WolfeNotes.com

Billionaire Paul Firestone Funds Front Groups To Sow Divisive Fake Debate

Democratic Legislators Are All In And Are Fast Tracking Legislation

The Gov. Must Stand Up And Stop This Desecration

Murphy DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette curiously was AWOL last Thursday, as the Senate Environment Committee rammed a controversial bill to commercialize, privatize, develop, and destroy world renowned Liberty State Park. (read the amazing story of what went down at the hearing:

The state Department of Environmental Protection, which leads the task force formed to study the park’s future, did not appear at Thursday’s hearing.

Instead, a makeover plan was presented by Alan Mountjoy of the Boston-based firm NBBJ, an architect hired by one of the advocacy groups tied to Fireman.

Mountjoy showed renderings of a vastly different park than the mostly open space and interior woodland that exists today.

But Latourette had time to Tweet (and attend?) a “Pride” event at the Park the night before.

That contrast is a classic example of what Professor Nancy Fraser calls “Progressive Neoliberalism”, where cultural issues are used to mask a pro-corporate economic agenda and divert, dupe, manipulate, and co-opt progressive activists and media alike.

Gov. Murphy has repeatedly used that cynical strategy. We are not fooled.

He must not get away with that to let a billionaire manipulate legitimate grievances and effectively buy and destroy Liberty State Park.

This is what happens when a billionaire like Paul Fireman spreads a little money around in a cynical, divisive & racist strategy to promote his golf course, a scheme that is masked by fake front groups and corrupt Democratic politicians.

I was disgusted by the racist spectacle in Trenton – Fireman has cynically used fake front groups and manipulated poor black kids, lonely old people, and high school athletes who lack fields to play on – problems that are a result of the greed of developers and lack of planning, not preservation of the Park.

Somehow, the entire gamut of social problems were linked to the preservation of Liberty State Park.  Very cynically, the false promise of a solution was claimed to be development of the park (which largely would benefit a Florida based billionaire and his private golf course members and other wealthy elites who will use the commercial facilities he wants to develop in the Park).

In a very sophisticated campaign, one witness defended park development as a solution to prevent drownings of poor minority kids who lacked swimming pools. Another witness supporting the bill complained of the isolation of old age. Others spoke of the risks of violence to kids, who have nowhere safe to play.

In a move that would make Orwell blush, they call themselves “Parks for People”.

The Legislature is fast tracking the bill – the Assembly will hear the companion bill A4264 on Wednesday.

The plan is to ram the bill through both Houses as part of the budget negotiations and have a bill on Governor Murphy’s desk before the end of June.

Friends of Liberty State Park have dubbed the legislation the “Billionaire Paul Fireman Liberty State Park Commercialization, Privatization and Exclusion” bill.

At this point, the Legislature appears to have been bought off –

Senator Smith’s rationales for the amendments, which were very cynically designed to create the appearance of responding to critics, and the rapid movement of the Assembly companion are solid evidence that the deal is in. It’s even possible that the $250 million appropriation in the bill could be stripped and the bill pass to promote development but with no public money.

The park supporters’ focus needs to shift quickly to Gov. Murphy and people must demand that he stand up to his own party and veto this outrage.

[End Note: For over 30 years, despite frequent disagreements, I’ve criticized his weakness but basically respected Senator Smith (with a few exceptions).

But given how he’s handled the State Parks and LSP issues, that respect is gone and it ain’t coming back.

Now I understand why he attacked critics of his Parks privatization bill as “paranoid schizophrenics” and why he lashed out at LSP supporters several times during last Thursday’s hearing.

The criticism is obviously getting under his skin.

I suspect that it must be tough for Smith to look in the mirror these days.

DEP Fails To Quantify Economic Harms

Continuing Lack of DEP NRD Regulations Makes Lawsuit Vulnerable To Legal Challenge

DEP Spins Environmental Justice Angle, But Does Nothing To Strengthen Flawed EPA Cleanup Plan, Take Enforcement Action Or Seek Criminal Prosecution

Thanks to the longtime investigative journalism of retired old school reporter Jan Barry, the Bergen Record has done a good job of exposing what I have called the “monstrous crime” Ford Motor Company committed in Ringwood NJ that poisoned the lands and people of the Ramapough Lenape Nation.

As I noted, those crimes warrant criminal prosecution, not an administrative slap on the wrist by DEP. Almost a deacade ago, I wrote:

An understanding of the reprehensible and egregious behaviors Ford engaged in fuels some of the anger at EPA for letting Ford off the hook for cleanup costs, when they should be criminally prosecuted. …

[But] no one from Ford went to prison for this scheme.

