WolfeNotes.com

Powerful Urban Democrats Join Suburban Republicans to Carry Troy Chemicals’ Water

Troy Chemical Created a Site with some of the Highest Mercury Levels in the World

Part of Larger Corporate Effort to Frustrate Superfund Listing

Notorious Wolff &  Samson Law Firm Involved Behind The Scenes

Port Authority “Portfields” Development Initiative Impacted

Even The Teamsters Are Used To Attack EPA

[Update: 9/17/14 – EPA resisted the political pressure and did the right thing.

Star Ledger reports:  Contaminated Pierson’s Creek in Newark declared federal Superfund site

But why did Booker get the quote?  He did nothing for this site as Newark Mayor. And of course, no NJ media reported on the behind the scenes political lobbying I disclose below. – end update]

Why is south jersey Democrat Lou Greenwald (D-Norcross) trying to block US EPA from listing a highly contaminated site in Newark on the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL)? (Newark is 80 miles from his legislative district).

Why is Newark’s own Democratic Senator Ron Rice also seeking to block the EPA NPL listing of a site in his district that is poisoning his constituents, living in a predominately poor, black and minority environmental justice community? (Ditto for Essex County Freeholders).

Why are Morris County Republican Senators Bucco and Penacchio, US Congressman Frelinghuysen, and the Morris County Freeholders also trying to back EPA off the Newark site, which is not even in their District?

Because they all are shilling for Troy Chemical Company in reckless disregard for the health of their constituents.

Check out this dirty NJ story – and wonder why NJ is the toxic pollution, over-development, and corruption capital of the world.

• Troy Chemical Has a Very Dirty Past – and Present

For many years, numerous studies by independent academic scientists, US EPA, and NJ DEP have shown that the NY Harbor/Newark Bay is highly polluted, particularly the sediments, which are loaded with a witches brew of toxic chemicals, a legacy from the region’s industrial past – the effects of which unfortunately continue into the present.

One of the most toxic of those witches brew of chemicals is mercury, and one of the major sources of the mercury to the entire Newark Bay is a chemical plant in Newark known as Troy Chemical Corporation.

[also look at long known occupational exposure risks at Troy Chemical]

Here’s the history on mercury and the Troy Chemical Co, from a NY Academy of Sciences study (scroll down to Mercury Study):

• EPA Finally Acts

So, after:

• decades of scientific study of a place with perhaps the highest toxic mercury levels in the world,
• serious violations of environmental and OSHA laws (see this and this and this and this),
• massive off site releases of mercury,
• ongoing exposure of people to highly toxic mercury, and
• no effective cleanup plan or operations underway,

Finally, in December 2013, the US EPA proposed to list the Troy Chemical site in Newark on the federal Superfund “National Priorities List” (NPL). [see EPA’s Hazard Ranking Scoring (HRS) of Troy].

EPA explained why the site poses enormous health risks to Newark residents, fishermen, and the ecosystem of the entire Newark Bay complex: (EPA press release)

(New York, N.Y.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today proposed to add the Troy Chemical Corp. site in Newark, New Jersey to its Superfund list of the country’s most hazardous waste sites. Past industrial activity at and in the vicinity of the site, including the manufacture of chemicals, has contaminated Pierson’s Creek, which flows into Newark Bay. Sediment in the creek contains elevated levels of mercury and other pollutants. Previous testing by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection showed that some sediment in Pierson’s Creek contained as much as 60% mercury by weight. [Note: that’s 600,000 ppm]

Exposure to even small amounts of mercury can damage people’s nervous systems and harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and immune system. Children and pregnant women are especially vulnerable. 

“Mercury is an extremely toxic metal, making it imperative that we make the cleanup of the Troy Chemical Corporation site a priority,” said Judith A. Enck, EPA Regional Administrator. “Mercury from Pierson’s creek is a significant source of contamination in Newark Bay and puts the health of people who eat fish from these waters at risk. By adding the site to the Superfund list, the EPA can ensure that a thorough investigation and cleanup takes place at the Troy Chemical site.”

