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DEP Claims Buildings are an “Attractive Nuisance” – Claims No Trees To Be Cut

D&R Canal Commission Approves After Visual & Stormwater Review

restroom crumbles at Bulls Island (November 8, 2014)

The DEP’s proposal to demolish the rest rooms and other campground infrastructure at Bulls Island was approved by the D&R Canal Commission at the regular November monthly meeting.

According to D&R Canal Commission Director Marlen Dooley, the DEP plan:

includes removal of the campground buildings, and will not affect existing trees or roads within Bulls Island 

Curiously, the DEP demolition and the permanent camping elimination plan is NOT included on DEP’s Bulls Island website and I could find no press release announcing that major decision. DEP issues almost a daily press release, so why would they want to keep this story quiet?

It is either an amazing coincidence, or my radar must have been working pretty good (again). Either that, or else DEP is monitoring me!

Just 11 days prior to this November 19, 2104 Canal Commission meeting, in a post about the hypocrisy of seeking new “stewardship” funding for private lands while supporting deep cuts to the State Parks capital budget, I posted a series of photos of decrepit State parks infrastructure, including Bulls Island, see:

• Stewardship – For Whom? Public Parks or Private Lands?

At least the debate about camping at Bulls Island is over.

So, let’s hope this is the first step towards officially designating the Island a Natural Area and that the next step is removal of the road pavement.

Let’s assume it includes removal of the playground and all other infrastructure, and that it really will be done without cutting any trees, despite the fact that my most recent visit on Nov. 8, 2014 found that many massive sycamore’s are still tagged, in some cases with what appears to be entirely new trees ID’d or others with more recent tape, like this one:

Sycamore appears to be ID’d with new tape (11/8/14)

And let’s hope this is not DEP’s nose under the camel’s tent strategy, or Phase I operation of dredging up the discredited Zombie “dangerous tree” removal plan the D&R Canal Commission rejected almost exactly a year ago, back on December 18, 2013, see:

• D&R Canal Commission Rejects DEP Bull’s Island Tree Cut Plan

The D&R Canal Commission next meets on Wednesday December 17, 2014 at 10 am at their Prallsville Mills office in Stockton, NJ.

For those interested in the details of the demolition project, see the November 19, 2014 meeting minutes:

campsite where camper was killed, overgrown. Let’s hope DEP removes this too.

New Sewage Plant Would Lower Water Quality, Spur Sprawl

Public Unaware of Environmental, Recreational, Land Use, & Economic Implications

Astonishing Reversal of 25 Years of Water Quality Planning

Crosswicks Creek – at location of proposed new sewage treatment plant (Rt. 537 bridge, Plumsted Township)

[Important Update below]

The Christie DEP has reversed or weakened many longstanding environmental policies and regulations at the DEP since taking power in 2010, but this may be one of the more significant and egregious, with potential to establish a number of damaging statewide precedents.

The DEP is proposing to approve a new sewage treatment plant on Crosswicks Creek, an environmentally sensitive low flowing tributary to the Delaware River, flowing though the ecologically spectacular Trenton/Hamilton marsh.

Here are the relevant regulatory documents I’ve been able to obtain – the public hearing is Wednesday December 17, 2014 at 4 pm – a real Christmas present, eh?:

• Draft NJPDES Permit
• antidegradation analysis
• socio-economic analysis

The new plant is designed to serve new downtown and sprawl growth (400+ units on a 150 acre tract) and is being justified due to failing septic systems and the inability of local homeowners to pay for replacing those failing septic systems (this is an argument we regularly hear to extend sewer lines, but rarely to build a new plant with new capacity).

[* Here is the New Egypt Redevelopment Plan that calls for sewers.]

For about 25 years, DEP has set increasingly strict water quality standards and an increasingly aggressive “anti degradation” policy that seeks to prevent the decline in water quality in NJ’s few high quality rivers and streams.

Additionally, DEP presided over a statewide policy that, in concert with strong public opposition and elimination of federal construction grant funds, made it very difficult – if not impossible – to build a new publicly owned sewage treatment plant.

After 20 years of watershed planning, DEP recognized the importance of protecting headwater streams and tributaries.

Accordingly, the DEP increasingly sought to protect low flowing streams and tributaries. The low flows in those stream provide very little, if any, dilution for sewage discharge and they are typically very sensitive to pollution.

Those water quality and watershed protection policies have resulted in closing many old small sewage treatment plants on small streams, in favor of larger regional plants.

DEP has had  an effective ban on new treatment plants to these small tributaries, particularly those to the Delaware River.