I’m getting ahead of myself, but even DEP’s recent lawsuit at least gets the rhetoric – if not the criminal law – right: “reckless, wanton, willful disregard” to describe Ford’s crimes: (from DEP lawsuit)

While corporations for a long time have had effective immunity from criminal prosecution, today we’re in a new media environment, where corporate crimes are soft pedaled even rhetorically.

Yesterday, based on the typically spun and self serving June 16, 2022 DEP press release – not any independent investigative journalism – the current reporter at the Record reported on the most recent development in this toxic nightmare.

Here’ how Ford’s monstrous crimes are now described – mere “mismanagement and questionable decisions”: (Northjersey.com)

New Jersey filed a lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. on Thursday seeking millions of dollars in damages for widespread pollution dumped more than 50 years ago in Upper Ringwood next to a neighborhood that has been home to generations of Native Americans.

It is the latest action taken at a Superfund site with a troubled history of mismanagement and questionable decisions.

Note that the “millions of dollars” the Record reported is not specified and has no basis in the DEP press release and the lawsuit document itself. Nowhere is there any specific claim for any dollar value of damage Ford caused.

Where did the Record reporter get that fact? Where did DEP document and quantify “millions of dollars in damages”?

That’s not a minor oversight or minor omission – it goes to the core of the legal viability and vulnerability of the DEP’s lawsuit. More on that below, a topic I’ve written about (i.e. those DEP failures) for over a decade. I’ve repeatedly exposed the DEP regulatory failures that led to the Christie Administration’s corrupt Exxon NRD lawsuit settlement, for just pennies on the dollar of an $8.9 billion claim, see:

• Bombshell: Bungling By DEP Led To Exxon Deal

These DEP failures have gone uncorrected, despite a judicially approved settlement agreement by DEP pledging to do so.

NJ Courts have chastised DEP for these failures and rejected DEP NRD lawsuits based on them.

The DEP still has not adopted NRD regulations to provide a methodology or to quantify economic damages to natural resources that provide the factual basis of the lawsuits.

The DEP lawsuits remain legally vulnerable due to that failure to adopt NRD regulations.

As a result, the DEP NRD lawsuits remain legally vulnerable and therefore will either be rejected by NJ Courts or settled for pennies on the dollar by DEP.

Current DEP Commissioner LaTourette surely knows this, because previously, as a private corporate lawyer,  he successfully defended a corporate polluter from DEP’s attempt to collect natural resource damages for toxic pollution of groundwater and drinking water, thereby establishing a damaging legal precedent that contributed to the Christie DEP’s Exxon settlement debacle. For a full exposure of the misrepresentation of LaTourette’s corporate background, see:

• NJ Gov. Murphy’s Portrayal Of DEP Commissioner LaTourette As A Public Interest Lawyer Is A Fraud

Here’s how the longtime malfeasance and misfeasance of the DEP and EPA are now presented by the Record:

“Sometimes it’s not possible to put things back exactly as they were, but we always push in cases like this to get it as close as possible as we can,” state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said at a news conference near the site in Ringwood.

What?

The phrase “put things back exactly as they were” is an outrageous distortion of the EPA approved “cleanup” plan, which leaves unknown millions of tons of toxic chemicals in the soil, old mineshafts, and groundwater, see:

• EPA’s Last Minute Bait and Switch In Ringwood Superfund Site is a Blatant Abuse That Can Not Stand

The EPA approved a “cleanup plan” that even EPA admitted saved Ford over $30 million and will continue to poison the community, groundwater, streams, and wildlife and threaten the Wanaque Reservoir for decades.

The Record story on DEP’s press event noted the threats to drinking water that result from EPA and DEP regulatory failures:

Another plan by the EPA to pump compounds underground to treat contaminated water at the site also faced considerable backlash.

Among the critics was the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission, owner of the nearby Wanaque Reservoir. It pushed for a pump-and-treat system, saying it would provide better protection for drinking water that is supplied to as many as 3.5 million New Jerseyans.

It is simply outrageous that the DEP continues to fail to strengthen the EPA’s cleanup plan by enforcing NJ State cleanup laws – particularly when the chemicals EPA allowed to be left in the ground will continue to threaten a major drinking water reservoir.

At the time of the EPA cleanup plan, the Record editorial page described that EPA plan as a “toxic compromise” (7/5/14 – link dead).

But now, DEP Commissioner LaTourette describes it as putting things back not quite “exactly as they were”.

