NJ DEP Said Former Lead Smelter – Newark Public Housing Site – Was Clean
Adjacent Playground Had Extremely High Lead Levels
DEP Environmental Justice Program in Action
“A Billion Bullets to the Brains of Newark’s Kids”
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” ~~~ Lewis Carroll “Through the Looking Glass” (1871)
b. The department shall perform additional review of any document, or shall review the performance of a remediation, if:
(3) the contaminated site is located in a low-income community of color that has a higher density of contaminated sites and permitted discharges with the potential for increased health and environmental impacts, as compared to other communities; (Section 21, Site Remediation Reform Act (2009)
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All The King’s Horses and All The King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Back in 2008, after a series of high profile botched cleanups by the NJ DEP, including the infamous “Kiddie Kollege” daycare fiasco,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Governor Corzine, with the support of NJ DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson, convinced the Democratically controlled legislature that the DEP toxic site cleanup program was so broken that it could not be fixed.
All The Kings Horses and All The Kings men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
So broken it could not be fixed, the DEP cleanup program was privatized.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection knew in 1994 that a building that later housed a Gloucester County day care center was so dangerous that state inspectors were instructed to use respirators when entering the building, according to an internal memo obtained by The New York Times yesterday. (NY Times)
Cleanups at NJ’s 20,000 toxic waste sites would now be governed by “Licensed Site Remediation Professionals” (LSRPs), men in white hats who, according the fairy tale in the statute, did not require DEP oversight and would act like Marcus Wellby, MD: (no, not the 1970’s good guy MD, his modern version):
A licensed site remediation professional’s highest priority in the performance of professional services shall be the protection of public health and safety and the environment.
No longer required to spend all that time overseeing cleanups at those 20,000 sites, the 600 or so DEP staffers in the Site Remediation Program would be free to work on more important high priority matters.
So, how’s that working out?
Back on December 4, 2012, the superb USA Today’s series on old lead smelters exposed continuing lax NJ DEP oversight of former NJ lead smelter sites.
Lead is perhaps one of the highest priority environmental health issues, especially in NJ’s over-burdenened urban communities, where poor and black children continue to suffer severely from high blood lead levels.
(3) the contaminated site is located in a low-income community of color that has a higher density of contaminated sites and permitted discharges with the potential for increased health and environmental impacts, as compared to other communities;
In response to USA Today’s reasonable question about why the DEP required no sampling or cleanup of these lead smelter sites, DEP expressed “frustration”
(When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.)
Note particularly how NJ DEP relies on the Big Lie – the “very stretched” resources and burden of those so called 14,500 sites that are now managed by LSRP’s – as an excuse
“I believe we have accomplished a lot,” said David Sweeney, an assistant commissioner at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). He expressed “frustration” with questions about why some neighborhoods got soil tests and others didn’t, noting that the state’s resources are “very stretched” with 14,500 contaminated sites of all types needing attention.
The New Jersey DEP said their risk assessments of 31 sites focused only on areas within a former factory’s property boundaries. If a home was built directly atop a portion of the factory property, the state tested soil for contamination. No soil testing was done if homes were merely next to the former factory property.
It’s very difficult “to try to understand after 50 or 100 years how the contamination may have been dispersed out of a stack,” said Ken Kloo, a director in the department’s site remediation program. “It very possibly may not have been deposited anywhere near the site.”
How can DEP possibly be “very stetched” after the cleanup program was privatized and LSRP’s now oversee cleanups? What are those 600 staffers who used to oversee this work doing all day?
(3) the contaminated site is located in a low-income community of color that has a higher density of contaminated sites and permitted discharges with the potential for increased health and environmental impacts, as compared to other communities;
Focusing only within the property boundaries has no scientific basis and is absurd, because we know lead travels off site to adjacent properties, from air emissions and wind and water erosion of contaminated soils.
The DEP’s response is beyond incompetence and borders on criminal negligence.
More recently, let’s look to Newark, NJ, a ground zero test of NJ DEP’s so called “Environmental Justice” program.