There have been extensive local efforts to protect the Crosswicks Creek watershed. Here are a few:

• Crosswicks Creek/Doctors Creek Watershed Greenway Plan

The Crosswicks Creek drains into the Delaware River near the Hamilton-Trenton-Bordentown Marsh which is recognized for its diverse habitat types. The marsh is home to a myriad of different plant and animal species. For this reason, the water quality of Crosswicks Creek and its tributaries is important to the health of the Hamilton-Trenton-Bordentown Marsh and to the plants and animals that the marsh supports. In order to address the protection of water quality, an emphasis was placed on identifying opportunities to protect riparian corridors.

• Natural Resource Inventory of Crosswicks Creek in Chesterfield, NJ

Gov. Christie’s DEP Commissioner Bob Martin, a man with zero environmental or regulatory training or experience, is oblivious to all this and has thrown all that water quality and watershed planning history out the window.

I just learned about this from my friend Tony O’Donnell and got over to New Egypt this morning for a tour.

When we walked to the location of the new plant, we surprised a red tail hawk presiding over the stream corridor.

Not so ironically, the proposed new sewage outfall pipe would discharge to the creek just 100 yards or so upstream of a Green Acres canoe launch & Monmouth County Greenway project: another failure to plan for land use and water quality – enjoy paddling in piss! (* and kayaking in krap!)

So, given DEP’s reckless promotion of this new plant, I just fired off this letter to US EPA Regional Adminstrator Enck to try to slow this thing down.

On top of the environmental outrage, there are real economic and social injustice issues too. Local homeowners are low and moderate income  – they will get whacked by new sewer connection fees and quarterly sewer bills. There is a neighborhood of Mexican/immigrant low income farmworkers where many people live in small dilapidated 2 BR house as renters – no doubt that they will face rent increase to pay. All this while downtown business get subsidized and new a new 400 unit senior age restricted developer benefit.

[It is not implausible that the end game for this neighborhood  is the racist ethnic cleansing we saw at The Gardens.]

This ought to give the public some idea of the issues at stake.

December 14, 2014

Dear Regional Administrator Enck:

Please accept this appeal on an emergent matter that is time sensitive.

I just learned that the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJ DEP) issued a draft NJPDES permit for a new publicly owned treatment plant discharge to Crosswicks Creek, a low flowing and ecologically sensitive tributary to the Delaware River, just upstream of the Trenton/Hamilton marsh in Plumsted Township.

According to the DEP public notice on the draft permit cover letter, the public comment period closed 30 days after the November 5, 2014 publication in the DEP Bulletin and local newspapers. (see draft permit:

http://www.pmua.net/pdffiles/surfacewaterpermit141031.pdf

However, the draft permit indicates that a public hearing will be held on December 17, 2014.

The NJ DEP classified this draft NJPDES permit as a “minor” permit.

According the NJ DEP NJPDES permit rules, a “minor” permit is defined: (NJAC 7:14A-1.2)

Another Dodge Foundation funded project designed to derail Statewide legislative mandates and dampen any criticism of the Christie Administration’s failures on climate change and coastal land use policies

No Blame – No Game

[Update below]

It is well known that the Christie Administration has repeatedly refused to consider climate change in various state level land use, DEP regulatory, and Sandy recovery policies and programs.

Thus stymied by Gov. Christie’s intransigence at the State level, in an effort to get something moving at the local level, a little over a month ago, a bill was heard in Trenton that would require NJ’s towns to consider climate change, storm resilience, and smart growth policies in their local Master Plan.

NJ Spotlight wrote about that bill here:

• MEASURE WOULD MANDATE SMART-GROWTH POLICIES IN TOWN MASTER PLANS

Should New Jersey towns be required to incorporate smart-growth policies and storm resiliency projects into their municipal master plans?

According to a bill (S-2424) moving through the Legislature, the answer is “yes” — especially given the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Sandy and other extreme weather on the state’s energy and environmental infrastructure.

The bill was not released from Committee that day, but it opened the debate and, if backed sufficiently by the State’s professional planning and environmental advocacy groups, the bill provided an opportunity for statewide reforms.

Not surprisingly, the bill was opposed by the NJ Builders Association (NJBA) and the League of Municipalities.

The Builders and League  argued that the bill was unnecessary, because the Towns were already authorized to conduct that planning under the current Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL) and that many towns were doing good planning along those lines.

“We are concerned with adding an additional requirement, which will drive up costs,’’ said Michael Cerra, director of government affairs for the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, which represents local governments in Trenton. “We are doing this already.’’ ..

Jeff Kolakowski, vice president of government affairs for the New Jersey Builders Association, agreed, saying the state should leave a it to municipalities to decide whether to incorporate these considerations into their master plans.

But Legislative leaders rejected these arguments, thereby suggesting that the bill was politically feasible and had some chance of leading to real statewide reforms:

Those views did not resonate with lawmakers. Codey argued he has yet to receive a single call from a mayor complaining about the bill. In the past, if a bill proved objectionable to local officials, he said his office would be flooded by calls.

Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), the chairman of the committee, added, “I don’t see this as any bad thing.’’

So, at just this critical moment, with the bill’s fate in limbo, did professional planning groups like NJ Future and environmental groups join forces and mount a public campaign in support of the bill?

Nope.

The reality is worse.

There was an indirect campaign formed.

The so called grass roots “Citizens Campaign” parachuted into the climate/land use fray, into an entirely new policy field that they have no organizational involvement in to date.

The Citizen’s Campaign is based on an organizing model that is focused at the local level and reliant upon a non confrontational “no blame approach”.

(does that mean that citizens can’t blame the Christie administration for massive policy failures or support state level legislation to mandate local action?

Just what we need, another weenie encroachment into politics and State policy under the guise of a non-political model.)

And the Citizens Campaign advocates basically exactly what the Builders Association and League argued to oppose the bill – voluntary home rule:

• Towns must plan to limit impact of future storms

[…]

Better preparation starts with better planning. Towns must explicitly incorporate flood protection and stormwater management into their master plan — the policy document that guides the use and development of land within a municipality. Doing this kind of planning, particularly around any additional infrastructure needs, provides the added advantage of moving a municipality to the head of the line for available government and private grant funds.

Toward that end, The Citizens Campaign Legal Task Force has prepared a model Storm & Flood Protection Master Plan Amendment in ready-to-adopt form for citizens to introduce and advance in their own hometowns. (Interested citizens and Planning Board members can find the resolution and an accompanying background memo on The Citizens Campaign website: www.thecitizenscampaign.org.)

The Citizens Campaign has a model local ordinance – so obviously towns must already be authorized under the MLUL, just like the Builders Assc. said, right?

Citizens Campaign’s organizing model is based on the assumption that towns will listen to rational arguments by non-political and non-confrontational “no blame” citizens and voluntarily adopt them. (all while fiercely opposed by the politically powerful builders, the banks, the land owners, and the rest of the development lobby that has produced the chaotic NJ landscape.)

NO NEED FOR STATE LEGISLATION!    NO MANDATES!     HOME RULE!     YAY!

This is beyond naive.

But it’s just what the NJ Builders Association ordered. They would not have designed a PR campaign any differently. Citizens Campaign is effectively doing their bidding

And the timing stinks to high heavens –

Dodge is funding similar ineffective local home rule based, voluntary, consensus driven, non-political efforts by NJ Future and Sustainable NJ.

[*Even if these efforts were effective – which they are not – they would only impact a tiny handful of town. So, Dodge funds an ineffective and limited approach that directly undermines statewide effective campaigns! – while starving them for resources]

So this one smells like another Dodge Foundation funded project designed to derail Statewide legislative or regulatory mandates and dampen any criticism of the Christie Administration’s failures on climate change and coastal loans use policies.

As Citizen Campaign says, that’s all part of “our signature no-blame strategy”.

No blame – No game.

[Update: 12/15/14 – Heather Taylor of Citizesn Campaign was kind enough to forward their model ordinance material.

It is worse that I suspected.

Not only is it an opportunistic (grant or fundraising driven) diversion of resources and focus that reinforces the NJBA opposition to statewide State mandates while duping well meaning citizens, it actively promotes a development agenda:

Storm resiliency should not be viewed as a bar to development, rather it seeks to advance responsible planning and design criteria to better attract development and economic opportunities, and safeguard our cities against future natural disasters.

That’s all we need – to have so called climate resilience advocates in thee “public interest” promoting efforts to “better attract development”.

The model Resolution does not even mention climate change and recommends a host of discredited engineering structures, like bulkheads, jetties and se walls, and fails to mention the use of State and local regulatory tools to restrict development in unsafe locations.

Read like it could have been written by the Builders Association.

Heckofajob Dodge!  ~~~ end update]

Christie Administration DEP and Infrastructure Trust AWOL

“Privatization, Deregulation, and Union Busting”

“Fundamentally Anti-Democratic”

Bill Being Fast Tracked – Vulture Capitalist Set to Acquire Local Public Water Systems

NJ American, private water company, Monmouth County water main break after Hurricane Irene. Source: Star Ledger

The Assembly State and Local Government Committee approved a controversial water privatization bill today, despite harsh opposition from an unusually broad array of interests (see this for background and links to the bills). The bill was amended to make it identical to the Senate version [S2412 2R].

The bill was opposed by the NJ Business and Industry Association, the BPU Ratepayer Advocate, the League of Municipalities, the Association of Environmental Authorities, the Communication Workers of America and industrial labor unions, environmentalists, NJ Working Families, women’s groups, public interest and consumer groups, and regular citizens.

The bill was approved by a 3-2 party line vote, with 2 Republicans opposing the bill because it didn’t go far enough in appeasing corporate interests because it includes a prevailing wage requirement (probably a negotiating ploy to set up a Conditional Veto by Gov. Christie to kill prevailing wage, knowing the Dems and R’s would then agree to concur with the CV and pass a really bad bill).

It was obvious that Assembly Democratic leadership did some disgraceful behind the scenes arm twisting, because 2 regular Committee members, Assemblymen Eustace (A NO vote) and Conaway were replaced by YES votes by Assemblyman Fuentes and freshwoman Assemblywoman Jimenez

Had Assemblyman Eustance been there, with the 2 R NO votes, the bill would not have had the votes to leave the Committee – no wonder he was replaced by leadership.

Chairwoman Stender’s support was so poorly justified – and her treatment of opponents so disrespectful –  it appeared that she too was following orders from leadership (ask  former Environmental Committee Chairman John McKeon what defying leadership that can result in).

Equally politically significant and revealing was who was NOT there and who did NOT testify.

Last June, the DEP and the NJ Environmental Infrastructure Trust testified at length before the Assembly Environment Committee about the DEP’s new Asset Management policy. Those organizations have the expertise and regulatory jurisdiction to finance and regulate the performance of water utilities.

The fact that they were nowhere to be seen on a bill of this significance strongly suggests the Gov. supports the bill and wants the Democrats to take the political heat for implementing his privatization agenda.

The bill would make radical changes to current law to promote privatization.

First, it would eliminate the current requirement that any privatization scheme be approved by voter referendum.

Critics called that fundamentally anti-democratic.

Second, the bill also would eliminate the current power of the BPU to review and determine if the sale of the public water system asset was “reasonable” and establish a rate of return on that “reasonable” investment.

(Under the bill, BPU can not review and must accept the sale price and then set a rate of return on investment based on that sale price. Ratepayer advocate fears this might lead to artificially high sales prices, so that the water companies could earn bigger profits. I disagree, and think the opposite will occur: public assets would be sold for pennies on the dollar and the private water companies would use thew cash cow higher water rates to generate huge profits, which would be far greater than the ROI of the asset sale price. The Vultures are buying the public system to generate cash profits, not as a real investment.)

When the bill’s supporters claim that current private water company rates are under BPU control and the bill would not change that and would protect consumers from rate increases, they are flat out lying about an essential feature of this bill. (See Senator Kyrillos’ quote for an example of that big lie):

State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) told NJ Advance Media last month that sales will not happen “willy nilly” – and many other people in the Garden State already are already supplied by private companies.

“Many, many, many people in New Jersey have private water utilities,” the senator said. “And they pay a reasonable price that’s overseen by the BPU.”

BPU Ratepayer Advocate testified in direct contradiction to Senator Kyrillos’ claim today.

So the bill not only cuts the public out of the decision about whether to sell off a Town’s most critical asset, it effectively also deregulates those sales by eliminating a big part of BPU regulatory review.

As I testified, Towns will be desperate for the kind of one shot revenue that sale of the water system would provide.  An upfront cash payment of $10 million might stabilize property taxes for a few years, but water ratepayers would face sharply increasing water rates to pay for that.

It’s a typical shortsighted one shot revenue deal.

Towns also lack the finical sophistication and engineering expertise to properly assess the value of the water system – testimony today made that clear in talking about amortization, depreciation, and valuation methodologies that are far too complex for the typical local government to evaluate.

As a result, private water companies will act like Vultures, purchasing public assets paid for by taxpayers and ratepayers for decades, for pennies on the dollar.

But in the long run, water ratepayers will get hit with significant increases to pay for those short sighted decisions.

BTW, the bill does nothing to MANDATE that private water companies actually make necessary investments – read the provision about the “asset management” stuff very closely.

Additionally, as I noted, the amendments actually made the bill WORSE from the environmental perspsective by stripping out a provision regarding salt water intrusion and the DEP water supply master plan.

The title of the bill is “The Water Infrastructure Protection Act“. Orwell lives – should be the corporate profit protection act.

As I testified, if this bill were really about protecting and improving infrastructure, it would

1) mandate asset management, including a financial plan to generate revenues to finance preventive maintenance;

2) require capital investments to meet the asset management plan targets;

3) include a requirement to be consistent with the DEP Statewide Water Supply Master Plan Update;

4) include climate change and resilience policies adopted by the Obama Executive Order on adaptation to climate change; and

5) retain current voter approval requirements 

But there is nothing like that in the bill – it is purely about protecting the profits of private water companies and shutting the public out.

[End note: I had planned to open my testimony by alluding to the fact that yesterday was Human Rights Day and that water is a human right, not a commodity, and that it was immoral to allow private corporations to control a human right.

But Chairwoman warmed me to be brief before I even began and then 2 or 3 times interrupted me by asking me to finish, so I had just a few minutes, and no time to make these points.