But in addition to what the DEP failed to do, let’s highlight the flaws in the DEP lawsuit (read the document):

1) DEP Failed To Quantify NRD Damages – Settlement For Pennies On The Dollar Likely 

I’ve written about this numerous times (see this), so won’t repeat all that here.

But if you read the lawsuit, you will note that DEP repeatedly claims unspecified “natural resource injuries” and fails to quantify those injuries, technically or economically. DEP fails to specify the dollar amount of compensation they are seeking or to quantify the amount of compensatory restoration they are seeking.

These are fatal legal errors that provide huge leverage to Ford to negotiate a pennies on the dollar settlement.

2) DEP Ignores Damages and Threats To Wanaque Reservoir

As noted above, the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission objected to the EPA cleanup plan for failure to protect the reservoir.

Yet, the DEP lawsuit does not include as damages the actual impacts to the reservoir from Ford dumping or the future risks from the chemicals that Ford dumped to the Reservoir.

This omission is effectively a coverup.

3) DEP Misleadingly Spun NJ Environmental Justice Law, Which Exempts Toxic Site Cleanups

DEP falsely implies that the NJ environmental justice law and Gov. Murphy’s Executive Order on EJ legally apply to this cleanup. This is false. DEP does so prominently, right up front in paragraph #9:

9. Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 13:1D-157, enacted in 2020, the New Jersey Legislature declared that “historically, New Jersey’s low-income communities and communities of color have been subject to a disproportionately high number of environmental and public health stressors…” The Legislature went on to define an “overburdened community” as a census block group in which […]

The community living within Ringwood Mines is an “overburdened community” within the meaning of N.J.S.A. 13:1D-158 because at least 40% of the residents identify as minority or as members of a State recognized tribal community. This community is entitled to fair and equitable treatment in matters affecting their environment, community, homes, and health. See, e.g., Exec. Order No. 23 (April 20, 2018), 50 N.J.R. 1241(b) (May 21, 2018).

4) DEP Is Seeking $2 Billion In Civil Penalties, But Failed To Take Enforcement Action For Those Same Violations Of NJ Cleanup And Toxic Waste Laws

DEP is seeking civil penalties for $50,000 per day under the NJ Spill Act (enacted in 1977) and the Solid Waste Management Act (enacted in 1975). That is the highest civil penalty authorized by law.

Ford’s toxic dumping began BEFORE those laws were passed. They’ve been lying ever since:

204. To this day, it remains unknown whether Defendants have disclosed every discharge of hazardous waste at Ringwood Mines to DEP.

DEP did not specify an actual amount of civil penalty they seek. DEP dodges this because it might make their ultimate settlement look really bad.

Or it might prompt the Judge to ask why DEP never imposed administrative enforcement fines for these violations of NJ environmental laws if they were so egregious to justify billions in civil fines.

So we will provide an estimate (do the math): at $100,000 per day since the 1977 passage of Spill Act (about 45 years), DEP is seeking over $1.64 BILLION in civil penalties (and that’s before any economic damages to natural resources).

The DEP does not have to file a lawsuit and ask a Judge or a Jury to issue civil (administrative) penalties for violations of NJ environmental laws. DEP can simply unilaterally issue enforcement documents. Of course, Ford would challenge them and appeal to a court, but the legal burdens would be on Ford and DEP would have very different and more favorable legal grounds. But DEP never did this. Why?

How can DEP, with a straight face, ask a Judge or Jury to impose the maximum $50,000 per day fine, for a period of 45 years, when DEP never did so administratively? That’s just not credible.

5) DEP obtained private law firms to represent them

DEP is represented by private legal counsel – maybe hired guns will do better than the AG’s lawyers have so far.

I just filed this OPRA to try to follow the money – I wonder what their legal fees are and take of the recovery?

“On June 16, 2022, NJ DEP filed a lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. to recover Natural Resource Damages at the Ringwood Superfund site. According to the Case Information Statement, Plaintiff DEP is legally represented by private counsel, specifically including:

1) Locks Law Firm, Roseland NJ 

2) The Lanier Law Firm, P.C., Houston Texas 

3) Hausfeld, LLP, Philadelphia Pa.

I request the following public documents:

1) contracts, retainer agreements, and/or legal Service agreements between the Plaintiffs (DEP and AG’s Office) and the above 3 private law firms regarding the subject lawsuit, including any documents that govern the subject litigation, including legal fees, allocation of recovered monies, and roles and responsibilities for conducting the subject litigation.

2) correspondence between the above 3 private law firms and DEP Commissioner LaTourette regarding the subject litigation, from January 1, 2020 and today.”

