WolfeNotes.com

“RIPEN” Program Is Phase I In $100 Billion Climate Compensation Fund

Where there is no vision, the people perish. Proverbs 29:18

WARNING: This post is a stunt, offered in the best spirit of the YESMEN.

April 22, 2026

Trenton: The Fulop Administration used Earth Day today to announce a major new initiative, dubbed “RIPEN”, for “Riverfront Improvement Parks And Environment Network”.

Governor Fulop’s RIPEN program is designed to focus resources and planning to invest in NJ’s historic riverfront cities and towns, by integrating public parks and environmental policies to promote community revitalization.

NJ is blessed by major rivers, including the Hudson, Delaware (portions of which have been federally designated as “Wild and Scenic”), Raritan, Passaic, and Musconetcong, among others.

“For far too long, NJ’s rivers have been treated like sewers, toxic wastelands, and flooding threats” said Governor Fulop. “Starting today, we flip the script and announce a program that is based on rivers as major community and environmental assets to be cherished and invested in” concluded Gov. Fulop.

The RIPEN program is funded by the recent massive $100 billion dollar legal settlement between the State DEP and corporate climate polluters. That settlement provides billions of dollars of corporate funding to compensate the public and restore damages caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases.

The first two projects ready to go under the RIPEN program are in Phillipsburg and Trenton:

• The Trenton Project

The Trenton project will create a new Urban State Park, Duck Island State Park (DISP), along the Delaware River. The DISP will expand portions of the current D&R Canal State Park to include the former PSE&G coal power plant and surrounding former industrial properties. PSE&G has agreed to cancel plans to develop warehouses there and instead donate the former power plant property to DEP. PSE&G pledged to assume the full costs for complete demolition and a permanent cleanup of the property and adjacent industrial properties. A $100 million initial portion PSE&G’s Climate Compensation Fund liability will be dedicated to the project, including $50 million for park development and $25 million each to upgrade Trenton’s aging drinking water and sewage treatment plants. PSE&G is legally obligated to hundreds of millions more in Climate Compensation Funds, which will come from sale of PSEG assets and shareholders and will not be borne by ratepayers.

• The Phillipsburg Project

The Phillispburg project will create a new Urban History Riverfront Park along a federally designated stretch of the Wild And Scenic Delaware river. The DEP will acquire through eminent domain a 32 acre parcel currently slated for new warehouse development adjacent to the current Delaware River Park. The combined new State park will provide public access to the riverfront and include major new investments in park development to serve the people of Phillipsburg. The historic themes will be built around regional railroading heritage, including relationships with sister city, Hoboken and Liberty State Park. At least $50 million of Climate Compensation Funds have been earmarked for the project, including an additional $25 million Natural Resource Damage (NRD) settlement with DEP for decades of toxic and carbon pollution by Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co. NJ-based division of McWane Inc. of Alabama.

Additionally, the Wm. Penn Foundation has pledged a $25 million expansion of their $100 million Delaware Watershed Initiative. Other NJ based Foundations, including The Dodge Foundation, The Duke Foundation, and the Fund For NJ have pledged a combined $25 million contribution. Joining the RIPEN Partnership, were several of NJ’s prominent conservation groups, including NJ Conservation Foundation, Trust For Public Lands, The Nature Conservancy, and NJ Audubon Society, who pledged an additional $10 million, plus additional land donations and technical support.

“The RIPEN” program is just the beginning” said Governor Fulop. “Over the next 6 months, my administration will roll out major new initiatives to improve the quality of life for all NJ residents and strategically adapt to the climate emergency. These programs include, at least the following:

• NJ Power Authority (NJPA)

The NJPA will assure that NJ phases out fossil fuels and fully transitions to an electric powered economy by financing and building publicly owned energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and electrifying residential and commercial buildings. The NJPA will have both financing and regulatory authority to implement climate and energy goals.

• New Divisions Of Electric Vehicles and Light Rail, To Expand NJ Transit

These new Divisions will plan, finance, and buildout NJ’s electric infrastructure and expand light rail systems to serve the entire state.

