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DEP Study Shows Level of Lead In Urban Soils Far Higher Than Rural Levels

Elevated children’s blood lead & urban soil levels examples of institutional racism

Cowardice in high places

I was outraged by comments by Dr. Denise Rodgers, Vice Chancellor at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and Chair at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School quoted in today’s NJ Spotlight story:

In addition, the doctors noted that lead has long existed naturally in the air and soil in amounts that healthy bodies can shed, but high levels of the metal — which was once added to gasoline and is common in many industrial processes — are hard for most people to process. “We’ve had lead in our environment for millennia and not everybody has terrible things happen to them because of lead,” Rodgers said.

I am outraged for several reasons:

First, that “millennia” comment is equivalent to the climate deniers who claim that we’ve always had climate change. That denial claim is technically correct, but totally misleading because it ignores the incredible rate of change we are now experiencing and the fact that the cause of the change is human industrial emissions, not natural fluctuations over geological time.

Like the atmosphere & climate change, blood lead levels and health impacts have a similar rate function – the body is exposed to and excretes lead at different rates and there is a half-life of lead in the blood (estimated as 28 days in adults).

[Update: here is the federal Centers For Disease Control (CDC) on this issue:

Rodgers’ use of a phrase like “terrible things” is unprofessional, unscientific, and grossly insensitive.

Since it is not a direct quote, I will not respond to the deeply troubling claim that” healthy bodies can shed (low naturally occurring levels of) lead“.

Second, Rodgers’ comment also shows an ignorance of the actual “natural background” lead levels in New Jersey soils and their regional distribution.

NJ DEP has characterized, among other, the “natural background” levels and distribution of lead in NJ soils:

Here’s what DEP found, see: Ambient Levels of Metals in New Jersey Soil (2003):

That DEP study found that lead levels in urban areas are far higher than in rural areas:

The urban median soil lead concentration was 111 mg/kg (ppm), with a 90th percentile concentration of 257,  while the rural media was just 31.6 and 90th percentile 54 (see Table 1). (Context: the DEP residential soil cleanup standard is an astronomical 400 ppm)

So, in addition to the childhood blood lead levels, the levels of lead in soil are far higher in urban NJ – and urban NJ is where the garbage incinerators, a major source of lead emissions, are located. These are additional factors in the larger environmental justice crisis.

Rodgers also ignores the racial dimension of the problem, by attributing the “root cause” exclusively to poverty, thereby denying abundant evidence of disproportionate burdens that are highly correlated with race and the large body of literature on environmental injustice:

“Let’s also talk about the root cause, which is all these children living in poverty,” Rodgers added. Not only are poor children more likely to live in older houses that could be contaminated by lead paint, she said, but their families also don’t have the resources to remediate the problem in the way that more affluent residents do.

At the end of today’s NJ Spotlight story – which clearly was a shameful effort to downplay risks and provide cover for negligent government officials under the arrogant and paternalistic guise of preventing “panic” – there are closing paragraphs under the heading “This is not like Flint”.

The story correctly distinguishes the drinking water risks between Flint and Newark, but ignores the deep racist environmental injustice and the shared failed regulatory framework and negligent oversight by federal, state and local officials.

The later amounts to institutional racism. Period.

Ignoring the role of government officials is significant. Recall that officials responsible for Flint disaster faced criminal charges. But unlike Flint, which was an emergent problem, NJ is far worse: NJ officials have known about lead problems for years, see:

• NJ DEP Has Know For YEARS that Up to 18% of NJ Homes Have High Lead Levels

• Christie DEP Casually Notes That DEP Has Known About The Lead In Drinking Water Problem “For a Generation Or So”

In conclusion, after ignoring race, environmental injustice, a fatally flawed regulatory framework, the negligence of government officials, workplace exposures, other major lead sources, and the political power of polluters who have captured the regulators, those “experts” then proceed to essentially blame the victims and tell them to change their work clothes, dust their windowsills, and wash their hands!

Residents are urged to contact the New Jersey poison center (1-800-222-1222) for more information on prevention — including tips on how to protect against carrying contamination into the home from a parent’s workplace — and for help interpreting the results of a blood-lead level test, Calello said. They are also urged to watch for peeling paint, wipe up dust in areas where children play, especially along the windowsills of older houses, and wash their hands and their children’s hands frequently.

Shame on them all.

