Legislature’s Environmental Committees To Hold Annual Shore Hearing On Monday

The NJ Senate and Assembly Environmental Committees will hold their joint annual hearing on the shore on Monday at 10 am in Toms River municipal building, see this for the hearing agenda.

There are plenty of important shore issues to consider, most obviously:

• Gov. Christie’s failed Sandy redevelopment policies
• DEP’s massive rule proposal that would rewrite 30 years of shore protection regulations that invite more development to hazardous locations while ignoring climate change and sea level rise
• Gov. Christie’s failed “10 Point Management Plan” for Barnegat Bay and its continued ecological decline
• Gov. Christie’s failure to move forward with off shore wind development
• The need to finance infrastructure and enforce illegal “Combined Sewer Overflow” discharges
• The need to develop a Climate Change Adaptation Plan
• The need for a Coastal  Managent Plan & Coastal Commission (pending Barnes legislation)
• Ocean acidification and climate change impacts on oceans, bays, and natural resources
• declining ecosystem health due overfishing, pollution, and habitat loss
• pending proposals to promote off shore oil and gas drilling and LNG export
• need to impose NJPDES permit nutrient controls on inland and shore waste water discharges that are causing dead zones, harmful algal blooms, and low dissolved oxygen levels in coastal waters

I’m sure you have additions to this list. I hope they don’t include beach litter cleanup or fake bicycle lanes or planting native vegetation along $250 million highways in flood hazard zones (and those that typically tout NJ’s favorable performance on beach bacteria closure should look at the new EPA standards and hold DEP officials accountable to that).

Please turn out on Monday, and let legislators and Governor Christie know how you feel.

In addition to several prior detailed letters on issues on the agenda and proposed amendments to the bills pending, I just fired off this quick notes to friendly Committee members – I’m a 1 man operation and did what I could do. (see below)