• NJ Public Housing Authority

The NJPHA will plan, finance and build 100,000 units of public housing.

• NJ Labor Just Transition Board

The NJLJTB will sure that all public projects provide union jobs and that all workers negatively impacted by the energy transition are made whole in terms of salary, benefits, and job security, including pensions and health care.

• The NJ Strategic Adjustment Program

The NJSAP will plan for the relocation of families and businesses displaced by climate catastrophe, including hurricanes, sea level rise, flooding, and wildfire.

• $1 Billion Fund To Eliminate $750 Million State Parks Maintenance Backlog

NJ State Parks have suffered neglect and a lack of investment. The Green Acres constitutional amendment diverted and eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars of previously dedicated park funding. We will restore State parks and fund deferred maintenance projects.

“I look forward to working with all the people of New Jersey to make this happen. NJ will no longer be a laggard – we will resume our position as a national leader” concluded Governor Fulop.

~~~~ end

• REPOST IN LIGHT OF LA WILDFIRES

In light of all the misinformation and disinformation about the LA wildfires, today I repost this December 2022 post about the dynamics that drive the intensity and spread of wildfires.

I also need to mention the fact that the Murphy DEP denied a petition for rulemaking to force DEP to restrict new development in extreme fire hazard lands and retrofit existing development to reduce wildfire risk, see DEP denial document:

https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/uploads/rules/petition/pet20220309noa.pdf

Repost:

• Extremely Dry Conditions, High Winds, And Wind Blown Embers Drove Wildfire
• Cutting Trees Will Make All Those Conditions Worse
• Mullica River Failed To Serve As Firebreak

The DEP held a video press briefing on June 21, 2022 on the Wharton State Forest wildfire this summer (watch the whole thing).

In that video, DEP Forest Fire Chief McLaughlin explained what drove the intensity and spread of the fire. (He starts at time 2:00):

Direct attack measures were not effective in containing the fire because of extremely intense fire behavior, which resulted from very low humidity, unprecedented dew points, sustained winds at 23 mph with wind gusts up to 30 mph. This fire was sending burning embers causing spot fires long distances and this causes our resources to have to scatter about and try to track down these spot fires so that the fire doesn’t continue to grow larger. […]

Later in the afternoon and evening on Sunday, the fire turned with the wind and came back west across the Mullica River and stated to travel in a southwest – south direction towards Batsto Village. … With variable winds predicted for Monday and Tuesday, and possible sea breeze and change of wind direction to the south, then we became concerned that fire, which would continue to burn for several days, that it could change directionand move even to the north.

Let’s repeat the factors that drove the intensity of fire:

extremely intense fire behavior, which resulted from very low humidity, unprecedented dew points, sustained winds at 23 mph with wind gusts up to 30 mph.

Let’s repeat what drove the spread of the fire:

This fire was sending burning embers causing spot fires long distances and this causes our resources to have to scatter about and try to track down these spot fires so that the fire doesn’t continue to grow larger.

Notice there is no mention of any ladder fuels as a factor in driving the fire.

Notice that there is no mention of excessive fuel loads or tree density as factors in the spread or direction or intensity of the fire.

The DEP’s Pinelands Forestry Plan is designed to cut and remove 2.4 million trees, which DEP claims are “ladder fuels” that allow the fire to spread and burn more intensely.

DEP claims that the forest is too dense (too high a fuel load) and that cutting these trees – which they call “forest thinning” – will result in fires that burn “low and slow”.

But by DEP’s own statements, it was extremely dry conditions, high winds, and blowing embers that drove the intensity, not “ladder fuels” or “fuel load”.

Therefore, according to DEP’s own analysis, DEP’s forest thinning plan will not be effective in reducing the intensity or spread of wildfire.