According to EPA, even the Christie Administration DEP supports the NPL listing – by letter of Aug. 9, 2011:

In 2011, the EPA received a letter of support for placing this site on the NPL from the State of New Jersey.

• Wolff & Samson joins the fray – EPA Backpedals

Curiously, a review of the EPA’s Administrative Record  shows that EPA quietly extended the public comment period, but individually notified the notorious NJ law firm of Wolff & Samson via a January 14, 2014 letter!

EPA also wrote an individual letter to powerful DC law firm Steptoe & Johnson on Jan. 13, 2014.

[if that link fails, for access to the record enter EPA-HQ-SFUND-2013-0635 at the website regulations.gov] 

EPA extended the comment period without the usual formal Federal Register Notice –  instead, below the radar, EPA quietly extended the comment period from February 10, 2014 closing to March 27, 2014 – just enough time to allow Greenwald’s  letter.

Will Troy Chemical now become another notch on Wolff & Samson’s notoriously corrupt belt?

• Greenwald Weighs In

So why did Assemblyman Greenwald write a March 18, 2014 letter to US EPA Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck, demanding that she back down and not list the Troy Chemical site, a site 80 miles away from his district and in an environmental justice community?

(I wonder how Greenwald would feel if Newark Senator Rice wrote EPA to block protections for his wealthy white constituents in Cherry Hill?)

Greenwald wrote to EPA on March 18, 2013.  His attack was not limited to the EPA proposed Troy Chemical NPL listing, but also praised Troy Chemical, criticized the entire Superfund program as a “time consuming cost prohibitive process“, and mentioned his NJ State legislation. Greenwald wrote  [see EPA Administrative Record for full letter]:

Designating Troy’s Newark facility a Superfund site only would serve to hurt its current manufacturing employees, a segment of New Jersey’s workforce that is critically important to the state’s long term economic growth. Having recently been briefed on Troy’s current remedial efforts pertaining to its Newark property, I believe that this remedial effort must be allowed to continue without delay….

As an elected official I feel it is necessary to also mention that Troy is a good corporate neighbor to Newark. …

Additionally, I am the sponsor of legislation at the state level that would require the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to prepare a report and conduct a public hearing prior to recommending a site for inclusion on the federal Superfund list

Does that photo or this look like the behavior of a “good corporate neighbor”? What was Greenwald thinking?

• Greenwald Legislation

We testified against and wrote about the Greenwald legislation. Because Greenwald raised that legislation in his EPA letter, so I must digress and mention a few items on that (see:

• Christie DEP Says Decision to Recommend That EPA List A NJ Toxic Site on federal Superfund Is “Not a Public Process”
• STATE PUSH BACK AGAINST FEDERAL SUPERFUND DESIGNATIONS
• NJ Legislators Propose To Change State Role In Superfund Site Listing Process

First, Assembly Environment Committee Chair Grace  Spencer, a black woman who represents Newark and who talks the talk on environmental justice, co-sponsored the Greenwald bill, posted the bill for hearing back in March, and voted in favor of the bill.

But despite my direct questions to her in testimony about what the objective of the bill was and what its impacts would be on NJ communities, Spencer never once mentioned the Troy Chemical site in her District.

Second, more recently, in June the bill was posted and heard in the Senate Environment Committee. After allowing DEP to testify, Chairman Smith tabled the bill before allowing anyone but DEP to testify. Smith asked DEP point blank about the purpose of the bill – specifically why Greenwald sponsored it. DEP verily clearly responded that the bill was a result of a prior controversy about a Superfund site in Greenwald’s district.

Now I know why Smith didn’t want any testimony on the Greenwald bill. This is quite a horror story.

Are we now to believe that neither Chairman Smith nor DEP knew about the Troy Chemical NPL listing controversy?

