After Decades, Thousands Of Toxic Sites Remain Polluted With No DEP Enforcement
What DEP Now Calls “Enforcement” Is Merely The Willing “Consent” Of The Polluters
These Are Slap On The Wrist Plea Deals Parading As Aggressive Enforcement
The Real Issues Involve Failures Of The Privatization Of Toxic Site Cleanup In NJ
The Murphy DEP issued another self serving press release yesterday, purportedly announcing “environmental justice” enforcement actions at 4 cherry picked contaminated sites, see:
The mere assertion of the phrase “environmental justice” automatically elevates any DEP action into a virtuous accountability free zone that destroys any critical scrutiny of what is actually going on.
We’ve come to a point where reporters rarely read past the headline and opening paragraphs of the press release.
But the use of the phrase “environmental justice” provides an excuse for that lazy stenography and guarantees favorable press reporting. Use of that phrase amounts to an insurance policy against any reporter actually critically reading the underlying DEP enforcement documents and thinking about what they mean. No way reporters hit the links and read the DEP enforcement documents and ask questions.
These “enforcement” “settlements” are really the equivalent of a plea deal. But, in contrast to a criminal plea deal, the corporate polluter negotiates and “consents” to the deal, suffers no real punishment, and is allowed to continue the exact same pattern of behavior that violated the law. Despite decades of failure to cleanup toxic sites and comply with DEP cleanup “orders”, corporate polluters face minuscule economic penalties and are allowed to retain control of the “cleanup” of the site.
These plea deals don’t provide “environmental justice”, they expose decades of DEP mismanagement and lack of enforcement. Why are toxic sites that are 25-30 years old just now being addressed? Where has DEP been for decades?
They also raise serious questions regarding the privatization of the DEP toxic site cleanup program. Specifically, that privatization law set a May 2024 deadline and mandated that DEP assume control over the cleanup of sites that private corporations failed to cleanup after many years.
That law and these plea deals raise obvious questions:
- how many toxic sites are not being cleaned up by private corporate polluters?
- how many sites has DEP assumed control of the cleanup due to the May 2024 deadline?
- what are the environmental and public health risks of these egregious cleanup days?
So, let’s look at examples of that.
This is an old gas station. It’s located across the street from what look like 2 low rise apartment buildings and a couple of hundred feet from “J’s Soul Food”.
Toxic contamination was discovered over 25 years ago. The corporate owner was required to submit a remedial investigation by 2016. They didn’t. They were required to complete the cleanup of the site by May 2024. They didn’t come close. They did virtually nothing.
The NJ law that privatized the toxic site cleanup program mandated that DEP assume direct control over the cleanup. This legally forced DEP’s hand.
So, what did DEP do? Did they seek “justice” for this egregious non-compliance and decades of delay?
Did they drop the hammer on the polluter? (DEP has authority to collect $50,000 a DAY in penalties. Do the math: (25 years) X (365 days/year) X ($50,000/day) = ?).
Did they hire contractors to immediately cleanup the site? (DEP is required to take direct oversight of the cleanup and has the authority to conduct the cleanup and bill the polluter 3 TIMES the cleanup cost, i.e. “treble damages“).
No, they did none of that. Read the “consent order”.
Here’s what they actually did:
For merely submitting an “initial detailed cost review” and a “proposed public participation plan” in April 2024 (no cleanup, just minor paperwork), the DEP found that it was “in the public interest” for DEP to abandon the legally mandated direct oversight of the cleanup!
That put the corporate polluter back in charge of the cleanup he had failed to perform for decades!
DEP then merely required the corporate polluter to submit the cleanup documents that were required decades ago (actually, a streamlined version of what is required, e.g. DEP eliminated the mandatory requirement that the polluter conduct a feasibility study) and provided a no fault – no guilt – no liability get out of jail free card:
In term of providing “environmental justice” to the community, again DEP did the OPPOSITE.
The DEP eliminated the requirement that the polluter conduct a “receptor evaluation”, a technocratic term for a scientific study of whether nearby people were actually exposed to pollution from the site: (see paragraph 17. d.):
So let this all sink in:
- For decades of gross violations that DEP could issue $50,000 per day penalties, the DEP issued a $40,000 administrative fine;
- For decades of failure to submit studies and cleanup the site, which triggered a legal requirement that DEP assume direct control of the cleanup, DEP actually put control of the cleanup back in the polluters hands, and merely for submitting 2 minor draft documents!
- For decades of pollution and non-compliance, DEP waived mandatory cleanup requirements, i.e. feasibility study and a receptor evaluation.
And after all that, the Murphy DEP and AG issue a press release bragging about it as some kind of “environmental justice”.