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DEP links to a map the flat out contradicts the claim in text

Press office spin tactics infect clean water program

[Update 2/3/16 – 6:30 pm – DEP corrected the “inadvertent error”:

Dear Mr. Wolfe:

Thank you for bringing the inadvertent error referenced in your email below to my attention. It was certainly not the Department’s intention to mislead the public about the assessment results presented in the Draft 2014 Integrated Report. The erroneous link has been removed, as you suggested. Thank you again for your interest in the New Jersey Draft 2014 Integrated Water Quality Assessment Report. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require additional information or assistance.

Sincerely, ~~~ end update]

To many, this may seem like nitpicking, an inadvertent minor error, or no big deal.

But it clearly is not.

If a scientist or writer did this, he/she would be denounced as sloppy or unethical in sourcing or interpreting or presenting data or maps illustrating the data. Here’s why.

Yesterday, DEP released the Clean Water Act Section 303(d) report (see this).

In a webpage that summarizes and presents the data from various documents, there are many examples of where DEP tried to spin what could credibly support the most favorable interpretations, while omitting or downplaying negative conclusions.

But in one case, DEP either made a significant mistake or they intentionally misled readers.

Specifically, read this text and then hit the link embedded in the text:

“Statewide, 205 miles of rivers and streams, and 2,197 acres of lakes located within 14 of New Jersey’s 958 sub watersheds fully supporting all designated uses (except for fish consumption)”

Clearly, that statement pertains to waterbodies that “fully support all designated uses” (underline in original).

To emphasize this point, the DEP even underlines the word “all” (put the cursor over the linked text before accessing and you can see the word “all” stand out as underlined for special emphasis).

However, when the reader clicks on the link embedded in the text “fully support all designated uses”, the reader is taken to a map that illustrates waterbodies that “fully support at least one designated use”.

There is a huge difference between supporting all designated uses and supporting just one designated use.

Linking to a map that contradicts the text you embed the link in is a very misleading practice.

I’ve brought this issue to the attention of the DEP manager responsible for it and demanded that it be corrected immediately. Let’s see how they respond.

Public disclosure of DEP “pre-application meetings” can put community on an equal footing

By now, it’s old news that a proposed new gas power plant – The Amwell Energy Center–  in Hillsborough NJ was cancelled by the developer, Genesis Power, LLC. Read he NJ Spotlight story:

• PROPOSED NATURAL-GAS POWER PLANT RUNS OUT OF GAS IN FACE OF STRONG OPPOSITION

I want to touch briefly on a key point that made the victory possible.

This is a victory for all the people – in Hillsborough and elsewhere – who cared, spoke out, and organized opposition.

It shows that we can win fights against giant corporations.

Of course, the victory also was made possible by local leadership and press coverage.

But a less obvious key part of the lesson learned is the strategic value of early and reliable information on DEP regulatory approvals. Access to information is power.

Keep in mind that this project came to the attention of local officials, the public, and the press as a result of an application to DEP for a wetlands delineation. That is an initial requirement for a DEP wetlands permit.

Large, complex projects typically require multiple permits from the DEP. Lawyers, engineers, and lobbyists developing those project conduct meetings with the DEP to discuss all the permit requirements and schedules for DEP reviews long before permit applications are submitted. These are called “pre-application meetings”. They are critically important, but secret and not disclosed to the public. (DEP has an Office o Permit Coordination just to provide this “customer service” – that Office is a good target for filing OPRA’s to keep track of big projects like pipelines and power plants).

The public needs to know when big projects: 1) apply for permits and 2) when project developers conduct “pre-application meetings” with the DEP.

With this information, we can be put on an equal footing with project developers and organize to block the projects before they are done deals.

As I’ve written many times, once DEP issues draft permits – which is the point in time when the public typically learns about a proposed project – it is too late.

There are several ways to make this kind of information publicly available, but the most effective would be via new legislation to require that the DEP disclose this information in some fashion – a website posting would be very easy to do.