Just the opposite: thinning the forest opens the canopy to sunlight, which dries out the forest vegetation, duff, and soils, which makes them MORE combustable and prone to wildfire.

Thinning the forest also makes the wind penetrate into the forest, which also dries the forest out and increases the winds acceleration of the fire, and the spread of the fire via wind blown embers.

Instead of “low and slow” wildfires DEP is creating conditions for more “hot and fast” wildfires.

Finally, DEP’s briefing noted that the Mullica River bisected the fire, but that the fire unexpectedly crossed the river, based on wind speed and direction and blowing embers.

If the Mullica River failed to serve as a “firebreak”, the DEP’s plan to clearcut along 13 miles of Pinelands roads surely won’t work as a firebreak either, particularly under extreme conditions: dry, high winds, wind blown embers.

I filed an OPRA public records request for DEP’s fire investigation and reports to DEP Commissioner LaTourette, as well as the facts that supported all the claims DEP made in this press briefing.

The would include how many acres of “backfires” DEP created.

We’ll provide a followup as soon as DEP responds.

[End Note: DEP denied the OPRA request by claiming that the documents I requested were draft and/or deliberative and exempt from OPRA. So they cover up facts and science. Intolerable.]

Classic by Barry McGuire  version  (1965)

Murphy DEP Has Approved Millions Of Square Feet Of Warehouse Space During Tenure

The Murphy DEP recently issued another set of public notices for pending DEP approval of millions of square feet of poorly planned new warehouse space, located inappropriately on environmentally sensitive, rural, or farmland, see (hit the links for the public notice info, et al):

• January 6, 2025
  Proposed Amendment to the Lower Delaware Water Quality Management Plan
  … The proposed amendment, identified as Active ACQ. Warehousing Carneys Point/Catalano 1/AACHCP (Program Interest No. 435441, Activity No. AMD220003), would establish a new sewer service area (SSA) of 96.4 acres to serve proposed construction of two warehouses with associated office space, parking and stormwater infrastructure. Warehouse A is proposed to be 1.02 million square feet and is to be constructed on Block 268, Lots 5, 5.01, and 6, located to the south of Courses Landing Road in Carneys Point, Salem County. Warehouse B is proposed to be 276,138 square feet and is to be constructed on Block 255, Lots 13, 14, 14.01, 14.02 and 14.03 Carneys Point, Salem County. The proposed warehouses are to be served by a proposed onsite DGW wastewater treatment system to be located on Block 255, Lot 10.

 

• January 6, 2025
  Proposed Amendment to the Monmouth County Water Quality Management Plan
  … The proposed amendment, identified as Gaitway Farms (Program Interest No. 435462, Activity No. AMD220003), would expand the Western Monmouth Utilities Authority Pine Brook Sewage Treatment Plant (WMUA STP) sewer service area (SSA) by 35.53 acres to serve a proposed commercial development on Block 74, Lot 11.01 (portion) in Manalapan Township, Monmouth County. The proposed project consists of a 575,596 square foot (sf) warehouse building that includes 20,000 sf of office space.

 

• December 16, 2024
  Proposed Amendment to the Tri- County Water Quality Management Plan
  … The proposed amendment, identified as “2470 Route 206 Pemberton Warehouse” (Program Interest No. 435433, Activity No. AMD220010) would expand the sewer service area (SSA) of the Mount Holly Municipal Utilities Authority (MHMUA) Water Pollution Control Facility (WPCF) (NJPDES No. NJ0024015) by 57.75 acres to serve a proposed 812,500 square feet (SF) building consisting of 772,500 SF of warehouse space and 40,000 SF of office space located on a portion of Block 778, Lot 2.01, in Pemberton Township, Burlington County.

I’ve written many times to criticize the Murphy DEP’s failure to protect NJ’s landscape, communities, and natural resources from the explosion of warehouse growth by enforcing NJ’s environmental laws, yet the NJ press corps has give DEP a total pass.

NJ media instead have framed and focused stories almost exclusively on municipal “home rule” or various failed legislative efforts to strengthen the toothless State Plan. Most recently I wrote:

• Murphy DEP Rubber Stamps Approval of Another Huge Warehouse Development On Farmland.

