-2 vote in the Assembly is an acknowledgment that you are totally out of touch? It was former NJDEP Commissioner Campbell, after all, that took KiddieKollege and 1,800 other sites off the Known Contaminated Sites List just to show progress to the legislature even though these cases were not completed, just inactive. This wasn’t a fix, it was a hideous miscarriage of NJDEP’s responsibility. Unfortunately, it took a crisis for the legislature to notice.
3/18/2009 7:49PM EST
UCPole83 says:
Meanwhile, the Site Remediation Program staff continue to go about their bureaucratic business and often require the inane and physically impossible, regardless of the best science and engineering available, let alone the regulations. We have had cases go up to the Assistant Commissioner on technical issues, only to have her decision overturned by junior staff because they’re convinced their union membership trumps her experience as a case manager. This is insanity.
3/19/2009 1:02AM EST
UCPole83 says:
It’s time for a drastic change. As someone with over 20 years in this profession and who will be one of the first LSPs, I have spent the past year plus meeting with the stakeholders, reading, and commenting on the various versions of the bill. There are significant penalties, including tens of thousands of dollars in fines and the loss of my professional license, my ability to work in the state, that will temper any potential short cut. Unlike state workers, my job will be on the line every day with this program. I will welcome that challenge. Protection of human health and the environment, using the best science and engineering, has always been a priority to those in my profession. We welcome the fact that we will be recognized as professionals (and not contractors).
3/19/2009 1:09AM EST
DEPstaffer says:
Face it New Jersey! You are the most contaminated state in the union and ignoring this fact by castrating the DEP isn’t going to solve the problem. Industries like the Chemical Council and rich developers (the ones who blame DEP for their downturn in business instead of their overbuilding McMansions and “luxury condos”) have seen to it that DEP lacks the legal and legislative authority to force a cleanup. I have cases where I have told the Responsible Party and their consultant exactly what they had to do only for it to take years for them to submit anything at all or ask for another meeting so they can stall.
3/19/2009 1:12AM EST
DEPstaffer says:
UCPole83: You may be a well-qualified and ethical professional. But I’ve had major consulting firms hide relevant data unlabeled in an appendix so I wouldn’t find it. I’ve had to take consulting firms that received a municipal contract with state funding by the hand and lead them every step of the way and basically train their novice staff because we were being “proactive” (ie. they had a relative of a major politician on staff). I’ve seen a major contaminant groundwater plume go offsite and near residences be ignored for YEARS by the Responsible Party and their consultant. If it weren’t for the new Indoor Air regulations, it would still be ignored because DEP can’t force the Responsible Party to do anything quickly with a Memorandum of Agreement.
3/19/2009 1:15AM EST
DEPstaffer says:
I’ve worked on “Publicly Funded” Site Remediation cases where the contracted “environmental consultant” (I use that term loosely because they were incompetent) managed to slip a contract by the case mgr and the contracts bureau that paid 3 times the state-approved rate for mobilization of drilling equipment to the site so that they could charge a 25% or 30% handling charge for doing nothing. Then they had the gall to arrange the drilling on either side of a holiday so that they could get two mobilization fees.
3/19/2009 1:18AM EST
DEPstaffer says:
And I’m sick to death of the implication that it’s DEP’s fault these sites don’t get cleaned up. I’ve had to force deeper drilling and drilling in locations where I suspect contamination resides and I’ve been right over 90% of the time! If this bill is implemented, it will be a race to the bottom. I’ve had consultants tell me that they aren’t necessarily in favor of LSP because they know that the consultants that cut costs and don’t look thoroughly for the contamination are the ones who will get the clients. The ethical firms will go out of business for lack of clients.
3/19/2009 1:21AM EST
DEPstaffer says:
And Kiddie Kollege wasn’t pulled from the list of contaminated sites. It was “unassigned” to a case manager because they are overworked with some of them managing 200 cases each. How many projects do you keep track of, huh? The DEP never told the property owner the site was clean. He’s being sued now, don’t you know? And Encap was funded by the state at the governor’s direction. People at DEP warned against it but they work for the Guv, you know. It was private consulting firms and contractors who brought contaminated soil onsite. Hear of anyone losing any licenses like their P.E. or any other licenses? NO!
3/19/2009 1:23AM EST
DEPstaffer says:
And the reason the Assemby and Senate voted overwhelmingly for this bill is not because it’s such a great solution! Boy if this isn’t the first time I’ve actually read someone claim that the NJ Legislature voting for something means it’s gold! The legislature is bought and paid for by industry, lobbyists, the Chemical Council, organized (and unorganized!) crime! You are either naive, stupid, new to NJ or think we are.
DEPstaffer says:
I started in the environmental field in 1979 so I guess I have more experience than you. I was in private industry until ten years ago and I have worked for small and major companies with small and major national clients in many states. I’ve managed dozens and dozens of projects and written dozens and dozens of reports. And I’ve never seen the kind of junk that passes for a “professional” report like the stuff that has landed on my desk at NJDEP.