We’ll report back as soon as DEP responds to the OPRA.

6) DEP Provided Anonymity For The Ford Corporate Executives Who Executed And Benefited From This Illegal Scheme

On top of failure to impose DEP enforcement fines and failure to seek criminal prosecution, DEP failed to name names.

Instead, they rely on a “John And Jane Doe” “fictitious names” mask. Why do corporate executives get anonymity but alleged perpetrators of low level street crimes get front page photos?

DEP once bragged that they had embarked on an “enforcement crackdown” for illegal dumping in State Parks – they made 16 arrests and even deported some poor little guys for dumping garbage.

But, major corporate toxic polluters like Ford get a pass.

And that’s about all you really need to know.

I’m predicting a settlement, maybe 10 years from now, for less than a nickel on the dollar.

But, the public will never be provided a total natural resource damage amount DEP is seeking to recover, so the public will never be able to understand how little of the real damage DEP actually recovered in compensation from the corporate criminals at Ford.

After Posting Controversial Bill Just Hours Before Today’s Hearing, Chairman Smith Rams Bill Through Committee Despite Opposition

[The bill] is a great idea and yes there can be little fixes, but I’ll say this to all my good friends out there: You’re all paranoid schizophrenics. You really are. You look at a bill that’s about getting more money, not from the taxpayers but from private sources for our parks and forest. It’s almost a no brainer.” ~~~  Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith (time 1:03:00) (6/13/22)

[Update below]

Today, the Senate Environment Committee approved Senate bill S1311 (Turner), despite strong opposition by environmentalists.

Smith amended the Committee Agenda this morning – just hours before the hearing – to add the bill. Agenda’s are posted at least a week before the hearing. A last minute change like that is highly unusual, especially on a major and controversial bill.

[The rush to ram through this bill contrasts sharply with Smith’s extended lengthy deadline for consensus recommendations by his Forestry Task Force.]

The bill’s sponsor, Senator Turner, had asked Smith to hold the bill before the prior Committee hearing last Thursday due to opposition by environmental groups.

I wrote last week to alert the public and highlight the significant flaws in the bill and explain why it represented a huge threat to State Parks and Forests. The headline pretty much sums things up, see:

• NJ Senate Democrats Pushing Legislation That Could Privatize State Parks, Lead to Corporate Promotions, And Build Industrial Energy Facilities In State Parks And Forests

A new, privately funded entity within DEP, with broad powers (including contract powers) and absolutely no safeguards, designed to form “partnerships” and receive unlimited funds from private entities – including corporate sponsors, billionaire’s, and “non-profits”- to “develop” State Parks and forests – all specifically exempt from or not subject to competitive bidding, conflict of interest, financial disclosure, transparency, public participation, planning, and Civil Service laws.

What could go wrong?

One must be a “paranoid schizophrenic” to oppose something like that, right?

[Is this scathingly critical editorial just a schizophrenic hallucination? Am I hearing editorial voices?

• Bait-and-switch plan puts LSP future at risk | Jersey Journal editorial

I mean, its not like there hasn’t been a long history of corrupt pay-to-play schemes for development, privatization, and commercialization of NJ State Parks, public lands, and forests, right?

And it’s not like NJ “non-profit” groups like NJ Audubon (Trump Golf Course and “Corporate Stewardship Council”), Sustainable NJ, NJ Future, and NJ Conservation Foundation have not taken money from corporations – from Walmart, South Jersey Gas, and PSE&G et al – and from billionaire’s like Peter Kellogg – to do all sorts of damaging projects on State lands, right?

And it’s not like major NJ newspapers haven’t been doing investigative reports and writing scathingly critical editorials about private corporate and billionaire’s corrupt pay to play schemes, including most recently at Liberty State Park and other State lands, right?

It’s not like we haven’t already seen an explosion of industrial scale solar on NJ’s farms and forests – there couldn’t possibly be a problem with bill’s provisions to allow development of “renewable energy” in State Parks and forests, right?(and “renewable energy” is broadly defined under NJ law to include, in addition to industrial scale wind and solar, all sorts of high impact schemes that are totally inappropriate for location in State Parks and Forests, including biomass (logging), hydropower, and geothermal.)

And of course DEP and non-profits like NJ Audubon and NJ Conservation Foundation would never log State forests under the guise of “stewardship”, right?

The release of the bill, which applies to all State Parks and Forests, including Liberty State Park, comes at a time when a very similar bill that would allow privatization of Liberty State Park is being rammed through, despite huge opposition. That bill will be heard on Thursday, June 16.

