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Why are NJ pipeline opponents silent on Clean Water Act?

Is a Secret Strategy keeping their powder dry?

Care to be First Mover Mr. Fulop? Sweeney loves pipelines

[Update below – 3/14/16]

For many months, I’ve been calling on NJ environmental groups involved in various pipeline battles to focus on the Clean Water Act’s “water quality certificate” requirements as the way to kill pipelines, particularly pipelines that cross “Category One” waters.

I’ve written about NY State protests and provided laws, regulations, EPA Guidance, federal court cases, and an example in another state where a Governor used the Clean Water Act to kill a proposed pipeline and that decision was upheld by federal courts.

Activists in New York State understand the power of the Clean Water Act and have focused campaigns on Governor Cuomo, urging him to exercise what amounts to veto power under the Clean Water Act and deny a water quality certificate.

Yet, not one environmental group leader has even responded to my appeals, which have been met with crickets. No one has even picked up the phone to advise “Don’t worry Wolfe, we’re on top of it”. I see no evidence of a legal strategy and certainly none of a political campaign. I can only assume that the groups are clueless and nothing is getting done.

Instead of mounting a public campaign to pressure Governor Christie and the NJ DEP to deny Clean Water Act approvals, in the latest example (the third), the PennEast campaign, led by NJCF, has again spent a lot of money on an expensive consultant’s economic study, see:

• PennEast pipeline unnecessary, would increase gas rates, study says

Meanwhile, as NJCF PennEast activists diddle with FERC and high priced consultant economic studies, the NY State activists have achieved another victory under the Clean Water Act:

Constitution Pipeline delayed

ALBANY — A proposed 124-mile pipeline to deliver low-cost gas from Pennsylvania’s shale gas fields to New York and New England has been delayed for lack of a state water quality permit.

Constitution Pipeline Co. said Thursday it’s changing its projected start of service from the fourth quarter of 2016 to the second half of 2017. The company says it won’t finish clearing trees before the end of March, as required to avoid harm to nesting birds.

The company has completed felling trees along the Pennsylvania leg of the project. But work can’t begin in New York until state regulators issue a water quality certification.

Environmental groups and some residents are lobbying New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to deny the permit, saying the pipeline will pose human health and environmental risks. (hit link above for complete story)

So, I’ll say it again: NJ’s well endowed anti-pipeline groups must spend money on water quality consultants – not economic consultants – and mount a public campaign that focuses on Gov. Christie and DEP’s powers under the Clean Water Act.

It will take an all out political campaign – not a secret legal brief – to pressure Gov. Christie and DEP to use their Clean Water Act powers – and even if it fails, such a campaign would lay the foundation for litigation and frame the issue for the next Governor and DEP Commissioner.

All the candidates vying for Gov. right now should be asked to pledge to invoke CWA power to block pipelines.

Care to be the first mover, Mr. Fulop?

[Update – 3/14/16 – just got word that the Transco stream encroachment permit was administratively appeal by PPA:

Did EPA Use Federal Grant Funds to Co-Opt Opposition?

The Green Mafia Strikes Again

I’ve been highly critical of how corporate and Foundation money is used to manipulate and co-opt environmental groups, whom I’ve criticized as “The Green Mafia”.

This story shows that those same corrupt dynamics are not limited to conservation and “sustainability” groups, and that the co-optation funding tactics used by Foundations and Corporations also are employed by State and Federal governments as well to buy political loyalty.

The EPA’s Superfund decision to cap highly toxic dioxin laced sediments in a small portion of the Passaic River – a plan supported by the pro-corporate anti-environmental Christie DEP (of Exxon repute) – left me scratching my head:

Why would environmental advocacy groups that purport to represent the people of Newark – a disproportionally impacted State designated “environmental justice” community who has suffered toxic poisoning for decades –  support EPA’s compromised cleanup plan that caps pollution in the river and not demand a complete permanent cleanup, EPA’s original preferred remedy of bank to bank dredging?

Why NOT demand the most protective cleanup that can be justified by science and technology, particularly with a large group of multi-billion corporations firmly on the hook for the cleanup costs?

For  summary of the issues and positions taken by the various groups, see EPA’s “Community Acceptance” discussion on page 77 of the ROD – especially note this, which is self explanatory:

Companies that have received notices of potential responsibility that submitted comments all opposed a bank-to- bank remedy, and most supported the CPG’s “Sustainable Remedy.”

EPA’s selection of Alternative 3 (Capping @ $1.38 billion) saved the corporate polluters $1.46 billion – the permanent cleanup (Alternative 2 – Dredging) cost $2.84 billion.