[End Note: DEP conducted a study on the health risks and impacts of importing contaminated soil to the Martin Luther King, Jr. school construction site in Trenton. That study found astronomically high lead levels in indoor dust on the window sills of nearby homes (3,000 ppm).

Remarkably, the DEP has since seemed to have deleted the lead dust swipe sampling data tables (see pages 63 and 90) so I can’t correctly cite the data!

DEP’s study determined that the source of the lead did not come from the school construction site and did nothing to remediate the indoor dust.

The concentration of lead across the residences was highly variable without a clear spatial pattern indicating that the soil at the construction site was not the primary source of lead for the dust around residences, but rather that lead came from leaded paint existing at the residences or from historical lead deposited in the soil from leaded gasoline used decades ago. …

The levels measured around the residences are generally higher than the levels in the soil or concrete aggregate samples on site. That, combined with the high variability suggests highly localized sources around many of the residence, most likely from old exterior leaded paint on the windows. There may also be some contribution from soil previously contaminated with leaded gasoline. This is common for an area containing pre-World War II homes of the age of this community. Thus, the transport of soil and dust from the site during construction was not a major source of lead to the community. …

Conclusions

There was evidence that soil and concrete aggregate material spread off the construction site affecting, on average, the levels of dust outside homes within one block of the site, but not inside these homes. Thus, individuals who were outside their homes during the construction would have been exposed to those materials. The lead levels in dust collected inside and outside homes are apparently related to local sources rather than offsite soil or dust transport from the school construction site.

At the time, DEP only issued a dust control directive to the School Construction Corporation folks and issued a press release, but did nothing to remediate the lead risk and warn the residents.

After my public criticism,  (see also “Calling Out Scott Weiner On School Reforms“), DEP sent a letter 4 years after the study (it is unclear exactly when DEP issued a Citizens Guide 

This is another example of grossly negligent oversight, fatally flawed regulations, and environmental injustice.

There also was another example of blatant abuse in Camden, see:

• NEW JERSEY ALTERS HEALTH STUDY UNDER INDUSTRY PRESSURE

• RESEARCH CONFIRMS ST.LAWRENCE CEMENT PLANT POLLUTES NEARBY CAMDEN WATERFRONT NEIGHBORHOOD

~~~ end]

Will NJ Gov. Murphy’s DEP Listen?

Forestry, Justice, And Urban Jobs – Essential Features Of The Green New Deal

Last week (Aug. 3), I complained about the design of NJ DEP’s program to allocate about $10 million/year in Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) funds to “carbon sequestration” (a fancy term for storing carbon in trees). I wrote:

Instead of planting millions of trees to shade and cool NJ’s cities and providing funding and jobs to urban residents and community organizations – a real environmental justice program – DEP will give money to elite groups like NJ Audubon and NJ Conservation Foundation and Mike Catania’s Duke Foundation to log forests in the Highlands and Pinelands, while issuing press releases bragging that they are fighting climate change and promoting environmental justice (and DEP’s friend Tim Dillingham of American Littoral Society will get his piece of the action for sham coastal wetlands restoration too – DEP might even find some way to fund the Gov.’s Chief Cheerleader Ed Potasnak at NJLCV and The Keep It Greed Crew. Of course, the former DEP hacks now at Rutgers will likely get a piece of the RGGI patronage as well.)

It is truly sickening.

So I was pleased to read that – coincidentally – just 4 days later, NJ US Senator Booker made a strong statement in support of exactly the kind of program I was driving at that NJ DEP should allocate RGGI funding to:   (see NJ.Com)

Planting 15 billion trees. Bringing back the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps. Restoring wetlands.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker on Wednesday proposed these measures as a way to combat climate change. The idea is to increase the amount of carbon emissions now absorbed by soil, forests and wetlands.

It is the latest of several detailed policy proposals he has issued during his run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a response to the Great Depression. This new version would hire low-income youth and those from indigenous communities and communities of color and teach them how to work in forestry and wetlands restoration.

I don’t support Booker politically, as a candidate.

And I don’t agree with all aspects of his proposal, which must be significantly strengthened, such as: 1) The proposed 2050 date needs to be accelerated by 25 years, 2) the program needs to be fully funded, preferably by fossil industry profits or assets (not sales), 3) the coastal wetlands program needs to be conditioned upon land use restrictions (no development in hazard zones) and accompanied by a funded and phased “strategic retreat” program, 4) there needs to be a specific number of jobs, $15/hour minimum wage, and job training guaranteed, and targeted to economically distressed areas (rural and urban) 5) there needs to be a rural component, not just an urban forestry program, 6) farmers need to be subject to mandatory requirements, not voluntary recommendations, 7) carbon offsets, carbon credits and carbon trading must not be part of the program, 8) the program can not be “justified” by promoting “forest health”, “young forests”, “sustainable forests” or “wildfire prevention” shams or provide funding to them, and 9) no corporate subsidies. Perhaps even more than 15 billion tress are necessary – I have no idea how Booker derived that number.

But his proposal is strongly in the right direction and warrants general support of all the national Democrats and the NJ DEP.

It is an important feature of the proposed Green New Deal and an essential component of a strategy to combat climate chaos.

In a twofer, the NJ.Com story then went on to slam Congressman Pallone, for blocking the Green New Deal:

“In FDR’s New Deal, the federal government planted billions of trees, provided conservation incentives to family farmers and ranchers, created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Civilian Conservation Corps, and electrified rural America,” said Booker, D-N.J.

“In order to address the urgent and existential threat posed by climate change, all of these approaches should be part of our broader strategy.”

Booker earlier endorsed the Green New Deal, an effort to curb the emissions contributing to climate change and creating new jobs in the process. But the effort championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is going nowhere in Congress due to the opposition of New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-6th Dist.

So glad that Pallone was called out.

The Green New Deal is the path forward.

Just like FDR pioneered his New Deal Programs as Governor of NY State – particularly the CCC forestry program – maybe NJ Gov. Murphy can get his DEP Commissioner and her  failed (thus far) climate programs on the same page.

And they leave out a lot

Gov. Murphy has corrupt cheerleaders who are lying to the public about his record

[See End Note below]

The Bergen Record published a story today that attempts to hold Gov. Murphy accountable on his climate and environmental policy record (sorry the article is behind a paywall, see:

• Phil Murphy the environmental crusader? Critics say his actions don’t make the grade

The Record got it half right  – and they left out a lot of what could have been even far harsher criticism.

I’ve been writing about all that from day one – exposing Gov. Murphy’s hypocrisy on climate and documenting Gov. Murphy and his DEP’s regulatory record – so I need to make a few clarifications of the Record’s reporting.