Discussion and testimony on the bill starts at time 55:20 (listen here).

Shamefully, the bill was supported by NJ LCV and NJ Conservation Foundation.

[Update: 6/16/22 -Emile DeVito of NJCF, in testimony opposing the Liberty State Park development bill (S2807) today, clarified NJCF’s position. He strongly opposed commercial development and privatization of LSP and all State Parks. I assume that NJCF now opposes the Statewide bill on that same basis.]

Thankfully, the bill was opposed by NJ Sierra Club.

At the end of the hearing, just before he moved to ram the bill out of the Committee, Smith even lashed out, attacking opponents’ delays to the bill.

The rush to ram through this bill contrasts sharply with Smith’s extended lengthy deadline for consensus recommendations by his Forestry Task Force.

Yup, one must be a “paranoid schizophrenic” to oppose all that. 

I mean, we all live in the Garden State, somewhere near Lake Woebegone, with a benevolent former Wall Street millionaire Governor, public interest hero as DEP Commissioner, enlightened Democratic Legislature, non-profit and conservation groups with high integrity, no legislators or local officials have ever gone to jail for corruption, and we celebrate a noble history of corruption free public interest advocacy and land and natural resource protection, right?

(If you’ve gotten this far, please excuse my snark while I now throw up)

Law Is Riddled With Loopholes, Exemptions, Waivers, & Vague Unenforceable Platitudes

DEP Proposed Rules Do Nothing To Enforce Vague Law Or Claw Back Compromises

Murphy and DEP Sycophants Cheer

The gaping hole between the reality of what we have become, and the fiction of who we are supposed to be, is why spectacle is all the ruling class has left.  Spectacle takes the place of politics. It is a tacit admission that all social programs, whether the Build Back Better Plan, a ban on assault weapons, raising the minimum wage, ameliorating the ravages of inflation or instituting environmental reforms to stave off the climate emergency, will never be implemented. ~~~ “Society of Spectacle” – Chris Hedges

This is Part One in a series.

On Monday June 6, 2022, DEP proposed the long delayed regulations to implement the seriously flawed environmental justice law, enacted almost 2 years ago. (hit this link to read the DEP proposal. The public comment period closes on September 4, 2022).

Since the Murphy Administration began almost 6 years ago, DEP has issued thousands of air pollution and land use permits and other regulatory approvals that have increased current pollution (and greenhouse gas emissions) that impact overburdened “environmental justice communities”. This includes hundreds of permits issue AFTER the EJ bill was signed into law by Gov. Murphy on September 18, 2020 and BEFORE DEP will adopt the proposed rules (best case in mid to late 2023).

Ironically, the huge effects of the timing (delay) of DEP rules and how they apply recently was highlighted by the business community ‘s letter to Gov. Murphy in their attack on DEP’s proposed “emergency flood rules”, which would become effective and enforceable upon proposal in the NJ Register (instead of typically as much as a year later, following public hearings and public comment and DEP responses to public comments).

I have written several times to document various flaws, loopholes, exemptions, narrow application, vague standards, and scientific and technical defects of the EJ legislation, (for examples, see this and this and this).

Before the text of the proposed DEP rules was even publicly available, the Murphy DEP had launched a PR campaign and was unprofessionally spinning, the NJ lapdog media was transcribing DEP’s spin, and faux “environmental justice activists” were praising the rules, before they even read them.

And of course, I was calling out their bullshit, see also:

• Environmental Justice Rules Being Spun Before Their Actual Proposal

Just days later, right on time – literally on virtually the same day the proposed rules became available to the public – the so called “environmental justice community” issued a deeply dishonest press release that lavished praise on Gov. Murphy and DEP Commissioner LaTourette, while congratulating themselves for years of playing the inside game and providing political cover to DEP and Democratic legislators, see:

• New Jersey Releases Landmark Environmental Justice Rules

Try to read that vacuous content free press release and its gushing praise and self congratulation without vomiting.

In contrast, in reviewing the proposed rules, here are the kind of questions honest people, the media, and “environmental justice activists” should be asking, to probe the reality of whether Governor Murphy and DEP Commissioner LaTourette are walking the talk on environmental justice (the fact that DEP supported and the Gov. signed a knowingly flawed compromised EJ bill sets the stage and justifies skepticism):

• Did DEP honestly, fully and accurately describe the legislation and note specific examples where loopholes exist or compromises were made?

• Did DEP try to claw back the political losses, compromises, or flaws in the legislation via strong, specific and enforceable regulatory standards and methods?