EPA has been elevating cleanup costs and partial caps (‘pave and wave”) over more protective and more costly permanent cleanups, as well as equating Superfund law’s clear “preference for a permanent remedy” with “treatment”. This  is an abuse of the Superfund law which was deigned to protect human health and the environment, promote permanent remedies, and hold polluters accountable.

EPA capping plans have saved corporate polluter Ford millions and sold out the people of Ringwood at the Ford Superfund site – and residents righty blasted EPA.

Recently, we saw strong criticism of EPA by residents and environmental groups for similar partial EPA cleanups of the Hudson River, the Quanta Superfund site in Edgewater, the Cornell-Dubilier Superfund site in South Plainfield and the long delayed cleanup at the Dupont site in Pompton Lakes.

What makes the Passaic Superfund site different?

Why was EPA praised by two NJ environmental groups for a partial cap based cleanup when EPA is being severely criticized for that policy virtually everywhere else?

Even more curious is the question:

Why would those same so called environmental groups that are backing the EPA plan openly criticize NJ Sierra Club for demanding the more protective preferred permanent cleanup of bank to bank dredging? See:

• NEWARK COMMUNITY GROUP FEUDS WITH SIERRA CLUB OVER CLEANUP OF PASSAIC RIVER

Could it be a result of the fact that EPA funds both those local NJ environmental groups that supported the EPA’s Passaic Plan, i.e. NY/NJ Baykeeper and Ironbound Community Corp.?

NY/NJ Baykeeper is funded by EPA and therefore has a conflict of interest.

According to the Record of Decision (ROD) on the Passaic cleanup:

In 2013, the New York/New Jersey Baykeeper applied for and was awarded the [Technical Assistance Grant] TAG, and continues to be the TAG recipient. The TAG advisor also provides technical assistance to the CAG.

But that’s not all – see:

• New Jersey Organizations Use EPA Grants to Monitor Water Pollution in their Communities

(New York, N.Y.) With support of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “citizen science” grants, two New Jersey community groups have begun their final weeks of summer water pollution monitoring. The New York/New Jersey Baykeeper and Friends of the Bonsal Preserve have been using $25,000 grants to monitor water quality on tributaries of the New York/New Jersey Harbor.

Ironbound Community Corp., who also supported the EPA plan also is funded by EPA and therefore also has a conflict of interest, see:

• EPA Grant to Help Newark Community Target Environmental Problems

(Newark, N.J.) In a move that will give the Ironbound community better information about local pollution problems, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it has awarded $100,000 under its Community Action for a Renewed Environment or CARE program to the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC). The not-for-profit organization will use the funding to identify and address pollution problems in the Ironbound community, with a focus on exploring the cumulative impacts of the multiple sources of pollution and finding ways to reduce the risks that they pose.

And then there’s this corporate shakedown that ICC was involved in also might explain the lack of  focus on “environmental justice” in Newark:

We must get the corporate money that buys results and corrupts the process out of politics – and so called environmental groups as well.

No More Diversions of Clean Energy Funds

Time to fund environmental justice programs

I just read in today’s NJ Spotlight story on Newark’s lead problem that Senator Bateman will seek a $20 million diversion from the Clean Energy Fund to fund lead abatement, see:

• LEAD SCARE OVER WATER IN NEWARK SCHOOLS UNDERSCORES NJ’S TOXIC PROBLEM

That is a terrible idea – Governor Christie already has diverted over $1 billion from the Clean Energy Fund and the Open Space program was based on diversion of funding from key environmental programs, including State parks, water resources, and toxic site cleanup.

Enough is enough! We need to reject this austerity policy model and find new money.

Here is my letter to Bateman and other key legislators that explains why and proposes a new source of funding the is directly related to urban lead emissions that cause the problem as well as addresses a deep injustice in grossly disproportionate impacts on NJ’s poor and minority cities.

Take a look at where these garbage incinerators are located and how much primarily suburban garbage they burn.

These toxic polluters also emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases and they have received hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies over the years.

Ideally, they should be shut down – but until then, make them pay!

Dear Chairpersons Smith and Spencer:

Senator Bateman is quoted in today’s NJ Spotlight story on the Newark schools lead problem, suggesting he will seek a $20 million diversion from the Clean Energy Fund.

“To that end, Sen. Kip Bateman (R-Somerset) said late yesterday he would sponsor a measure to fund up to $20 million for lead abatement in Newark and other state locations. Bateman suggested using the state Clean Energy Fund to finance the effort, a source of money often siphoned off by various administrations and Legislatures for purposes beyond its original intention.”