• Full Court Press – Greenwald Not Alone – Attack Is Not Limited To The Troy Chemical Site

Greenwald’s attack comments were joined by a host of powerful NJ political players.

They include Newark Senator Rice, Morris County Republican Senator Bucco, Essex County Freeholders, Morris County Chamber of Commerce, the NJ Chemistry Council, the NJ Business and Industry Association, Commerce and Industry Association, the NJ law firm representing Troy,  Steptoe & Johnson (DC law firm also representing Troy), and the law firm for property owner “429 Delancy Associates” – [see EPA Administrative Record for these comment letters]

Not surprisingly, the NJ Chemistry Council and NJBIA stressed NJ’s failed and privatized voluntary cleanup program and DEP oversight as the better alternative than federal Superfund. Corporate polluters love that toothless DEP and privatized scam.

The Port Authority is involved, as is Wolff & Samson – my guess is that is the political power behind this campaign.

BTW, a gentleman by the name of Rocco Ruggiero warned EPA that he planned to purchase the site – I wonder what’s up with Rocco and his friends and financiers. Sounds like an interesting backstory.

And the only environmental comment came from NY/NJ Baykeeper. And those comments were right on point (but focused heavily on DEP Clean Water Act Section 303(d) water quality impairments and mercury fish and shellfish consumption advisories, but should have included the historical scientific work I link to above).

• What’s Next? –  Gut Checks All Around

So, with all these power politics going on behind the scenes, will EPA fold?

Will the NJ press write this amazing story of corrupt politics?

Will environmental lobbyists and environmental justice advocates hold the urban democrats accountable for betraying their constituents and corporate shilling?

Where’s the new People’s Mayor, Ras Baraka on this issue?

The whole world is watching!

We’ll keep you posted.

[End Note Policy Questions:

Why is the powerful law firm Steptoe & Johnson (DC Office) involved?

There must be national Superfund program angles – could be related to 1) off site releases into Newark Bay, 2) apportionment of liability for a huge multi-source regional problem (a la Hudson River PCB) 3) the man made ditch (a currently hot Clean Water Act issue), 4) ongoing State level voluntary cleanup site triggering EPA Superfund, and 5) operating facility triggering EPA Superfund. Of course, PEER has raised the “black box” Superfund listing issues at a national level (see this and this).

Lesson #1: Make it Easier to Build, at Higher Density, Closer to the Water, In High Risk Areas 

Given conflicts with FEMA and NFIP regulations, the Obama Administration must intervene to block the adoption and implementation of these rules

My “Top 10″ list of the most absurd DEP “lessons learned” from Sandy

This story is so bizarre and so outrageous, it really needs Jon Stewart or Steve Colbert to tell it –

Or maybe Matt Taibbi could create a jersey shore variant of his giant vampire squid metaphor (Barnegat Bay jellyfish perhaps?)

DEP just proposed a massive 1,000 page rewrite of decades of coastal management rules.

DEP Commissioner Bob Martin explains why in a June 10, 2014 press release:

The changes were borne of DEP’s knowledge and experience concerning coastal development issues accumulated over decades, as well as specific lessons learned in rebuilding from Superstorm Sandy and other severe weather events.

So, just what lessons did DEP learn and how did they strengthen regulations to address those issues?

John Miller of the New Jersey Association of Flood Plain Management summed it up nicely – according to Miller, a nationally recognized expert, the DEP’s proposed rules would increase public safety risk and are inconsistent with federal FEMA and National Flood Insurance Program requirements.

Miller testified at the final public hearing in Tuckerton earlier this week – here’s Kirk Moore APP story quoting Miller:

On a larger scale, the rules will have public safety implications, warned John A. Miller of the New Jersey Association of Flood Plain Management, a group that includes engineers and emergency planners. Critics say the rules consider as coastal centers for future development places such as nearby Mystic Island, a lagoon area that was inundated with many older homes totaled during Sandy. …

“We know the flood rule has inconsistencies with the National flood Insurance Program” that could surprise owners of rebuilt, elevated homes when they go to buy flood insurance, he said, adding flood-plain managers would be glad to help the DEP fix that.

