DEP Sampled Trenton Homes And Found Lead Levels 10 TIMES Higher Than A Toxic Waste Site – Over 3,400 parts per million!
DEP Did Nothing And Hid The Data From The Community
DEP Drinking Water Expert’s Lawsuit Against DEP Shows How DEP Gags Staff, Suppresses Science, And Withholds Information From The Public
(Source: DEP Policy – from DEP’s legal brief in response to a DEP expert’s lawsuit against DEP)
The excerpt above is what is known as a Gag Order. It requires that any DEP expert must get DEP management approval BEFORE they can say anything to the public. Controversial information is withheld by DEP management and press office review. But I am getting way ahead of myself, so let’s begin with the story.
One of NJ’s few remaining investigative reporters, Jeff Pillets, has a good story today in NJ Spotlight regarding criminal corruption of NJ’s lead removal program in Trenton, see:
Pillets is working for a new outfit called the The Jersey Vindicator which looks like a good old school investigative journalism based publication – check them out. I was surprised that NJ Spotlight published his critical work, as they generally steer clear of critical coverage and real investigative reporting.
The criminal investigations into Newark and Trenton’s lead line replacement programs expose a Piñata of lax regulatory oversight and enforcement failures, primarily at DEP’s drinking water program.
Readers wondering how this could happen and where the hell DEP has been all this time, might be interested in taking an insider’s look into how DEP actually operates and why the DEP’s drinking water program is so dysfunctional, see:
Bu you won’t read about any of that in NJ Spotlight.
Pillets’ NJ Spotlight story closed with a quote from Eric Olson of NRDC that diverts attention and provides cover for the DEP by targeting others and withholding criticism of DEP:
Some local officials and water utilities, Olson added, have withheld critical information from the public.
Government officials “need to avoid the false reassurances about the safety of tap water that have been offered in a mistaken and paternalistic belief that the public cannot handle the truth about the threats posed by their tap water,” Olson said.
Notice how Mr. Olson fails to mention the DEP as among those who “withhold critical information from the public” and provide “false assurance about the safety of tap water” and manifest a “paternalistic belief that the public cannot handle the truth about the threats posed by their tap water”.
Why would Mr. Olson give DEP a pass?
Why would NJ Spotlight let him get away with that?
Are Mr. Olson and NJ Spotlight aware of the DEP Gag Order policy – which DEP defends in their legal briefs in response to a lawsuit by a veteran 30 year DEP expert? I published that months ago and it is a public document.
The Trenton lead pipe story reminded me of another scandal in Trenton, the one where the State School Construction Corporation and DEP allowed toxic soil to be imported and used as clean fill during construction of the Martin Luther King Jr. school.
In order to prove that the toxic soil had no impact on the community – and cover the State’s legal ass for their criminal negligence in allowing this to happen – DEP conducted a study, see:
This study included “swipe samples” of the indoor window sills of homes near the school construction site to determine, among others, lead levels people were exposed to in their homes.
The DEP study used unusually sophisticated and costly chemical finger printing. The purpose of that was to uniquely finger print chemicals in the imported toxic soil and distinguish that soil from “background” levels in the community. Why would DEP conduct that kind of metals speciation, which they rarely do? Like I said, DEP wanted to cover the SCC and DEP’s ass and prove that they were not the culprit.
Of course, the DEP study found that the lead inside people’s homes did not come from the imported toxic soil. DEP used this finding to absolve themselves: case closed, no impact. DEP issued a press release, required dust control measures at the construction site, and distributed a highly misleading “Community Guide” that downplayed risks. Time to move on.
But wait a minute: What level of background lead did DEP find in people’s homes in Trenton?
For the indoor swipe date, see Table 5 on page 33.
Lead is found at astonishing high levels: 3, 488 ppm is the mean (average) level found.
The DEP lead toxic site cleanup standard for soils in 400 ppm. That means Trenton homes had lead levels 10 TIMES higher than a hazardous waste site.
These findings should have triggered an emergency declaration and forced cleanups throughout the community.
But DEP did NOTHING.
I blasted them for those failures at the time when I was Director of NJ PEER. Perhaps that’s another reason the NJ PEER was defunded and shuttered, after previously receiving 10 years of NJ environmental Foundation grant funding support?
And where were all the current lead grifters back then? Why didn’t they all criticize DEP and warn the community?
There was no government or Foundation money to access back then. So they were nowhere to be seen.
When government is throwing hundreds of millions of dollars around, the grifters are sure to follow.
Those grifters are not just the criminal contractors – but include Foundations and environmental groups.
I just looked into the Biden Administration’s designated NJ’s “Lead hub” behind all this crap.
It is the usual grifters’ Foundation and government grant based gig – with the usual trough feeding Democratic Party operatives. The Co-Chair is Deb Mans and a major NJ based funder is The Fund For NJ. Amy Goldsmith CWA has her hand in the pie as well. There is an explicit link to funding by Biden’s infrastructure programs.
Here’s all you really need to know: (source: Lead Free NJ)
State and local governments should seek designation of American Rescue Plan funds to remediate lead in homes.
And as I’ve written before, NJ Future is involved not just for the Foundation and government money, but to protect their real clients in the real estate development community and the private water companies.
The NJF strategic objective is to make sure that the costs of the infrastructure and lead pipe removal programs are allocated completely to the public sector (taxpayer), not the developers and water company shareholders.
The other objective is to ensure that the regulatory agencies, DEP and BPU, do not crack down and impose additional regulatory requirements or target them for costly upgrades or things like development impact fees and off site improvements.
Thus far, they succeeded brilliantly – the program is 100% publicly funded, there are no new government regulations or fees, and the grifter money is flowing freely!
There are multiple scandals in this one post. Will the media wake up?