WolfeNotes.com

Or Has EPA Already Rubber Stamped Dupont’s Cleanup Plan?

The Sunday Bergen Record reported that Dupont published a public notice and submitted an application for a local dredge permit for the cleanup of the Acid Brook Delta portion of Pompton lake.

But the application was submitted to local officials in December, PRIOR to the January 5, 2012 EPA pubic hearing on the Dupont plan.

POMPTON LAKES — The Planning Board next month expects to hold a public hearing on DuPont’s application to begin its cleanup of the polluted Acid Brook delta on the edge of Pompton Lake.

The application for a permit to remove the contaminated soil was filed in December, said David C. Dixon, an attorney for DuPont. The project would remove more than 68,800 cubic yards of soil contaminated by heavy metals from DuPont’s explosives factory, which closed in 1994.

The application comes as DuPont is waiting for approval from the federal Environmental Protection Agency for the cleanup plan.

So, Dupont had final dredge plans prepared BEFORE the EPA review even began?

What does that say about the public hearing process? Residents can have no impact because the final dredge plan is already prepared?

What does that say about the EPA review of the Dupont dredging plan? EPA can not alter the scope of the cleanup and expand it from near shore sediments to the entire lake and removal of downriver sediments? This would mean removal of far more than 68,000 cubic yards.

Is Dupont trying to strong arm EPA by putting a final dredge plan on the table with local support before EPA can even review it and the public comments on it?

Or did Dupont  inadvertently reveal that EPA review really is just a rubber stamp and let the cat out of the bag that Dupont is dictating cleanup choices?

Inquiring minds what to know!

I just read a Bergen Record story about the ongoing fiasco with the Dupont site and just can’t believe that local officials and the media can misunderstand a fundamental issue so badly and for so long. see: Pompton Lakes residents share concerns over Dupont cleanup plan

The fundamental issue is perfectly illustrated  in the quote by Pompton Lakes Councilman Mike Simone:

“I just don’t want people feeling that because DuPont said something that it is the end of the world. The EPA and DEP (NJ Department of Environmental Protection) are working to try and find the right technology. It’s not easy. Our ground water and the structure of the ground is difficult to work with,” said Simone.

“This is not something that DuPont gets to choose all by themselves and just because a representative of DuPont said there is nothing they can do, does not mean that,” he added.

Let me correct the dear Councilman’s understanding.

I think I’ve written and said this hundreds of times, so I’ll say it again now and I’ll do it in boldface – maybe people will read it.

Dear Councilman Mike: Dupont does “get to choose all by themselves”!

Under the NJ DEP cleanup program and RCRA, Dupont selects the remedial objectives, Dupont develops and lists the cleanup alternatives, and Dupont selects the cleanup alternative.

The cleanup alternative that Dupont selects includes the choice of the cleanup technology.

This decision – made by Dupont – balances their costs of cleanup with risks to public health and the environment.

Which do you think Dupont cares most about? Their cleanup costs, or your health?

Dupont is allowed to do all this WITHOUT ANY community involvement.

For example, years ago, Dupont defined the limited and partial cleanup objective for the Acid Brook Delta.

Dupont decided that the cleanup should be limited to the “near shore” portion of the Lake. That basic decision drove the cleanup plan.

EPA and DEP approved that Dupont decision on the cleanup objective years ago. And they did it with NO PUBLIC INPUT.

That Dupont decision basically defined the scope and cost of the Pompton Lake cleanup plan.

The recent public “after the fact” hearings on the Dupont plan were a sham,  because the basic decisions about the cleanup had already been made and approved.

The same pattern and legal power to select cleanup alternatives and technologies without public input has occurred at the site for 30 years – under the 1988 DEP ACO, the DEP regulations, and the 1992 EPA RCRA permit and program oversight.

Under Superfund, the question of who decides and how they decide is completely different.

Under Superfund, those are EPA decisions, not Dupont’s.

And EPA makes those decisions ONLY after proposing cleanup alternatives for the community to comment on and express their preference for the preferred plan!

After the public hearing EPA – not Dupont – selects the cleanup alternative based on the community’s preferences.

That’s why residents are fighting to make the Dupont site a National Priority under Superfund.

How can people get this fundamental issue so wrong for so long?

[Update: let me make a car and a house analogy, since Ed Meakem just posted a comment with a clip about the local review of the Dupont dredging plan.