In striking contrast, while the Murphy DEP diddles and rubber stamps regulatory approvals, the Fulop 2025 Gubernatorial campaign platform on the environment has proposed, among other things, a moratorium on warehouse approvals:

As Governor, Fulop would immediately issue an executive order to implement a statewide moratorium on warehouse approvals until a statewide study on best practices is completed. In addition, while respecting the rules of home rule that govern NJ municipalities, Fulop would push for statewide changes to land use laws, including supermajority requirements at zoning/planning boards for municipal approvals, additional environmental impact studies paid for by the applicant but selected by the municipality for neutrality, and require the applicant pay stormwater and impact fees.Until a process that is fair to residents is implemented and one that considers the long-term impact on NJ, the moratorium would exist under the Fulop Administration.

Back in June 2024, I wrote the Fulop campaign a memo, which recommended such a moratorium (I urge readers to read the whole thing), but Fulop did not go nearly as broad in scope as I recommended and he qualified the moratorium with “until” and limited reforms to merely a “study” of “best practices” (not enactment of laws and adoption of regulations) at the municipal level (not DEP and State Plan):

• Memo To The Fulop Campaign – Huge Opportunity To Lead On A Bold Progressive Agenda

1. I just checked your website for “policies”. You don’t have climate, energy, land use, environmental quality, parks, green cities, environment justice, or public health policies posted. Do NOT rely on the usual suspects to draft these policies. HUGE OPPORTUNITY HERE if done right (in policy substance, not just message and narrative).

[2.]

“3. Land use is back on the agenda. Don’t go for the single issue (e.g. warehouse) incremental crap. Adopt a moratorium on destruction of what’s left of NJ forests and farmlands. Go big on reforestation and urban forestry and urban parks. Put regulatory teeth in the State Plan. Time for bold leadership and big plans.”

Protect What’s Left!

That should be Fulop’s campaign slogan, because NJ’s is the nation’s most densely populated state and is already way past buildout and water and air quality are declining and fail to meet federal health based standards, statewide.

And the moratorium on new fossil infrastructure long sought by NJ climate activists is missing as well (as is any concept of the necessary phase out of existing fossil or mandates for electrification).

To his credit, Fulop also partially followed our recommendations and pledged to reinvest in State Parks and stop the privatization and corporate development of State Parks, including iconic Liberty State Park:

We plan to write more on these issues, but for today I just wanted to get the heads up on the proposed DEP WQMP approvals out there and show the striking contrast with the Fulop campaign.

DEP Privatizing Assessment Of Carbon Sequestration & Storage In NJ Forests

DEP is flying by the seat of their pants in an ad hoc and site specific fashion, totally reliant on private groups and contractors with scientific bias and economic interests in the outcome, and with zero transparency or accountability.

This is straight up privatization of NJ’s public forests and it’s being done in the dark.

Management of NJ’s forests to promote carbon sequestration and storage and adapt to climate impacts were the most important and controversial issues that were debated for months by Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith’s Forestry Legislative Task Force.

The Task Force issued its Report and recommendations – including a dissenting minority Report – almost 2 years ago. Their Legislative and regulatory reform recommendations have gone nowhere.

But none of that seems to have had any impact on the Murphy DEP’s climate and forest management policies and practices, which promote commercial logging in public forests as an acceptable form of “forest management”.

Given this backdrop, and the significant controversy over logging at Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area (WMA) – and other DEP logging fiasco’s at WMA’s – I was surprised to learn today that DEP has now expanded the justification for that logging to include carbon sequestration and storage and is implementing a carbon management program.