• Did DEP seek to exercise discretion and propose strong standards in provisions of the law that were vague or delegated DEP discretion to exercise?

• Did DEP substantively modify the scientific, technical and regulatory bases for issuing current permits that ignore the EJ law? Were the standards in the EJ law incorporated into the regulations that implement all other DEP permit programs? Or will DEP continue the status quo neglect but merely use the EJ permit review process as cover and continue to manipulate EJ communities?

Some of the specific provisions of the EJ law that warrant close scrutiny of how DEP proposed to implement them with clear scientific and enforceable regulatory standards and transparent technical methods include:

• compelling public interest
• cumulative impact – cumulative cancer risks
• cause or contribute – criteria, standards, and ambient background conditions
• stressors and health endpoints
• community vulnerability and current baselines
• regional background comparison
• disproportionate impacts
• basis for permit denial
• air pollution modeling, risk assessment and risk screening methodologies
• local power to influence DEP permit decisions (the local veto in introduced version was deleted)

[Example: Have you ever even heard of DEP Technical Manual 1003 – Guidance on Preparing a Risk Assessment for Air Contaminant Emissions? 

Hint: DEP recently stated that the “conservative assumptions” on page 25 of Appendix C are fully protective of public health. Remarkably, DEP bolstered that claim by noting that those critically important risk assumptions had received no public comment, thereby virtually inviting consultants for corporate polluters to challenge them (see page 2). Yet those DEP assumptions are extremely flawed: they fail to consider background pollution levels, the impacts of multiple sources of pollution, the risks of cumulative impacts, they ignore the entire concept of disproportionate burdens, or any other environmental justice considerations.]

A healthy dose of skepticism and close scrutiny of these DEP decisions is particularly necessary because the EJ law is riddled with loopholes. For example, the media has not reported that the law does not apply to many sources of pollution that cause the current levels of pollution that are creating disproportionate and unjust impacts, including:

1) all hazardous waste sites and cleanup plans, like Diamond Alkali in Newark;

2) hazardous chemical storage & manufacturing facilities, like the chemical storage plant involved in the recent nearly catastrophic Passaic City fire

3) Industries that manufacture, use or store ‘extraordinarily hazardous chemicals” (which are regulated by DEP under NJ’s Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act, like those that caused thousands of Bhopal deaths;

4) construction or widening of roads

5) mobile source of air pollution – trucks, buses, cars, airplanes, ships, trains, etc

6) operations and pollution emissions from airports, ports, railroads, warehouses, truck depots, etc

7)  “small sources” of industrial air pollution, including toxic air polluters

[Note on “small” sources: the regulatory thresholds in the bill are HUGE: for air pollution emissions its 100 tons per year; for sewage plants its 50 million gallons per day; and for industrial recycling its 100 tons per day. These thresholds result in very few facilities actually being regulated, compared to the entire universe of pollution sources.]

8) Industrial hazardous waste management facilities regulated by DEP under a federal law known as RCRA, or the toxic pollution from hundreds of toxic cleanups at these old industrial sites

9) gas and oil pipelines

10) natural gas compressor stations

10) gas stations

11) underground oil & gas storage “caverns”

12) and the grandmother loophole of them all: EMISSIONS OF GREENHOUSE GASES OR THE IMPACTS OR RISKS FROM CLIMATE CHANGE (like the “urban heat island effect” and the lack of an adequate urban parks and forestry program).

But, we get absolutely none of that healthy skepticism and honest assessment from the so called “environmental justice community”.

I’m sorry I spent so much time lambasting the liars who masquerade as “environmental justice activists”.

While, based on years of experience with the people and organizations involved, I knew this sellout was coming, I still am literally sickened by this.

I find it morally offensive to lie to poor black people and tell them that that this DEP rule proposal will protect their health or the health of their kids from current levels of pollution, or even reduce projected future pollution.

I find it a disgrace to just trust DEP or fail to even mention the fact that DEP is an institution with a decades long failure to protect poor and black communities and years of lies and manipulation of those same communities. Why should people just trust DEP, given this history?

Or trust the spin by former corporate lawyer DEP Commissioner LaTourette. Ah, but don’t worry about all that: he’s the first openly gay DEP Commissioner!

And to praise politicians and corporate hacks like DEP Commissioner LaTourette while doing so adds insult to injury.

We want it nailed down – with numbers and methods that are enforceable – not subject to DEP discretion.

I’ll have to get to a substantive review of the DEP proposed rule in my next post.