No wonder Miller complained that although he and his members were “subject matter experts”, that DEP failed to invite them to the Stakeholder negotiations used to develop the rule. Critics need not apply.

But while shutting out subject matter experts who honor their licensed mandate to protect the public’s safety, the DEP does accommodate special interests:

Most recently, the Department made presentations regarding the rules to the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey, the New Jersey Builders Association, and the League of Municipalities. (@ page 5)

At a minimum, given the inconsistencies with FEMA and NFIP regulations, the Obama Administration must intervene to block the adoption and implementation of these rules.

Congress should be involved as well – they pony up billions of federal taxpayer dollars to bail NJ out after Sandy and Gov. Christie responds by making the risks to people and property even worse, and in violation of federal requirements? Are you kidding me?

Getting back to the Tuckerton meeting – Jeff Tittel of Sierra Club, Helen Henderson of Littoral society, NJ Surfrider, and retired US Fish and Wildlife Service professional Robert Burr – a Little Egg Environmental Commission member – also testified and flagged bizarre flaws.

Here’s my “Top 10” list of the most absurd DEP “lessons learned” from Sandy:

• make it easier to build, closer to the water, at higher density, in flood hazard areas
• reduce DEP oversight and public participation in development decisions that effect us all
• allow private marina’s to expand into shellfish habitat, which was previously prohibited
• dredge up more toxic sediments and make it easier to dispose of them, without knowledge of surrounding homeowners

(a new special area rule addressing existing dredged material management areas)

• make it easier to apply more pesticides

(permit-by-rule for the application of pesticide within coastal wetlands to control invasive plant species at proposed N.J.A.C. 7:7-4.21;  general permit for the application of pesticide within coastal wetlands to control invasive plant species at N.J.A.C. 7:7- 6.32 

• make it easier to destroy dunes
• allow built structures to destroy submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), which was previously prohibited. SAV is crucial habitat needed to assure fish and shellfish survival.
• promote “riparian restaurants” by allowing their construction closer to the water

(7:7-9.26 (h) The construction of a restaurant at a marina facility is acceptable within the riparian zone provided it meets the standards of N.J.A.C. 7:7-15.3(d)8. 

• ignore projected sea level rise and climate change and the need for adaptation plans
• ignore the need for any kind of regional shore plan to guide regulatory policy and development

(and I didn’t mention them all – bizarro stuff like encouraging building on piers, promoting Hudson River waterfront development in places blasted by Sandy, and reducing waterfront buffer and setbacks).

The public comment period closes on August 1 – here is information on how to submit comments. (the electronic comment form is here)

But, honestly, I wouldn’t waste my time – DEP only listens to hand picked “by invitation only” friendly and supportive Stakeholders.

Best to contact your legislator and demand that these rules be struct down as “inconsistent with legislative intent”.

[Update: 7/12/14  -To illustrate the regulatory games DEP is playing, here is an example of a loophole – allowing developers an alternate demonstration to determine whether a forest exists. This invites abuse and are the kind of vague regulatory standards that create technical disagreements that consume resources and delay permit processing.

Clear enforceable standards that clarify expectations and give DEP a strong basis to say “NO” to developers are what can make permit review more efficient, not the kind of  bureuacratic “streamlining” that DEP has done, i.e. permit by rule, certificates, GP’s, etc. DEP knows tis based on yeas of experience in the land use programs, wetlands, and C1 stream buffer field delineations – all prone to abuse.

7:7-13.5 Determining if a site is forested or unforested

[a) – b)]

EPA has abdicated a federal Superfund cleanup decision to local government development schemes

When the Bergen Record reported on the EPA’s Ringwood Superfund cleanup deal days ago, I found it hard to believe that EPA agreed to change the preferred remedy – the complete excavation of toxic waste – to a typical “pave and wave” cap, explicitly acknowledged by EPA to save Ford some $30 million.