3/19/2009 1:33AM EST
DEPstaffer says:
And I’ll NEVER buy property in New Jersey now and I pity everyone else who has or will. You won’t know what’s under your house now.
3/19/2009 1:36AM EST
DEPstaffer says:
As for being part of the solution, Assistant Commissioner Irene Kropp behaves exactly like Corzine when he was hawking his toll hike plan. No matter what solutions are offered, she acts like she doesn’t hear it. DEP’s staff has been whittled away since Whitman and the number of cases has grown exponentially. We need more staff yet all Corzine does is add overpaid political appointees and free daycare. DEP is trying to protect the public health, which is as important as having someone babysit your kid for you.
DEPstaffer says:
As for being part of the solution, Assistant Commissioner Irene Kropp behaves exactly like Corzine when he was hawking his toll hike plan. No matter what solutions are offered, she acts like she doesn’t hear it. DEP’s staff has been whittled away since Whitman and the number of cases has grown exponentially. We need more staff yet all Corzine does is add overpaid political appointees and free daycare. DEP is trying to protect the public health, which is as important as having someone babysit your kid for you.
DEPstaffer says:
And I’ll NEVER buy property in New Jersey now and I pity everyone else who has or will. You won’t know what’s under your house now.
DEPstaffer says:
I started in the environmental field in 1979 so I guess I have more experience than you. I was in private industry until ten years ago and I have worked for small and major companies with small and major national clients in many states. I’ve managed dozens and dozens of projects and written dozens and dozens of reports. And I’ve never seen the kind of junk that passes for a “professional” report like the stuff that has landed on my desk at NJDEP.
Of course it is a horrible idea, & NJ will be the worse for it.
Corzine has done so much damage at the DEP.
Gov. Corzine should not sign the bill establishing the LSP program. It’s bad for public health and safety and bad for the environment. I am a retired DEP professional staffer with more than 22 years experience in the environmental field. In my experience, I would have to say that most of the cleanup plans and reports submitted to DEP by consultants have been deficient to downright bad. In many discussions with co-workers, they would say the same. Review of all these deficient to bad reports took more time than reviewing good ones, because DEP staff would have to tell the consultants where to install more wells or take more samples, and even sometimes rewrite the whole plan for the consultant. The additional wells or sampling would be needed to determine such basic things as what types of contamination were present, the horizontal and vertical extent of contamination, whether, and where, it was migrating and whether it was actually or potentially affecting any human or environmental receptors. Sometimes, the plans and reports were deficient or bad because the consultants were incompetent. Sometimes it was because the consultant and their client would want to try to convince DEP that there was less contamination at the site than there really was. Sometimes they wanted to delay the process deliberately because doing nothing is cheaper than cleaning up or to stall in hopes of getting laxer requirements from DEP in the future. They could do this, because many responsible parties are performing their cleanups under Memorandums of Agreement, which have no firm timetables or deadlines, or because DEP management did not want to enforce penalties on the responsible party. The responsible party would drag their feet as long as they possibly could. Then, when a developer wanted to buy the site and build on it, all of a sudden, it became a priority, and they wanted to clean it up overnight. The only problem was that, often, the contamination was not fully defined yet. Then, they would want to do an incomplete cleanup and be done. DEP staff would have to do their best to get them to complete the investigation and do an acceptable cleanup. I can also second DEPstaffer’s complaint about having consultants send new, inexperienced employees to work on Publicly Funded state jobs. If private consultants are allowed to investigate and remediate contaminated sites without DEP oversight, I’m afraid that partial cleanups will be the norm. Consultants and their clients are the reason for the high number of cases in the Site Remediation system, not DEP professional staff. DEP’s Site Remediation Program needs more scientific and professional staff, tighter deadlines, strong enforcement, and strict penalties, not an abdication of its responsibility to protect the public and the environment.
Great comment. And I would add that large development firms (LLCs) will have no liability under this system because the state will be assuming liability. The reasoning is that the state suppposedly will impose strict rules to become and remain an LSP and will remove a license for unethical work. HOWEVER, many companies in the private sector use a subsidiary firm to do their environmental work and in this way remain shielded from any liability on the part of the subsidiary. In the instance of an LSP however, I fear that the LSP would be shielded from liability by the parent LLC. This would leave the state being the only one liable under this system. You can bet that large development firms such as Hovnavian (which currently sends a lot of environmental work to Najarian & Associates because of a marriage between their offspring) has thought this through. The developers will be able to build where they want and then when people start finding contamination under their homes and offices, the state will be left holding the bill for any lawsuits and cleanups. This is a really bad path the legislature is being led down by their campaign contributors. And the taxpayers will be payiing for it someday.
Time to face the music armed with this great ionfmartion.