Piles of debris tower over a dump truck collect on an empty lot south of Pier Village in Long Branch in mid-November. / Asbury Park Press file photo
I got a call yesterday morning from a reporter in Washington DC.
He had been reading my stuff on Sandy and wanted to know my thoughts on the EPA conference in NJ today warning the public about health risks of rebuilding.
Somewhat baffled, I told him I knew nothing about it and was not made aware of or invited to attend.
I told him that I did write EPA Regional Administrator Enck over a month ago (on Nov. 6) and strongly urged her to intervene, because the NJ DEP had issued Orders to deregulate rebuilding from DEP permit requirements.
Enck had yet to reply to that letter – or followup letters and emails, so she surely knew I was keenly aware, knowledgeable (my DEP career began in waste management) and actively involved. So, lack of an invitation could not have been an oversight.
I told him that compounding this deregulation was the fact that DEP also issued guidance to streamline and expedite debris removal, so people were likely being exposed to all sorts of emissions from huge debris piles and the 24/7 processing and disposal DEP was “expediting”.
And I told him that on top of all that DEP regulatory stuff, that NJ law had a “right to rebuild”, which was stimulating reckless rebuilding efforts, especially in light of the cheerleading of Governor Christie, who had appointed a “Rebuild Czar” and was advocating quick rebuilding, in time for the 2013 tourist season.
We then moved away from the EPA session, and discussed the pending US Senate Sandy rebuild $60 billion special appropriation bill. I also made him aware of the flawed new FEMA maps and briefed him on Obama’s Executive Order and Task Force and how that contrasted with Governor Christie’s approach.
We ended the call with the expectation of an ongoing conversation as events develop.
So, going through the news this morning, I noted a Star Ledger story on the EPA conference, with the Ledger playing their typical role as government spin amplifier, see: Officials warn Hurricane Sandy victims of mold, asbestos, lead paint.
At a forum Monday to discuss the health impacts the storm can have on New Jerseyans, the representatives said mold, asbestos and lead paint are of particular concern because of all the do-it-yourselfers who don’t know what they’re doing.
“These are issues that can affect workers, residents that are living in homes and tenants, and also volunteers who are graciously donating their time and their energy to clean up their communities,” said Judith Enck, regional administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency. “We want to make sure that as the clean up is occurring that there are not problems with exposure to mold, exposure to lead, exposure to asbestos.”
Although I didn’t attend and know only what is in this news report, obviously, I see that EPA warning as far too little and far too late – exposures are occurring on a wide scale with little NJ DEP oversight
So, what is EPA actually doing in the field, in terms of monitoring and enforcement?
What are they doing to make up for DEP’s deregulatory initiatives and huge gaps and loopholes in NJ laws??
EPA was harshly criticized for their response to Katrina, and my gut tells me that EPA and NJ DEP are making similar mistakes in response to Sandy.
The rush to rebuild and the Christie Administration’s efforts to deregulate, expedite, and streamline DEP oversight of rebuilding – including debris removal and waste management – is obviously compounding problems and causing unknown needless risks to public health and the environment.
I haven’t had the time to adequately research all this and have not been following these issues closely, but for my readers that like to get into the substance, here are three good reports that lay out the environmental, public health, and regulatory issues about debris.
At first blush, it sure looks like Katrina mistakes are being repeated in NJ – illegal waste disposal, inadequate monitoring of stockpile and processing sites, etc:
Keep plugging, Bill, no matter how much the environmental and political establishment want to permanently exile you from their remaining skeleton of a “democratic” process. There always has been something strange, given the offical “words” behind our former republic, in the way serious dissenters are treated.
Paul Krugman recently wrote a column called “Robots and Robber Barons,” which, whether he knew it or not, was very close in its condensed essence, to Wendell Berry’s Jefferson Lecture, the highest prize awarded in the American humanities, which he delivered in April of this year. The speech was virtually ignored by the American intellectual establishment, despite being delivered face-to-face to at least part of the Beltway establishment attending at the Kennedy Center.
Departing – or should I say – expanding – from his usual focus on agriculture gone bad, Berry said that the American economy was now consuming the society itself. He saw our capitalism as dominated by two long term trends: the elimination of human labor by machines and the invevitability of oligopoly and monopoly – hence the link to Krugman’s column.
One can argue that Krugman’s column is widely read, which it is, and I follow the evolution of his thought closely. He’s now a far cry from the mathematically inclinded modeller who mocked Bill Greider’s prescient book about globalization – “One World, Ready or Not” because it was based on journalistic travels and interviews – and had no core “model”; of course Greider had an answer in the book which served as his model: no major world economic power over 500 years had ever remained so after giving away its manufacturing base for financial adventures. Nonetheless, despite Krugman’s growth, he still knows he hasn’t moved either the economic establishment nor the Democratic “center” off their austerity infatuations, which admittedly, register different levels of intensity. But don’t look now, the President may be ready to sign off on austerity light, the new formula, to cut Social Security cost of living increases, with a lot of technological mumbo jumbo for cover.
Here are the links: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/opinion/krugman-robots-and-robber-barons.html
Berry’s speech: http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/wendell-e-berry-lecture
and last, a segment from my own essay about “Creative Destruction,” on Berry’s lecture at http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012062202/part-ii-costs-creative-destruction-wendell-berry-vs-gene-sperling
I fully understand the silence of “official” American thought based on what Berry wrote; but now read it for Christmas in light of all our recent events, and perhaps the deeper truths will register.