Environmental Quality – Polls Versus Facts

Science Trumps Polls – Public Clueless About State of the Environment

How could this be?

The Star Ledger reports today that the most recent Monmouth University “Quality of Life Poll” of NJ residents shows a slight decline in assessment of quality of life:

TRENTON — New Jersey residents are less rosy about the condition of the state than they were earlier this year.

A Monmouth University poll released today shows 65 percent said in September they considered the Garden State an excellent or good place to live – down from 70 percent in April and 69 percent in July.

But the Star Ledger’s sole focus on that decline is virtually meaningless, given the 3.5% +/- margin of error.

But what I found absolutely astonishing – and completely ignored – was the poll’s finding that 72% of respondents said the quality of the environment was “excellent or good”:

How can 72% find the below list of actual environmental quality conditions “excellent or good”?

The environmental indicators that justify NJ’s stringent environmental and public health regulatory protections are uniformly dire.

• NJ is the nation’s most densely populated state with the most cars, most development, most pavement and most toxic pollutants per square mile.
• NJ”s precious shore is highly over-developed and vulnerable to storms and sea level rise.
• Yet we continue to lose more than 15,000 acres of forests, farms, and wetlands per year to new development.
• NJ’s racially and economical segregated urban communities bear unjust disproportionate pollution and health burdens.
• Contradicting lots of empty political rhetoric about reducing emissions, NJ’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise steeply.
• NJ has the most toxic Superfund sites and more than 20,000 other toxic sites.
• NJ communities are threatened by at least 15 chemical facilities, where an accident or terror attack could kill more than 100,000 residents.
• In NJ, more than 65% of streams and rivers and 100% of lakes fail to meet water pollution standards and lack cleanup plans.
• Statewide Fish Consumption Advisories warn that fish and shellfish are too toxic to eat.
• Over 12% of residential water wells fail health standards.
• The entire state does not meet health based standards for air pollutants ozone, fine particulates, and numerous cancer causing toxic chemicals; and
• not surprisingly NJ has the nation’s highest cancer and asthma rates.

No wonder, according to a recent Monmouth University/Gannett poll, 79% of NJ residents “ on a bipartisan and socio-economic basis“ oppose rollbacks on NJ’s environmental regulations as a solution to the state’s dual fiscal and economic crises.

(those specific poll findings directly contradict the policy of Gov. Christie’s Executive Order #2, which calls for rollbacks of NJ’s strict standards to minimum federal standards – a fact virtually never reported by the press or mentioned by environmental groups)