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/03/09/lead-scare-over-water-in-newark-schools-reinforces-nj-s-toxic-problem/

I strongly urge you not to continue to go down this  road, of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Instead, it’s time to find new money to address our mounting neglected public health and environmental problems.

One significant source of new funding to address the lead issue would be a $20 per ton surcharge on disposal of garbage at NJ’s five operating garbage incinerators.

Those facilities emit significant amounts of lead into our environment, and have huge environmental justice implications given their locations and wastesheds. The wealthy suburban towns that send their garbage to NJ’s cities can afford to pick up the tab for poisoning our urban children.

The Newark Covanta facility alone burns almost 1 million tons of waste per year and is permitted by DEP to emit 13,100 pounds of lead per year.

Facilities in Camden (450,00 TPY), Gloucester (210,000 TPY), Rahway (560,000 TPY), and Oxford (200,000) also emit significant amounts of lead. Cumulatively, that amounts to over 2.5 million tons per year.

A $20 per ton surcharge would generate $50 million in new money to abate lead risks and begin to address the urban impacts of climate change.

These facilities are also major green house gas emission sources as well. As you know, climate change is disproportionately impacting NJ’s urban areas, due to high ozone levels, heat island effects, and few green spaces to absorb heat and pollution.

I suggest that $10 per ton be allocated to lead abatement programs and $10 per ton be allocated to urban parks and urban tree planting programs.

As you will recall, during our lifetimes, NJ legislature has imposed solid waste disposal surcharges for a variety of reasons, including subsidizing the construction of these incinerators.

The Resource Recovery and Solid Waste Disposal Facility Bond Act provided $168 million in zero interest loans to construct these facilities. The “McEnroe” solid waste disposal taxes provided many millions of dollars to Counties to plan and develop these facilities.

Incinerators were provided enormous additional subsidies via: 1) economic public utility deregulation of their profits, 2) long term above market energy contracts that cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as 3) allocations of then scare “private activity bond volume cap” that could have been allocated to other more socially beneficial uses, like affordable housing.

It’s time to stop subsidizing pollution and start subsidizing social and environmental needs, particularly to address environmental injustice.

I am willing to help draft the bill and look forward to your favorable response.

Respectfully,

Christie DEP Abandoned Environmental Justice and Cumulative Impact Policies

Don’t tell Hillary, but it is “raining lead in Newark, NJ”

Facility now owned by Covanta – Source: NJ DEP air permit

[See Update below, with a Booker quote that explains everything.]

The Christie DEP, seeking to avoid another Flint Michigan lead scandal, issued a press release today announcing unsafe levels of lead in Newark’s schools drinking water, see:

• JOINT RELEASE FROM DEP AND NEWARK PUBLIC SCHOOLS ON TEMPORARY USE OF ALTERNATE WATER SOURCES AFTER ELEVATED LEVELS OF LEAD FOUND IN RECENT DISTRICT SAMPLING

The DEP press release raises as many questions as it answers, particularly regarding who knew what when.

Let’s hope the press corps asks hard questions and uses OPRA and FOIA to get the actual documents from Newark Public School, DEP and EPA.

This is a breaking story that will require additional work, particularly regarding 2 recent air pollution control permits for the Newark garbage incinerator and new Hess natural gas power plant.

Good reporting also should focus on the fact that the Christie DEP has abandoned the environmental justice and cumulative impact policies of prior DEP administrations, and that EPA was challenged by environmental justice advocates for failing to adequately oversee NJ DEP’s environmental justice and air permitting efforts.

I immediately was struck by this DEP statement – because in seeking to downplay the risks of lead in drinking water, opened the door to severe criticism of the Christie DEP’s policies:

Drinking water alone is not typically associated with elevated blood lead levels. It is the buildup of lead from all sources over time that determines whether harmful health effects will occur.

So, let’s look at “all sources of lead”.

The media has recently reported how the Christie administration failed to address lead risks from old lead paint in housing.

But there has been no coverage on the lead risk from air pollution.

See the IronBound Community Corp. and NJ Environmental Justice Alliance petition for review of Hess Newark gas power plant permit, based on cumulative impacts and environmental justice.

See this for EJ challenge to the Covanta garbage incinerator permit – it outlines the environmental justice issues and the lead emissions from the Newark Garbage incinerator.

The Newark garbage incinerator is allowed to emit 6.57 TONS of lead per year – that’s 13,140 POUNDS.

How many toxic doses is THAT?

When one considers that just a tiny spec of lead is enough to poison a child, no wonder Dr. Peter Montague urged that the facility be shut down because it created “a billion lead bullets to the brains of Newark’s kids”.

Hillary Clinton, in the recent Democratic Presidential debate in Flint Michigan, made a big deal with the faux angry quote that “it’s raining lead in Flint”. That was an allusion to the Michigan State Rainy Day fund, which CLinton felt should be used too replace water lines in Flint.

But in Newark NJ, that is literally true: it IS “raining lead in Newark”!

More to follow on this story – I just wanted to get the EJ and air emissions risks out there.

[Update: This is really all you need to know: (press release)

Commenting on Covanta’s role in the community, Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. said, “Covanta Energy has been a terrific corporate neighbor and advocate for the Ironbound community. The incorporation of new technology and expanded services are continuing examples of the company’s commitment to enhancing our residents’ quality of life and protecting the environment.”  …

“Nothing is more fundamental to our wellbeing than the air we breathe,” said Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker. “This new baghouse filter represents a milestone in using advanced technology to protect public health and enhance the quality of life in Newark. As a strong advocate for this upgrade, I am proud to be celebrating today’s major achievement with Covanta and everyone else who made it possible. We look forward to deepening all our partnerships for Newark’s sustainability, so that the urban environment supports health and prosperity for all who live, work, and play here.” 

Covanta is working closely with the [Christie] New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection on all necessary permits 

The Oceans and The Atmosphere Are On Fire

This is not Arjuna – but I’d rather use my own photo as a fake surrogate than steal one from Wiki (Location: Freer Gallery, Washington, DC)

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Heres’ the full quote:

We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

While not on the tips of the tongues of the Trump Gliterati, most so called US elites know those words to have been spoken by Robert Oppenheimer, US scientist and head of the Los Alamos laboratory that developed the atomic bomb, the goal of the Manhattan Project.

Oppenheimer is reported to have uttered or recalled those words after witnessing the explosion of the first atomic bomb in 1945, ironically named “Trinity”.

But there is a far less well known Los Alamos/Manhattan Project story that serves as a more apt metaphor for our times.

Oppenheimer’s Los Alamos scientists had developed a theory and were making calculations – what we now would call a model – that suggested that if an atomic bomb were to be detonated, it might set off a chain reaction that literally could set the ocean or the atmosphere of the earth on fire and extinguish all life on the planet.

Here is a current telling of the story:

Fears Raised During the Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project scientists clearly took lighting atmospheric fire to be a serious possibility, although how they dealt with this possibility seems to be a matter of some historic contention. A 1959 interview with Pearl S. Buck with Arthur Compton, a leader of the Manhattan Project (pictured in Fig. 1 well before World War II, with fellow physicist Werner Heisenberg), tells a highly melodramatic account of these considerations. Buck starts the account with a phone call from Oppenheimer to Compton asking to meet immediately to discuss “something very disturbing—dangerously disturbing …”: [3]

Briefly, it was that the scientists under his [Oppenheimer’s] leadership had discovered the possibility of nuclear fusion (as distinguished from simple fission). In other words, the principle of the hydrogen bomb.

It was the supreme danger, tremendous and unknown, much worse than atomic explosion.

“Hydrogen nuclei,” Arthur Compton explained to me, “are unstable, and they can combine into helium nuclei with a large release of energy, as they do on the sun. To set off such a reaction would require a very high temperature, but might not the enormously high temperature of the atomic bomb be just what was needed to explode hydrogen?

“And if hydrogen, what about the hydrogen in sea water? Might not the explosion of the atomic bomb set off an explosion of the ocean itself? Nor was this all that Oppenheimer feared. The nitrogen in the air is also unstable, though in less degree. Might not it, too, be set off by an atomic explosion in the atmosphere?”

“The earth would be vaporized,” I said.

“Exactly,” Compton said, and with what gravity! “It would be the ultimate catastrophe. Better to accept the slavery of the Nazis than to run the chance of drawing the final curtain on mankind!” [3] – ~~~ end excerpt]

Can you imagine that?

Consider: Scientists actually feared destroying the planet and all living things on it, yet they soldiered on and continued to develop and detonate a nuclear bomb anyway!

Madness.

Like I said, this relatively little known story is a metaphor for our times.

Last month, satellite data showed that the northern hemisphere, for the first time, exceeded the 2 degree warming target that all the climate negations were based upon (recently lowered to 1.5 degrees in Paris COP) that could trigger irreversible and potentially runaway climate catastrophe – and extinguish civilization, see:

• Our Hemisphere Just Passed A Terrifying Milestone

No biggie.

Just like the Los Alamos scientists, we all obliviously just soldier on on the path to destruction.

Another great moment in the history of science and the progress of western civilization.

Yes, we have become the destroyer of worlds.

[Update 3/11/16 -folks might want to read this interview]