[Update Note: I was not aware that NJ DEP expressed “no opinion at this time‘ on EPA’s compromise “contingency remedy” OCDA.]

I wrote to criticize that (see this and this) and fired off a letter to EPA Regional Administrator Enck. My letter raised basically two issues:

• was the decision consistent with and meet the requirements of EPA Guidance?
• why did EPA ignore the NJ Highlands Act?

In fairness to EPA, below I print EPA’s full response I received yesterday afternoon.

EPA’s reply and overall decision raise at least the following troubling issues:

1) The role of land use in cleanup decisions

Under EPA Superfund laws and regulations, EPA must consider a number of things when making cleanup decisions – they are of three different types, for a total of 9 overall criteria .

Note that these criteria are not given equal weigh – especially cost, which is just one of 5 balancing criteria and can not over-ride the threshold criteria (see 40 CFR Part 300):

(A) Threshold criteria. Overall protection of human health and the environment and compliance with ARARs (unless a specific ARAR is waived) are threshold requirements that each alternative must meet in order to be eligible for selection.

(B) Primary balancing criteria. The five primary balancing criteria are long- term effectiveness and permanence; reduction of toxicity, mobility, or volume through treatment; short-term effectiveness; implementability; and cost.

(C) Modifying criteria. State and community acceptance are modifying criteria that shall be considered in remedy selection.

EPA based the selected preferred remedy – complete removal of waste material – in part by consideration of the preference for permanent remedies and assumptions about future land use.

To allow the “cap” or “contingent remedy”, EPA also considered what they called in press reports “cost-effectiveness”, an undefined term I could not find in the regulations or the Ringwood ROD.

But I want to focus for today on land use, not costs.

EPA’s assumed future land use for the site was “open space”. All other factors equal, open space lands have inherently lower risks than developed lands due to less human exposure potential. Less exposure, less risk.

That’s why its a bad idea to build housing on contaminated sites. It is also why permanent remedies (complete removal) are preferable to a cap.

EPA rejected a cap at the Ringwood site due to “concerns about the long-term maintenance of a cap assuming either unrestricted access, or access by trespassers.”

EPA revised their initial future land use assumption and reversed the preferred permanent removal remedy to allow a cap when Ringwood officials proposed a recycling center on the site, with asphalt that would serve as a cap.

So EPA has created the absurd policy where developed sites get less cleanup than non-developed open space!

This policy invites development and human exposure to partially cleaned up capped sites.

That’s the opposite of what should occur from a risk perspective – developed sites with human occupation and exposure potential should be more completely cleaned up than remote sites with little or no permanent human occupation and ongoing exposure risk.

Which takes us to our next concern.

2) the role of local government in cleanup decisions

If local officials can simply propose new development or revise the local master plan and zoning ordinances to invite development to toxic sites – and EPA accepts those local future land use plans as dispositive as they did in the Ringwood case – that in essence delegates the cleanup decision to local officials.

EPA has abdicated a federal Superfund cleanup decision to local government development schemes.

Under this kind of EPA approach, what is to stop any other local government from working with polluters to craft similar schemes?

The corporate polluters save billions in cleanup costs, the local governments gets new development and tax ratables, and shakes down some corporate graft, like a firetruck, community center or local park.

This completely undermines the Superfund scheme. It makes federal decisions that are supposed to be based on protecting health and the environment in essence local economic development decisions.

3) Why is the NJ Highlands Act not considered an “ARAR”?

EPA Superfund decisions must consider what are called “ARAR’s” – an acronym for what EPA agrees are state environmental requirements.

I sent EPA RA Enck this request regarding the Higlands Act and ARAR’s – EPA’s reply did not address this issue:

You should ask Walter Mugdan why the ROD explicitly notes the jurisdiction of the NJ Highlands Act with respect to recognizing progress the Borough of Ringwood has made, but not with respect to an ARAR guiding the remedial action.

Ask Walter and Regional Counsel to review Sections 80 and 81 of the Highlands Act, which amended NJ cleanup laws to require that “remediation” be “consistent with the Highlands Regional Master Plan”.

So not only Highlands Land USe restrictions apply, but remedial requirements as well (FYI, I worked on drafting that bill when I was with NJ DEP representing the McGreevey Administration).

How can EPA recognize the Highlands Act for a recycling center in terms of DEP permitting and Highlands Council review, but not for the underlying remediation?

The Highlands Act should be recognized by EPA as an ARAR as a result of the Act’s land use restrictions and water quality standards, especially the non-degredation policy designed to protect Highlands drinking water.

Dear Mr. Wolfe:

Regional Administrator Judith Enck has asked me to reply to your email of July 2 regarding the Record of Decision (ROD) for the Ringwood Mines Superfund site issued by EPA Region 2 on June 30.

You assert that the “contingency remedy” included in the ROD for the O’Connor Disposal Area (OCDA) is inconsistent with EPA guidance.  We disagree.

It is EPA’s policy to consider anticipated future land use when selecting cleanup actions at Superfund sites.  Prior to September, 2013 it had been EPA’s assumption that the future use of the OCDA would be as open space.  Under that assumption, EPA’s September 30, 2013 Proposed Plan proposed, and EPA’s June 30, 2014 ROD selected complete removal of the waste materials in the OCDA as the appropriate remedy.  As explained in the ROD, EPA made this selection because of concerns about the long-term maintenance of a cap assuming either unrestricted access, or access by trespassers.

In September, 2013 the Borough of Ringwood – the governmental authority with jurisdiction over local land use and the owner of the OCDA – informed EPA that the area will be reused for the Borough’s relocated recycling center.  Such reuse would involve, among other things, restricted access and placement of asphalt paving as a cap.  Under that land use assumption, capping the OCDA will effectively prevent exposure to waste material and be fully protective of human health and the environment.   EPA’s Proposed Plan and ROD therefore also included a contingency remedy allowing consolidation of the waste materials in the OCDA and capping of those wastes, provided that the Borough timely moves forward with its plan to relocate its recycling center on this area of the site.  The Proposed Plan and the ROD included specific conditions or criteria that must be satisfied by the Borough in order for the contingency remedy to be invoked.

The EPA guidance that you cite authorizes contingency remedies.  The guidance states that both the selected remedy and the contingency remedy must satisfy applicable statutory and regulatory criteria; both must be described fully; both must be evaluated fully using the nine criteria specified in the National Contingency Plan; and the criteria that will be used to decide to implement the contingency remedy should be identified.  The Ringwood Mines ROD fulfills all those requirements.

Sincerely,

Walter Mugdan, Director

Emergency & Remedial Response Division

 

Great Bay Boulevard, Tuckerton, NJ

On The Road

Direct forcing includes the conversion of ,43% of Earth’s land to agricultural or urban landscapes, with much of the remaining natural landscapes networked with roads. ~~~

Rapid climate change shows no signs of slowing. Modelling suggests that for ,30% of Earth, the speed at which plant species will have to migrate to keep pace with projected climate change is greater than their dispersal rate when Earth last shifted from a glacial to an interglacial climate, and that dispersal will be thwarted by highly fragmented landscapes.  [Source]

[Update: 7/10/14 – Kirk Moore has a good story on the hearing:

Critics make last pitch against NJ coastal rules

.

[…] A state task force began working on the new rules a year before Sandy, part of a promise by Gov. Chris Christie’s administration to rationalize and streamline the thicket of Department of Environmental Protection rules. …

“We’re the only state in the Northeast that doesn’t have a (climate) adaptation plan,” said Bill Wolfe of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a frequent critic of the Christie administration.