I urge people to learn this lesson and to work for legislative reforms that can put local residents on the same footing as the developers and the DEP regulators.

Aquatic Life Support -color red shows failure to  protect aquatic life. Source: NJ DEP – 2014 draft Impaired Waters Report

Just one day after the Bergen Record published a controversial story about a USGS study that found dual sexed fish in the Wallkill River and Great Swamp, the DEP released a draft Clean Water Act Section 303(d) “impaired waters” Report for public comment (read the DEP documents here – hit the links and see if you can find your watershed or favorite stream, lake, river or Bay.)

Talk about good timing!

The federal Clean Water Act requires that States prepare, every 2 years, a water quality assessment and list of waters that do not meet the Clean Water Act’s fishable and swimmable goals, as measured by attainment of State Surface Water Quality Standards. SWQS are set to protect designated uses, and DEP develops methods to assess attainment of a designated use, e.g. aquatic life support, recreation, fishing, drinking water, etc.

The DEP is desperately trying to spin the draft 2014 Report as good news or maintenance of the status quo, but that dog don’t hunt – particularly on DEP’s continuing failure to declare Barnegat Bay “impaired”, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that it is..

Back in 2011, Governor Christie vetoed a bill that would have required DEP make an “impairment” determination based upon the available science.

That bill was re-introduced (S765) and released at the first 2016 Legislative session meeting of the Senate Environment Committee on January 25, 2016.

Rutgers scientist and world renowned expert professor Mike Kennish’s research has found that the Bay is clearly impaired and on the verge of ecological collapse: he testified the Bay was “suffering an insidious ecological decline“. Kennish presented that research in testimony to the Legislature, but DEP has ignored his work, tried to block public release of his research Report, and even attempted to smear him.

Here’s just one example of how DEP spins the data to avoid the conclusion that 99% of NJ watersheds do not meet Clean Water Act standards:

Statewide, 205 miles of rivers and streams, and 2,197 acres of lakes located within 14 of New Jersey’s 958 subwatersheds fully support all designated uses (except for fish consumption).

(* If 14 of 958 watershed meet all standards (1.46%), that means that 98.54% fail to support all designated uses, thus the 99% headline of this post. It actually could be worse, because the stream miles that fully support all designated uses are likely a subset of all stream miles in the particular 14 watersheds. I haven’t looked at the data, but I’m confident that the 205 miles of rivers and streams as a percentage of all river and stream miles would show a similar percentage, as would the 2,197 acees of lakes as a percentage of total acres of lakes. DEP hasn’t presented the data this way to frustrate or avoid these kind of conclusions. Read this DEP Report to illustrate how DEP know how to report data on river miles.).

[Update: According to DEP, there are 23,521 total river miles in NJ. That means less than 1% of stream & river miles fully support all designated uses – i.e. 205 miles of 23,521 total miles]

That is an appalling indicator of failure – and it doesn’t even include fish consumption risks, which would bring the failure rate to 100% – there is a statewide fish consumption advisory for mercury and all state waters do not meet the designated use for fish consumption due to unsafe levels of mercury in fish tissue.

And DEP did not even consider the risks of hundreds of unregulated chemical pollutants DEP knows are present in NJ’s waters, including the USGS study on dual sexed fish likely caused by unregulated chemicals that are endocrine disruptors reported by the Bergen Record.

Here are the documents that NJ DEP released today – the public comment period is just 30 days (a March 2 deadline) and there are no public hearings scheduled.

Lots of maps and stories here – I think it will take me 30 days just to read all this – we’ve asked EPA – who raised significant concern with DEP’s 2012 303(d) report – and NJ DEP for a 60 day extension of the 30 day (90 total) comment period and to  hold public hearings (3) across the state:

DEP wrote:

Links to maps displaying the spatial extent of key designated use assessment results are provided below – you might want to focus on the public water supply assessment map – too bad DEP did not identify the locations of surface water supply intake on that map:

• Recreational use assessment
• Public water supply use assessment
• General aquatic life use assessment
• Trout aquatic life use assessment

Obviously more to follow on this.