First of all, the article opens up with a highly misleading claim, praising Gov. Murphy for killing a proposed pipeline under Raritan Bay:

In June, Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration denied permits to a controversial pipeline that would send natural gas from New Jersey under Raritan Bay to New York City — a move that environmentalists said reaffirmed the governor’s goals to move the state away from fossil fuels.

But that’s a load of crap – 3 weeks before, NY Governor Cuomo already killed the pipeline – see the NY Times story:

• New York Rejects Keystone-Like Pipeline in Fierce Battle Over the State’s Energy Future

So Gov. Murphy’s DEP denial of permits did nothing to kill the pipeline project – the project was already dead by Cuomo’s hand (and the basis for NJ DEP’s permit denials was very different legally and technically fro NY’s and did not establish any regulatory precedent to deny pending pipelines, like the Penn East seeking wetlands and water quality certification).

NJ environmentalists heaped false praise on the governor at the time. They continue to do so, blatantly lying to the public.

The Record now again misleads readers and repeats this false praise.

The fake Raritan pipeline denial is not inconsistent with Murphy DEP’s approval of permits for the stealth Delaware River LNG plant (and that LNG project is not nearly the first major new fossil project DEP issued permits to).

Second, while the Record correctly criticizes Murphy and DEP in this strong paragraph, the truth is even worse:

He has not fulfilled his promise to reopen the Office of Climate Change, which was shuttered by former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican. Murphy has diverted hundreds of millions of dollars in environmental funds to help balance the state budget. New Jersey is one of two coastal states without climate adaptation plans

And the administration has not set forth rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions or rolled back Christie-era regulations viewed as harmful to the environment.

At the Governor’s level, Gov. Murphy’s EO 63 repealed Christie Executive Orders 1-2, but it continued the cost benefit policy and added a whole bunch of even worse policies. I wrote about that here:

• Gov. Murphy’s Executive Order On Regulatory Policy Raises Major New Concerns

At the DEP bureaucratic level, technically, the Record got it wrong. The Gov. did “reopen the Office of Climate Change” – but, as I wrote, that did absolutely nothing but mislead the public, see:

• Murphy DEP Misleading The Public On Efforts to Tackle Climate Change

As I noted in my post, DEP Commissioner McCabe’s response to legislature’s written questions specifically about the Office of Climate Change flat out contradicts Gov. Murphy’s spokesperson quoted in the Record article:

And the administration has done “far more” than just reopening the Office of Climate Change, she said, by naming a chief resilience officer and reorganizing the Climate & Flood Resilience Program, which “serves as a hub responsible for coordinating the climate change resilience and adaptation work ongoing in many programs across the DEP.”

Hit the link to my post above and read McCabe’s written responses to OLS. They contradict the Gov.’s Office spin.

More importantly, while the Record gets it exactly right here,

And the administration has not set forth rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions or rolled back Christie-era regulations viewed as harmful to the environment.

They fail to call out the NJ environmental groups that are flat out lying about this, like Tom Gilbert at Rethink NJ and cynical Ed Potosnak at NJ LCV (the lying sack of shit from the “Keep It Greed” campaign)

The Record got it exactly right – there have been no new rules and no new policies and no restoration of Christie DEP rollbacks. NONE. NADA. ZILCH.

Third, there has been no “progress” on the DEP regulatory front.

Gov. Murphy and DEP Commissioner McCabe have not been “chiseling away at the edges” of the Christie DEP’s policies:

“The rollbacks were so massive under Christie that you can’t just chisel away at the edges,” said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey. “You need a full reversal. We have seen progress on that front, but not fast enough

This is not a question of the pace of reforms or incremental versus comprehensive reforms. There are no reforms.

This is probably the best illustration of the Murphy DEP failure to reform the status quo:

• NJ Environmental Regulations Ignore Climate Change

As I’ve written numerous times, Gov. Murphy and DEP Commissioner McCabe have not only not reversed any Christie DEP regulatory rollback – the C1 buffer rule had already been vetoed by the legislature – they have embraced many Christie DEP anti-environmental pro-business policies, see:

• Murphy DEP Admits “Continuity With Christie DEP” On Dupont Toxic Fiasco

• Murphy DEP Again Maintains Continuity With Christie DEP Policy

Worse, instead of restoring protections for exceptional C1 stream buffers, the Murphy DEP has actually rolled back existing protections, see:

• After 12 Months In Office, Murphy DEP Proposes First Regulation, And It Is Awful

But you don’t have to take my word for it.

Even the Trump FEMA called out the Murphy DEP for rollbacks to critical stormwater and flooding protections, see:

• FEMA FLAYS MURPHY DEP STORMWATER PROPOSAL

Finally, there are many important environmental policy issues the Record simply ignored or lacked pace to write about  – and they falsely praised a fatally flawed RGGI – stuff like this:

• Public Lands Management – NJ DEP Is Actually WORSE Than Trump Department of Interior, BLM and Forest Service

And this:

• Who Put The “Poison Pill” Cap To Kill Renewables In Nuke Bailiout Bill?

And this:

• Murphy DEP Failing To Respond To Toxic Algae Crisis

And this:

• Murphy DEP Just Adopted The Same Electric Power Plant Pollution Standards As Trump Repeal of Obama EPA Clean Power Plan

And this:

• Murphy DEP Commissioner McCabe Asked To Re-Open Public Comment Period On Stealth Bear Hunt Secrecy Rule

And this:

• NJ DEP Commissioner McCabe is Either Lying or Incompetent On DEP Powers To Regulate “Dirty Dirt”

And this:

• Murphy DEP Commissioner McCabe Reiterates Pledge To Revise Key Highlands Clean Water Protections

And this:

• Is Murphy DEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe On The Way Out The Door?

And this:

• NJ Gov. Murphy’s Public Access Law Guts The Public Trust Doctrine

And the DEP is still bungling so the new NRD lawsuits and PFAS Spill Act Directive are destined to fail, see:

• DEP Lacks Authority To Enforce Directive Against Toxic PFOA Polluters Dupont, 3M & Dow

I could go on – interested readers should word search many prior posts – but I think you get my drift.

And finally, I hope folks will begin to realize that Gov. Murphy has a bunch of corrupt “green” cheerleaders who are flat out lying to the public about his record.

When will news reports make this point clear?

[End Note: As the Record story noted, to the Gov.’ credit, there is one regulation that the Murphy DEP did in fact strengthen protections, i.e. the upgrading of some 749 exceptional water quality stream miles to “Category One waters”.

However, even that proposal was over-sold, because the prohibition on disturbance of C1 buffers was reduced from 300 to 150 by Gov. Christie’s DEP. I explain all that in this post:

• Murphy DEP Proposes First Real Regulation – But, it is not nearly as good as it sounds

end]

“Rain Tax” Reframes A Traditional Land Use & Water Quality Issue

Algae Blooms Are Exacerbated By Climate Chaos

Conservation groups provide cover for Gov. Murphy & DEP 

The NY Times finally weighed in on the Lake Hopatcong toxic algae bloom crisis on Monday, and amazingly they somehow managed to allow insane paranoid right wing anti-government Republicans to try to reframe the debate as about a “rain tax”, see:

• Algae Bloom Fouls N.J.’s Largest Lake, Indicating Broader Crisis

And some Republican politicians have even accused state agencies of ginning up the threat as a scare tactic to promote what they call a “rain tax.”

Environment and planning advocates say that is an incorrect description of a potential solution: stormwater utilities. The utilities exist in 1,716 localities in 40 states and will be an option for New Jersey municipalities starting next month under a law signed by the Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy.

(Is that you again death tax Frank Luntz?)

Part of the reason that these crazies have been allowed to hijack the debate lies in how the NJ conservation groups responded and narrowly and self interestedly framed the “solution” to the problem, while ignoring DEP’s failure to enforce the Clean Water Act and restrict land use to protect water quality.

At the outset, we predicted that NJ conservation groups would focus exclusively on stormwater utilities and infrastructure, while ignoring talking about climate change and traditional land use and water quality policy and DEP regulation and DEP’s numerous failures.

The conservation groups ignored DEP planning and regulatory tools and framed the solution to the issue this way narrowly – and they did so for corrupt & political reasons (not based on science and law):

• a) they had worked on the weak stormwater utility bill – it is merely enabling and requires local County Freeholders to adopt it – and wanted to blow their own horn, while effectively praising Democrats and the Governor for doing virtually nothing;
• b) they wanted to let their friends Gov. Murphy and DEP Commissioner McCabe off the hook for blatant failures to enforce the Clean Water Act and adopt protective regulations (including failing to restore Gov. Christie DEP rollbacks);
• c) like virtually all Republicans and many corporate Democrats, they are anti-regulatory and don’t know about or like to talk about regulatory policy tools or climate change; and
• they are all funded by the same corporate oriented Foundations and rely on the same corporate communication consultants and lobbyists.

Painfully aware that all this was happening, over a month ago, we warned folks and laid out a real agenda:

Before we get the lame attempts at suggesting weak “reforms” (e.g. stormwater utilities) from the usual lame suspects (e.g. Highlands Coalition), we thought we’d lay out a serious reform package.

So, here’s a short to do list for DEP to respond to the current crisis and prevent or reduce the likelihood of future disasters:

We pulled no punches and named names:

The algae bloom is caused by a combination of climate change, excessive nutrient & sediment pollution loads, and failed DEP regulatory policies.

DEP lacks adequate regulations governing land use, development, stormwater, water quality, septic systems, agriculture, and forestry.

Worse, DEP lacks any strategy, comprehensive plan, or enforceable regulations to address climate change, that we know will impact water resources (i.e. DEP rules mandating greenhouse gas emissions reductions or methods to adapt to climate change).

The Christie DEP not only denied climate change, but actually rolled back DEP regulations that were designed to protect water quality, including Highlands septic density, stormwater management, flood hazard, and stream buffer protections.

After the Legislature vetoed the Christie DEP septic density rollback, the Murphy DEP effectively revoked that already invalidated rule, but has yet to address other significant Christie DEP rollbacks.

Of course the greedy green weenies wanted no part of any debate about DEP regulating forestry and agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions.

The Foundations don’t pay for that kind of stuff and their corporate Boards, funders, and elite members don’t support it either. They want politically safe, market oriented, individual, voluntary, local, private property sensitive no tax increase,, and largely symbolic gestures. Nothing with any regulatory teeth that could cost corporations and the wealthy real money or stifle their economic development plans.

For a perfect example of validation of my prediction, along comes an Op-Ed by Michele Byers of NJ Conservation Foundation, see:

• How blue-green algae blooms stole New Jersey’s summer | Opinion

Note how Byers’ Op-Ed is exclusively focused on what individuals can do – not what government can do. That is right wing framing. It is no accident. It is ideological warfare.

Byers’ Op-Ed undermines a prior far stronger Op-Ed by Jeff Tittel of Sierra Club.

Byers is following the same cynical green cover playbook of a prior NJCF Op-Ed that also undercut Tittel on holding the Murphy administration accountable on climate change.

Byers desperately wants to change the subject and divert attention away from controversial real solutions.

And Byers is willing to throw Lake Hopatcong and water quality under the bus to avoid criticizing the Gov. in hopes that he will respond to NJCF’s real priority, which is keeping the Penn East pipeline out of their elite backyards in Hunterdon County.

That’s the weeny way – we call it what it is – Fake Solutions and sabotage

Perversely, after years of denial, DEP will now use climate change to promote more logging under the RGGI carbon sequestration program

Public shut out of public lands decisions

I’ve been out west for almost 3 years now, spending the majority of that time dispersed camping and hiking in dozens of our splendid national forests and on BLM lands.

Right now, I’m in Lolo National Forest on the Montana Idaho border. Incredible beauty, healthy forests, and rugged landscape (way too rugged for this old fart!).

The local environmental news right now is a strong public outcry over recent Trump BLM “Resource Management Plans” for western Montana. (hit the links to the 2 volume EIS for the “Missoula Draft RMP”. Comments can be submitted electronically from this page. The public comment period closes On August 15, so please be sure to comment).

For my NJ friends, a quick scan of the “preferred alternative” in volume 1 of the BLM EIS turned up this gem, which explicity confirms what I suspect NJ DEP foresters are about to do.  Note how BLM explicitly confirms exactly what I’ve said the foresters in NJ plan to do (i.e.explicitly linking “forest products” and logging with “restoration”: (emphases mine)

The recent infusion of about $10 million/year in RGGI funds for carbon “sequestration” will greatly expand this current DEP forestry/public lands abuse, leading to more logging to create “young forests” to sequester carbon.

That writing is already on the wall.  (HEADS UP: DEP is seeking public comments and will hold a meeting on RGGI, so don’t miss it! But that is a meeting limited to discussion of allocation of RGGI money, not public lands management or climate change. The public doesn’t get to weigh in on those critical policy issues.)

DEP has accepted dubious scientific claims that wood products “store” carbon – thereby minimizing the carbon released by logging – and the correct but misleading claim that “young forest” sequester carbon at a higher rate than mature forest – thereby exaggerating the sequestration of logged “young forests. Even prior to the RGGI sequestration program, DEP foresters disparaged mature forests as “single age class” forests that need to be logged to improve “diversity”, “forest health” and “resilience” and to “reduce wildfire risk” and insects/diseases (caused or made worse by climate change)- this of course is exactly what the Trump folks are doing (but without highlighting the role of climate change or without an idiot like Trump talking about raking and “cleaning up the forest floor”).

In contrast to the torrent of slogans and pseudo-science DEP spouts to justify logging under various pretexts – which now include carbon sequestration – you’ll find zero specific policy and program commitments, allocation of RGGI funds, and technical standards establishing an “afforestation” program and an “urban forestry” program.

Instead of planting millions of trees to shade and cool NJ’s cities and providing funding and jobs to urban residents and community organizations – a real environmental justice program – DEP will give money to elite groups like NJ Audubon and NJ Conservation Foundation and Mike Catania’s Duke Foundation to log forests in the Highlands and Pinelands, while issuing press releases bragging that they are fighting climate change and promoting environmental justice (and DEP’s friend Tim Dillingham of American Littoral Society will get his piece of the action for sham coastal wetlands restoration too – DEP might even find some way to fund the Gov.’s Chief Cheerleader Ed Potasnak at NJLCV and The Keep It Greed Crew. Of course, the former DEP hacks now at Rutgers will likely get a piece of the RGGI patronage as well.

It is truly sickening.

Shifting gears, somewhat, today’s post was prompted by a superb Counterpunch article by George Wuethner, that explains just how radical the Trump BLM plans are.

Wuethner puts these technocratic BLM RMP decisions in context and explains the implications – I urge you to read the whole thing, see:

• Trump’s Plan to Cut the Public Out of Public Lands Decisions

An outspoken advocate for selling off our public lands, William Perry Pendley became the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management  (BLM), which oversees management of 250 million acres of public lands across the country.

Pendley is the former president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a property-rights group that regularly sues the Department of the Interior on behalf of companies that want to mine and drill on public lands.

Also, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt appointed Karen Budd-Falen for the role of Assistant Secretary for the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Parks. Budd-Falen is one of the family lawyers for the infamous Bundy Family which commandeered the Malheur Wildlife Refuge and still grazes their cattle illegally on BLM lands in Nevada.

Least we do not forget, Berhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil industry, has also directed the BLM to revise its land-use plans to eliminate protective land categories like Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, while significantly increasing the leasing of public lands to the Oil and Gas industry. The recently released BLM draft management plan for the North Central District Office in Lewistown reflects these changes in emphasis.

For today, I want to make brief bulleted points about the relevance and contrast of the Trump rollbacks for my NJ friends who are fighting very similar NJ DEP abuses.

While the NJ DEP is not led by a former head of a property rights group and the managers of DEP Division of Forestry and Fish & Game are not former oil industry lawyers or lobbyists, there are strong similarities in public management policies between the Trump administration and the NJ DEP.

Trump’s DOI, BLM and US Forest Service are seeking to:

• restrict public involvement in public lands management decisions;
• narrow the scope and depth of environmental reviews under NEPA
• increase extractive uses of public lands, particularly logging
• using pretexts and slogans like “sustainability”,”resilience” and wildfire risk reduction
• privatizing public lands management
• deregulating public lands management
• ignoring – or exploiting – the role of climate change in public lands management

It is no secret that the Trump administration is implementing these policy rollbacks to promote extractive uses via an across the board assault, using bureaucratic design, personnel, budgets, regulatory, policy and local, regional and national management plan changes.

Now let’s compare each of those above bulleted practices and objectives of the Trump administration’s policies to those legally mandated and implemented in NJ by DEP.

1. While Trump is rolling back and reducing the ability of the public to participate formally in public lands management decisions, NJ DEP has NO formal process for public participation in public lands management decisions and is not accountable to the public’s expressed concerns. The DEP may engage in a “Forest Action Plan”, ad hoc meetings and local briefings and “stakeholder” processes – which are usually triggered after strong public controversy – these are not formal and are not mandatory statewide processes.

2. While the Trump folks are reducing the applicability, scope, and depth of environmental reviews under NEPA, NJ DEP has NO formal environmental review process for public lands management.

NJ residents don’t even get the chance to attend a public hearing to complain and submit comments on an environmental impact statement, because they are not required nor held by NJ DEP.

3. While Trump agencies are openly and transparently increasing extractive uses – particularly logging – in contrast, the DEP also is promoting logging, but DEP prefers to stealth these destructive practices under slogans, spin and pretexts. Just look at the Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area “Forest Management Plan” for an example – there are several others.

4. While Trump DOI, BLM and USFS are increasingly privatizing and outsourcing public lands management – including a radical new initiative to transfer ownership of public lands – the NJ DEP is far more subtle, working through surrogates like NJ Audubon (a controversial and embarrassing front group for not only Trump himself, but another Wall Street billionaire) and forestry associations to accomplish many of the same things.

5. While Trump agencies seek to reduce the applicability, scope and substantive requirements of regulations and otherwise deregulate forest management practices, the NJ DEP does not regulate forestry (forest management plans are exempt from DEP regulation and subject to a voluntary and informal “Best Management Practices” (BMP) guideline).

6. While Trump agencies deny, downplay and/or exploit the role of climate change in forest management, the NJ DEP completely ignores the role of climate change (a blatant form of climate denial).

Perversely, after years of effective denial, DEP will now use climate change to promote more logging under the RGGI sequestration program (and expanded wildfire prevention logging and “prescribed burns”).

So, while the Trump administration’s public lands policies are horrific, keep in mind that they are scaling back a well developed and elaborate historical management framework. The larger edifice, while full of holes, at least exists on paper and can be challenged in court.

In contrast, the NJ DEP has nothing – nada – squat.

On that basis, I conclude that NJ DEP is actually worse than the Trump abomination.