How would you feel if you could comment on the color of a car someone else selected for you (but you had to pay for it?)

The Dupont dredge plan is like the color of the car – but is the car a Mercedez or a Kia?

How would you feel if you were told you could select the wallpaper in the dining room, but the design of the house, the number of bedrooms, etc were already made by the architect?(but again, you were picking up the tab).

This is what Dupont has done – and now the public is being told they can decide the traffic routes from the trucks leaving the cleanup site. But that’s all! Not the scope and extent of the cleanup itself.

Dupont Field – Pompton lakes NJ – what are all those blue and yellow pipes?

[Important update below – sampling data]

Back on July 10, 2008, when I was a lowly citizen scribe at the Star Ledger’s “NJ Voices”, in my initial foray into the Dupont Pompton Lakes quagmire, I wrote this about the above photo: (On a Night Like This):

Soaked to the bone, after the deluge passed I explored the perimeter of the Dupont site and managed to come across a soccer field and the DEP “Cannonball Trail” trailhead. Since most folks prefer to live, work and have their kids play as far away from a toxic waste site as possible, lets just say I was surprised by what I found –

This soccer field is named Dupont Field. It is completely surrounded by groundwater monitoring wells and a “pump and treat” system. I was told that the highly polluted groundwater is pumped out of the ground, treated, and then recharged back into the ground ON the soccer field. So kids play on a hazardous wast treatment unit! Only in NJ!

Almost four years later, a review of internal DEP emails shows that my column opened some eyes in Pompton Lakes and at Dupont, if not DEP.

It is no secret that I am a harsh critic of the pace of the cleanup and the lax DEP, EPA and lack of any sense of urgency in local oversight.

So, I was not surprised by reading through a trove of DEP emails I was just given.

Here’s internal DEP emails that show that Dupont was forced to conduct sampling on those soccer fields I wrote about on July 10.

It turns out that Dupont was required to conduct sampling there, and reported results to DEP in November 2008 (hey, that’s only 4 months, greased lighting!. But, sorry, I don’t have the results. If interested, suggest you submit an OPRA request to DEP):

[Update: 1/20/12 – a source just emailed me the sampling data. The soccer field was sampled back in 1990, with results presented twelve years later in a “Perimeter Sampling” Report dated October 25, 2002 – here it is, from arsenic to zinc. For anyone reviewing this data, here are the applicable DEP soil cleanup standards, which should have been listed side-by-side with results in the Dupont report.

Right off the bat, the sampling results (1.2 – 4.6 ppm) exceed (violate) the DEP arsenic soil cleanup standard (i.e. the residential direct contact standard is 0.4 ppm). I will now review the rest of the data.]

[Update 2 – the analytical screening value for benzidine is seriously flawed. Results are reported as less than 0.35 ppm, but the DEP standard is 0.002 ppm, more than 100 TIMES lower. Similar problem with benzo(A)pyrene, bischloroether and others. No confidence in this data – too old and not designed for compliance with current DEP standards.]

From: “David E Epps” (David.E.Epps@USA.dupont.com)
Subject: Soccer Field data
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:05
To: “Faranca, Frank” (Frank.Faranca@dep.state.nj.us)
To: “Boyer, John” (John.Boyer@dep.state.nj.us)
cc: “eichlin, norma” (eichlinl@obg.com)
cc: “Boettler, Albert J” (Albert.J.Boettler@USA.dupont.com)

File item: SoccerField data.xls (172544)
File item: Mime.822 (242199)
Frank and John,

As requested, attached is an excel file that lists the data from the soccer field samples and the text (along with a map) cut from the South Plant RIR.

David E. Epps
David E. Epps
Pompton Lakes Works, Project Director
DuPont Corporate Remediation Group
Direct:  973-492-7733
Mobile: 704-853-9922
Safety is a team effort with individual responsibilities

But, repeating a chronic pattern of failure – see

• NY Times story: Memo Shows Agency Knew of Danger in Child Care Building
• TOXIC NEW JERSEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FINALLY WINS RELIEF
• PROBE CALLED FOR IN NEW JERSEY TOXIC HIGH SCHOOL FIASCO–
• NEW JERSEY AGENCY LETS KIDS PLAY ON TOXIC WASTE PILES
• Memo to DEP: Protect Kids – Enforce the Law

it looks like DEP was indifferent and had no sense of urgency in finding out if kids were playing on a toxic waste site. DEP dragged their feet for months on reviewing the Dupont sampling results:

From: “Frank Faranca” (Frank.Faranca@dep.state.nj.us)
Subject: Pompton Lakes
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:21
To: “Zervas, Gwen” (Gwen.Zervas@dep.state.nj.us)

Hi Gwen,

John Boyer and Mindy reminded me again that they can not keep up with Pompton Lakes and that I will need to anticipate significant delays moving forward.  The Mayor has requested that the DEP review all the soccer field (owned by DuPont) soil data to determine if it is safe to play. This will not be reviewed for months (according to John) and Mindy will be communicating the same to the Mayor. FYI

Frank

Oh well – what else is new?

But at least on this issue, I owe Mayor Cole an apology. It looks like she was pushing for sampling.

Christie DEP Provides “Hardship Waiver” for Road Through a Stream Buffer

[Update below]

In multiple posts here, we wrote at length to hold former DEP Commissioner Jackson accountable for weakening the Category One 300 foot buffer program.

The most significant weakenings involve relaxing a technical “equivalent ecological function” demonstration required to reduce buffer width from 300 feet to 150 feet, creation of a new “hardship waiver” to avoid strict enforcement of the prohibition on disturbance of the buffers; and rule changes to make it harder to list Category One waters. For examples, see:

• Corporate Office Parks Trump Clean Water
• DEP Abandoned Wood Turtle Habitat Protections
• DEP Exempts a Flood Of Projects from Flood Hazard Rules
• DEP Confirms Loopholes in flood prevention and stream buffer protections
• Grandfather Loophole guts DEP Stream Protection Plan
• DEP Weakens Protections of stream buffers

While we do not have comprehensive data on how these regulatory policy changes have been implemented and have not followed this issue closely, we thought we’d provide a specific illustration of the “hardship waiver” Jackson built into the Category One stream buffer program, from the January 11, 2012 DEP Bulletin:

“Different Boats for Different Folks” (listen!)

Am I the only one who was disgusted by Governor Christie’s State of the State address abuse of Martin Luther King Jr.’s boat metaphor?

Wrapping up a divisive, partisan rant – including a whole new level of attack on the public school system and a race to the bottom, “drown government in the bathtub” tax cut for the wealthy plan – the Demagogue in Chief said:

I cannot do it alone. Republicans cannot do it alone. Democrats cannot do it alone.

Because, as Martin Luther King once said, “We may have come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now”

I don’t know what Yatch Christie and his cronies are sailing, but the small, old, leaking boats I see and care about are being capsized in the wake of his greed:

Christie engaged in the most tawdry form of partisan political revisionism of the meaning of Dr. King’s work and legacy.

If I were to hijack Dr. King’s “we’re all in the same boat” metaphor as cynically and opportunistically as Christie, I would say that the boat we’re in is the Titanic and the iceberg we’re hitting is global warming – while Christie is Captain of the Ship of Fools (listen). But I don’t play those games.

King was a champion of economic justice and truth.

Christie is a champion of wealth and power.

King was a spiritual black minister who deeply understood and spoke eloquently of the obscenity, injustice, and suffering of the slave trade: millions of kidnapped Africans brought to America on slave ships and thrust into chattel slavery.

Christie has never struggled (except with his weight) and understands nothing – as Molly Ivans said of George Bush “he was born on third and thinks he hit a triple” – and simplistically uses a King quote to whitewash that history and promote the opposite of Dr. King’s social democratic vision.

Burgeoning deep economic inequality, unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and destruction of the social safety net, etc all disproportionately impact and impoverish blacks.

The imposition of what Michelle Alexander calls the “The New Jim Crow” with “more African-Americans under correctional control today “in prison or jail, on probation or parole” than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began” and 1/3 of young black men in the criminal justice prison complex, Gov. Christie’s remarks are particularly out of touch (and no my good old liberal friend Tommy Moran, all that is not somehow magically erased or ameliorated by his drug war comments.

I’ll close with a completely different and honest use of the “all in the same boat” metaphor, from Malcolm X’s famous 1964 speech “The Ballot or the Bullet”:

Although I’m still a Muslim, I’m not here tonight to discuss my religion. I’m not here to try and change your religion. I’m not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it’s time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you’re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you’re going to catch hell just like I am. We’re all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man.