USA Today reported on February 15, 2013:
EPA tests show the soil in a grassy New Jersey playground area contained as much as 15 times the amount of lead the agency considers hazardous for children’s play areas.
The series of articles has revealed widespread government failures to investigate the dangers left behind in soil by lead manufacturing plants that operated in the decades before environmental regulations. It has prompted soil testing and cleanups at several locations across the country.
In September, USA TODAY examined the government re-assessments done of the old factory sites in New Jersey and found regulators had closed the books on several without doing any soil testing — despite their close proximity to residential areas where children live and play. Lead exposure is particularly dangerous for children, whose developing brains can be irreparably harmed when they ingest even tiny amounts of lead dust by putting dirty hands or toys in their mouths.
The playground at the Newark Housing Authority’s Terrell Homes is just across the property line from the former site of Barth Smelting, which operated from at least 1946 to about 1982, records show.
So, what does DEP say about that?
(3) the contaminated site is located in a low-income community of color that has a higher density of contaminated sites and permitted discharges with the potential for increased health and environmental impacts, as compared to other communities;
Why did they say the site was clean without taking any samples at a PUBLIC HOUSING PROJECT ON TOP OF AN OLD LEAD SMELTER, , especially at the children’s playground adjacent to the site?
New Jersey DEP officials, who wrote a report last year saying no further investigation was recommended, did not respond to USA TODAY’s questions about whether they erred in their conclusion. New Jersey DEP spokesman Larry Hajna said in an e-mail: “The DEP worked closely with EPA in a thorough and cooperative investigation of these sites, and has provided the federal agency with detailed results of our work. As we have stated previously, it is appropriate for EPA to explore this issue. We will continue to work with the agency to provide any information it may need.
As of Friday afternoon, residents of the Terrell Homes remained unaware of the danger, and children were still playing in the contaminated area, said the Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, a New Jersey environmental justice organization that followed up with local community leaders after USA TODAY shared the EPA’s test results.
“Kids at Terrell Homes, and lots of other communities of color and poor communities, are getting exposed to toxins at a dangerous level,” he said. “They deserve a clean, healthy environment. And they deserve regulators who aren’t afraid to hold polluters accountable.” Harper has served on the New Jersey DEP’s environmental justice advisory council, which seeks to ensure residents are equally protected from pollution regardless of race or income.
Humpty Dumpty. After the Fall, Better than Ever.
I hope the people of Newark keep this DEP performance in mind for Thursday night’s public information session DEP is holding on the Newark garbage incinerator air permit.
(3) the contaminated site is located in a low-income community of color that has a higher density of contaminated sites and permitted discharges with the potential for increased health and environmental impacts, as compared to other communities;
DEP has showed the same level of disdain for protecting the health of the kids of Newark from lead emissions from that facility as they did at old lead smelters (see: Dissenting Report Rips Christie DEP Commissioner Martin On Environmental Justice).
I’ll close with this haunting note from a prior post:
I am haunted by a line by my friend Peter Montague, NJ’s legendary environmental justice and anti-toxics advocate.
Opposing the DEP’s renewal of the 25 year old Essex County garbage incinerator air pollution permit, Montague wrote (paraphrasing) that the huge lead emissions from the facility amounted to “a billion bullets to the brains of Newark’s kids”.
That’s not hyperbole – the science of pollution dispersion modeling and neurotoxic and developmental effects of lead on children are well known.
That’s why EPA banned lead as a gasoline additive, why industry was forced to spend billions removing lead from paints and other consumer products, and why EPA enforces strict lead abatement programs.
So why is that – or any other – lead source or garbage incinerator allowed to continue to operate?
[Update: 2/21/13 – US EPA is getting hammered in today’s USA Today story – but don’t blame EPA, it was NJ DEP’s decision that no further investigation was required, a decision NJ DEP made LAST MAY (2012), see these documents. EPA signed off on that and is now trying to correct that mistake, while DEP remains in denial.
Newark residents should ask why community advocates are giving NJ DEP a pass. Where has NJ DEP’s Environmental Justice program been??? – USA Today broke this story a long time ago. end]
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