Today, via the NJ Open Public Record Act, I obtained a DEP approved “Carbon Assessment for Sparta Mountain WMA Stand 7/8 Activity”.

The “assessment” was submitted to the DEP by NJ Audubon. Audubon promotes forestry (logging), provides paid forest management consulting services, benefits from private and public grants to conduct forest management, and owns forested land. Thus they have gross scientific bias and economic conflicts of interest, particularly in light of emerging lucrative carbon credit markets and opportunities for carbon trading and carbon offsets in regulatory programs.

Despite these gross biases and conflicts, the Murphy DEP is relying on NJA to basically write their own ticket and define the policy objectives and scientific and technical methods for NJ’s forestry and climate related programs.

This is straight up privatization of NJ’s public forests and it’s being done in the dark.

See the letter I circulated below – this is unacceptable and must be stopped.

———- Original Message ———-

From: Bill WOLFE <b>

To: Silvia Solaun <ssolaun@gmail.com>, Dante DiPirro <dante.dipirro@gmail.com>, “dante@dantelawyer.com” <dante@dantelawyer.com>, “carleton@pinelandsalliance.org” <carleton@pinelandsalliance.org>, jason menegus <jwmenegus@hotmail.com>, Jaclyn Rhoads <jaclyn@pinelandsalliance.org>, Mark Lohbauer <mlohbauer@jgscgroup.com>, Julia Somers <julia@njhighlandscoalition.org>, “ben.spinelli@highlands.nj.gov” <ben.spinelli@highlands.nj.gov>, “Grogan, Susan [PINELANDS]” <Susan.Grogan@pinelands.nj.gov>, Anjuli Ramos <anjuli.ramos@sierraclub.org>, “Taylor McFarland, NJ Sierra Club” <taylor.mcfarland@sierraclub.org>, “dpringle1988@gmail.com” <dpringle1988@gmail.com>, domalley <domalley@environmentnewjersey.org>, “emile@njconservation.org” <emile@njconservation.org>, Matthew Smith <msmith@fwwatch.org>, Ken Dolsky <kdolsky@optonline.net>

Cc: senbsmith <SenBSmith@njleg.org>, sengreenstein <sengreenstein@njleg.org>, “senmckeon@njleg.org” <senmckeon@njleg.org>

Date: 01/08/2025 9:08 AM EST

Subject: DEP Forest Carbon Assessment Methods

Dear Climate and Forestry Leader – Attached is a Report submitted to DEP last year by NJ Audubon which provides an assessment of carbon and climate issues related to “management” (logging) at Sparta Mountain WMA:

Carbon Assessment for Sparta Mountain WMA Stand 7/8 Activity

The NJA analysis appears to be based on dated scientific literature and US Forest Service models – here are links to them:

ForGATE

https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/43540

NED – 3

https://research.fs.usda.gov/nrs/products/dataandtools/software/ned-3-ecosystem-management-decision-support

For comparison, here is a New York State analysis:

NEW YORK FOREST CARBON ASSESSMENT

https://www.esf.edu/cafri-ny/documents/cafri-report-2023.pdf

I lack the expertise to assess the NJA analysis or the USFS models. I do have sufficient expertise to know that models can be manipulated, vary in reliability, and are sensitive to and dependent on many subjective technical and value judgements about model design, assumptions, input parameters, and objectives.

I am very concerned because the NJA analysis, which was apparently accepted by the DEP, makes positive findings in terms of both carbon sequestration and storage resulting from NJA and DEP’s forms of “forest management” (logging).

I am also very concerned that DEP is implementing complex and controversial forest and climate management strategies and laying the groundwork for carbon credit generation and trading in the absence of:

• scientific peer review
• public involvement
• adopted standards, methods, models, Guidance, Technical Manuals, or protective regulations
• performance monitoring and assessment (and verification of carbon credits generated)
• staff and budget
• Legislative authorization and policy guidance

In other words, DEP is flying by the seat of their pants in an ad hoc and site specific fashion, totally reliant on private groups and contractors with scientific bias and economic interests in the outcome, and with zero transparency or accountability.

This is not acceptable.

Accordingly, I request that perhaps your organizations collectively retain expertise to review and critique the NJA assessment.

I also ask that you reach out to DEP to demand that they stop work on these various “forest management” projects pending adequate scientific and public oversight and adoption of a formal management program.

Bill Wolfe