Knee Deep In Bulls Island Bullshit On My 65th Birthday

Murphy DEP Whitewashes Tragic Death, Humiliating Rejection of DEP’s Clearcut Plan, And Decade Of DEP Neglect

The best propaganda is generally a mixture of truth with half-truth, distortion, lies by omission and the removal of context and perspective. ~~~ Caitlin Johnstone

Prologue

I’ve never been able to keep quiet in the face of lies.

Even when I was a kid, I was calling BS on the lies of adults.

Maybe it all began in reaction to the lie they told me that my tonsillectomy wouldn’t hurt and that I could eat all the ice cream I wanted afterward. Yeah, right.

But, as I grow older, counterintuitively, after seeing so many lies over so many years, my tolerance for the lies decreases as the frequency of lies increases. One would have thought there would be some kind of tolerance built up, like a drug habit.

Which takes us to our point, which was prompted by this incredibly dishonest DEP press release (but don’t read it until after you read the history it ignored!).

The photo above was taken a decade ago at Bulls Island State Park by Star Ledger right wing columnist Paul Mulshine. He was researching a column on the Bulls Island controversy. He didn’t cover the issue because he really loved old large sycamore trees or the campaigns of environmental activists:

“Let me first state that I agree with environmental activist Bill Wolfe when he argues that the state Department of Environmental Protection should drop its plans to cut down all those graceful old sycamores at Bull’s Island Recreation Area.” ~~~ see: You can’t see the forest for the lawyers

That Mulshine photo was used in an extended interview piece on the Bulls Islands controversy, published in October 2012 by the Philadelphia Review of Books, titled “A Reactionary Clearcut”.

The Bulls Island controversy was revealing. It was a deep embarrassment and total humiliation of DEP.

It involved the tragic death of a camper, killed while tent camping with his family on Bulls Island, when a tree fell on his family’s tent.

In response, the DEP secretly proposed a plan to clearcut the northern portion of the island to reduce the risks from these “deadly trees”, including scores of magnificent huge old sycamore, like the one in the photo above.

Of course, after I exposed the DEP clearcut plan, it generated huge public opposition and negative press coverage.

After my whistleblowing which was reported on March 14 (see below), DEP announced the “clearcut plan” in a March 15, 2012 press release and was forced to admit that in a later Democrat’s April 17, 2012 story:

I) Illegal Dumping & Bulldozing or Riverfront Vegetation

But this is what began the battle, after I discovered illegal dumping and destruction of riverfront vegetation:

• Bulls Island Being Blitzed By DEP – Solid Waste Disposal – No Effort to Comply With Environmental Requirements

My investigation at Bulls Island began when I discovered and exposed significant violations of the Clean Water Act as a result of bulldozing sensitive riverfront vegetation and illegal disposal of all sorts of crap. After I referred them for enforcement, despite the DEP lies, those violations later triggered enforcement actions by the US Army Corps of Engineers, see:

• US Army Corps of Engineers Issued Cease & Desist Order at Bull’s Island for Violations of the Clean Water Act

II) DEP’s Insane Clearcut Plan Exposed – Generates Huge Public Opposition

As I looked into the illegal disposal and bulldozing, I also uncovered the DEP clear cut plan.

A March 14, 2012 report by The Hunterdon County Democrat – with my dramatic photos – raised awareness and sparked the public debate:

What’s with this? Dumping at Bulls Island State Park in Kingwood

Bill Wolfe of West Amwell Township, an environmental activist for many years, sent this photo of debris dumped at Bulls Island State Park, on the Delaware River in Delaware and Kingwood townships.

According to him, “there was not even an attempt to prevent harm and comply with environmental regulations. If a small developer did that, he’d be hammered by DEP enforcement.

“What looked like fill material was being bulldozed along about 400 feet of the floodplain. It was full of solid waste: tires, metal, bottles and cans, chunks of steel and construction debris, wood, and PVC pipe.”

I’m proud to say that I did all the work on this and catalyzed and helped organize huge public opposition.

In response, the Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission (DRCC) was forced to engage the issues:

• Bulls Island Update – D&R Canal Commission Engaged

DEP’s clearcut plan was slammed by the public and scientists alike:

• Thousands Demand That DEP Abandon Bull’s Island Clearcut Plan
• Prominent Scientist Calls DEP Bull’s Island Clearcut “A Travesty”

But the DEP, instead of listening to strong public opposition, arrogantly dug in:

• DEP Digs In On Bulls Island “Hazardous” Tree Removal
• DEP Doubling Down on Bulls Island Tree Cuts

After a lengthy and ugly battle – which included liars in the DEP press office smearing me – the DRCC later voted to reject the DEP’s clearcut plan.