Stemming from the administration’s push to deregulate, he said: “This is the outcome.”

Wolfe said opponents of the change need to fight it in the state Legislature. The Sierra Club’s Jeff Tittel saw another outcome.

“Nature is going to throw this rule out because a lot of these areas will flood again,” he said.

end update]

This is our 1,800th post, so we go with a fun format.

I stopped 4 times in less than a mile to let turtles cross the road.

There were plenty of birds and other spectacular scenes today, but the greenheads were vicious so I spent little time shooting, and lots more time swatting.

Another species of Green Heads hammered DEP on their coastal rules (Watch TV clip).

That bump on my temple is courtesy of one I missed.

Read a killer Op-Ed on the DEP rules by Bill Potter:

• WHY DOESN’T THE STATE DEP BELIEVE IN GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE?

More to follow on today’s final public hearing and the rule proposal.

Curious coincidence: I criticized the pesticide provisions of the DEP rule, which would encourage greater use of pesticides – allegedly to control invasive plants. And sure enough, as I was leaving, almost got sprayed by this guy – wonder what he was spraying? Suspect mosquitos Thoughts?

 

Will Our Kids or Grandkids Ever Ice Skate Outdoors In NJ Again?

 

[Update: 12/31/14 – just learned that the above mural is part of the Living New Deal inventory, and it is titled: “Skating on Bonaparte’s Pond” – there are 25 other NJ New Deal Art Projects inventoried – check it out here.]

Skating away —
skating away —
skating away on the thin ice of the New Day.  ~~~ “Skating Away on the  Thin Ice of The New Day”  (Jethro Tull – listen)

It’s about 95 degrees right now.

I walked over to the Post Office to mail some bills.

Entering the building was like walking into a cool dark cave.

But, as I waited in line for stamps, my eyes were drawn to the mural above the door to my left.

It’s a wonderful example of New Deal Art – something we don’t do anymore. The Art – or the Post Office.

(BTW, to learn the history, I Googled “Bordentown NJ Post Office mural” – and got zero hits. In contrast, I get millions of hits for cat pictures, but none for a lovely mural).

A fact which immediately made me angry as I chatted with my neighbors about the mural and what it  meant. All agreed I had a good point.

In addition to the decline in arts and culture, Post Offices, libraries, museums, schools, parks, trails, forests, reservoirs, hospitals, public housing, and infrastructure that were built during the New Deal period now are closing or crumbling or shrinking into decrepitude and neglect.

Or being sold off and privatized for pennies on the public dollar.

Literally, a war on All things public – a deep austerity at home while we waste billions on obscene wars and imperial military adventures and The National Security State.

As a result of the abandonment of the New Deal politics in favor of Neoliberal Wall Street finance capitalism and austerity at home – coupled with an imperial foreign policy and “Free Trade” abroad – US unemployment, debt, home foreclosures, bankruptcies, homelessness, prison populations, urban race and income segregation, inadequate education,  deindustrialization, insecurity, rage, drug abuse, domestic violence against women, and hopelessness are at all time highs.

Some have even described our times as “The New Jim Crow” – we live in “surreal times” –  suffering “The New Gilded Age” – living under a system of “Managed Democracy – Inverted Totalitarianism“.

But aside from the political questions, there was a much deeper and more troubling question: the scene depicted in that mural is gone as well.

And unlike the dismantling of the New Deal, which can be rebuilt (see the wonderful efforts to do just that over at The Living New Deal), the skating – and the climate it relied on –  ain’t coming back  [and the “Polar Vortex” is weather, not climate].

Yes, it’s 95 degrees out right now, but we won’t see many more years of outdoor ice skating.

But what will we say when our grandchildren will look at that mural and ask us –

“Hey Pop, what are those kids doing? Looks pretty cool!”

I wish I had a river
I could skate away on.  ~~~ “River”  (Joni Mitchell, listen)