• “DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese declined to comment Tuesday, saying the agency does not respond to Wolfe as “a disgruntled employee.” (Asbury Park Press 7/15/14)

• [DEP spokesman Larry] Ragonese called Wolfe “completely ridiculous and irresponsible” for his comments. (about Bulls Island) Hunterdon County Democrat (3/15/12) – get the facts on that story here and see just who was “ridiculous and irresponsible’.

On December 20, 2013, The Hunterdon County Democrat reported on that DEP humiliation and victory for those defenders of magnificent old sycamore trees:

• DEP plan to remove trees on Bull’s Island rejected

I expanded upon that story with more critical facts:

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

Later, after the dust had settled, the DRCC proposed a trail and conservation plan, a plan which began when opponents to the DEP clearcut plan proposed a Natural Area designation:

• DEP Gets Approval To Demolish Bulls Island Campgrounds & Buildings

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.

III) A Decade Of DEP Lies and Neglect

The DEP has blatantly lied from the beginning of the Bulls Island controversy:

• DEP Statements On Bulls Island Are Flat Out False

After the tragic camper death, DEP immediately closed the northern portion of the island.

Then, for more than a decade, the DEP neglected Bulls Island and the northern portion of the island remained closed.

• Why Is Bulls Island State Park Still Closed Almost 6 Years After A Camper Was Killed by Tree?
• Bulls Island Remains Closed For The Sixth Year

I wrote about all that dozens of times, with many revealing photographs, for example, see:

• Neglect of Bulls Island State Park Is A Scandal

IV)  After A Decade of Lies and Neglect, A DEP Whitewash – DEP Takes Credit

So, after all this perverse history, let’s get to the current DEP lies.

Remarkably, despite this human tragedy and controversial history, just last  week, in a self serving and highly misleading press release, here’s how the Murphy DEP described all that history:

In 2019, the Delaware & Raritan Canal Commission convened a working group of colleagues within the DEP’s Division of State Parks, Forests & Historic Sites to devise a plan that would allow the northern section of the island, previously a campground, to revert to its natural state while also giving visitors access to the canal’s priceless history and enhancing recreational opportunities.

No mention of the tragic camper death.

No mention of the insane DEP clearcut plan that was blocked by the DRCC.

No mention of why the DRCC developed the plan to “revert to its natural state”.

The DEP liars are so fucking petty that they even fail to mention the presence of the glorious sycamores that spurred public outrage with DEP’s clearcut plan:

To further enhance the new trail, the Delaware & Raritan Canal Commission directed mitigation funds from other state tree-removal projects toward planting new trees including sugar maples, red maples, tulip poplar, white oak, flowering dogwood, Common hackberry and witch hazel. These new trees help provide a lush understory, supporting wildlife that migrate through or reside in the area.

The DEP as an institution seems simply incapable of telling the truth.

As someone who began his career at DEP, married a DEP colleague, and can’t take lies, this is a deeply personal insult, given my role in originating the Battle Of Bulls Island.

“Today’s opening of a new Bulls Island Recreation Area trail is yet another reason why New Jersey’s parks are prime destination getaways for residents and visitors alike,” Assistant Commissioner Cecil said.

And to have, of all people, that scumbag pro-logger John Cecil formerly of NJ Audubon and now DEP Assistant Commissioner leading the DEP pack of lairs, it is just too much to stomach. (I must note that the DEP clearcut plan was so bad, that even current DEP supporter and pro-logging NJ Audubon opposed it!)

Some Birthday present!

[End Note: The camper’s death wasn’t the only death at Bulls Island that DEP whitewashed.

As I noted in the Philadelphia Review of Books 2012 interview, a Trenton boy drown there:

a teenager from Trenton drowned in the Delaware River recently while picnicking with his family at Bull’s Island. The river there has a dangerous “rip current” created by the chute in an old wing dam. There were no crocodile tears cried for that tragedy and the DEP didn’t even take steps to post signs at access points along the river warning about the hazard.

That current in the river along the park is a real and high risk they totally ignore while chasing absurdly low probability ghosts from trees. Why? Two reasons: 1) kids from Trenton just don’t matter to this administration; and 2) the Commissioner has a warped view of nature (he had a similar over-reaction when he shut down oyster restoration research in a polluted waters project because theoretically someone could poach the oysters and might get sick). He sees risks from nature, while he deregulates real risks from chemical plants and industry. The DEP press office routinely blames “nature” for environmental problems: sunlight for air pollution; wind for ocean algae blooms.

That death, many years later, led to the posting of these signs: