Q: Why would farmers attack clean water?
A: Pure greed
In the latest attack on the Highlands, the NJ Farm Bureau today is prematurely gloating about a Court decision. According to the Bergen Record:
“The court’s decision is a victory for Highlands landowners, especially those in the Preservation Area,” said Richard Nieuwenhuis, president of the New Jersey Farm Bureau, which brought suit against the DEP. “The septic density standards are at the core of the DEP rules”
http://www.northjersey.com/environment/Farmers_fighting_Highlands_Act_win_a_round_in_court.html
Bill WolfeRichard Nieuwenhuis, president of the New Jersey Farm Bureau,attacks Highlands Plan.While that decision may be a victory for farmers more interested in building condo’s than growing crops, it is a threat to your drinking water supply.
With this litigation threat looming, last week’s controversial decision by the Highlands Council to approve a flawed Regional Master Plan is shown to be even more shortsighted, while the arguments for Governor Corzine to Veto the Council’s approval become stronger.
Legally, the Court did not reverse but merely remanded the DEP septic rules for an evidentiary hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). DEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson will make the final decision to accept or reject the ALJ’s opinion. In the event that the ALJ agrees with the Farmers, it would be highly unusual – and a HUGE sellout – for Jackson to agree and kill DEP’s own rules.
[read decision: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a0984-05.pdf
But, curiously, environmentalists are as confused as the farmers:
“The DEP did a sloppy job of putting these regulations together,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the N.J. Sierra Club. “The DEP better have its act together when it comes to court.”
Mr. Tittel surely knows that the DEP standards are based on a core protection of the Highlands Act and sound science.
The DEP standard attacked by the Farmers is based on a provision of the Highlands Act designed to protect drinking water from the pollution caused by septic systems.
The cornerstone of the Highlands Act are legislative findings that the most stringent protections are warranted because the existing DEP policies and regulations are not technically well suited to the region and would not protect the critical water supply of 5 million New Jersey residents from further degradation. The Legislature found:
“the existing land use and environmental regulation system cannot protect the water and natural resources of the New Jersey Highlands against the environmental impacts of sprawl development”;
“this comprehensive approach should include the adoption by the Department of Environmental Protection of stringent standards governing major development in the Highlands preservation area;”
“the preservation area of the New Jersey Highlands that would be subjected to stringent water and natural resource protection standards, policies, planning, and regulation”;
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/highlands/docs/highlands_bill.pdf
In the sensitive Highlands Preservation Area, the DEP septic standard allows one home per 88 acres in forested lands, and one per 25 acres on farmland. Large land areas are needed to dilute septic pollution due to the geology of the Highlands region, where very little of the rainfall seeps into the ground and “recharges” drinking water aquifers.
The Act set a strict “antidegradation” policy to protect public water supplies. To implement this policy, the Act mandates that DEP set septic development density based upon “deep aquifer recharge” (DAR). “Recharge” is the portion of rainfall that percolates into the ground. Recharge may be lateral (feeding streams and wetlands) or vertical into the aquifer to provide drinking water.
DAR is the vertical component of recharge that goes into the aquifer to replenish drinking water supplies.
This DAR standard was established to protect precious Highlands aquifers. It explicitly recognized that the prior statewide policy and DEP standard – implemented by a methodology known as GSR 32/nitrate dilution model – was not sufficiently protective of the Highlands region or reflective of Highlands geology, which has very limited groundwater recharge.
In adopting this DAR standard, the legislature sought to assure that groundwater was not further degraded by over-development. The legislative intent was to make the current DEP standard and methodology far more protective in the Highlands.
Therefore, I am confident that the Courts will determine that DEP is fully justified both legally and scientifically in making conservative assumptions in setting that septic density standard.
For those interested in the technical details, see below DEP response to comment (#86 – mine) in the recently adopted statewide “water quality management planning” rules.
1015. COMMENT: Where the New Jersey Geological Survey nitrate dilution model identified to be used in N.J.A.C. 7:15-5.25(e) was initially used to implement the standard in the Highlands Act, which calls for recognition of deep aquifer recharge, lot sizes from six to 12 acres were produced. The Department recognized that the model was inappropriate for the Highlands; the model was abandoned and an alternative methodology was developed for the Highlands which produced the lot sizes of 88 acres in forested areas and 25 acres in agricultural areas. This shows
that the Department has already been on record recognizing the implicit flaws in that model. (86)
RESPONSE: The Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act required the Department to establish a septic density standard “at a level to prevent the degradation of ground water quality, or to require the restoration of water quality, and to protect ecological uses from individual, secondary, and cumulative impacts, in consideration of deep aquifer recharge available for dilution.” (N.J.S.A. 13:20-32e). This Act for the first time introduced the concept of deep aquifer recharge, a term that was undefined, in establishing appropriate septic densities in the Highlands Preservation Area. To accomplish this statutory objective, the Department undertook an analysis of drought of record flow in streams in the Highlands Preservation Area under the assumption that drought flow must only come from ground water sources, and under extreme
drought conditions shallow aquifer contribution to stream flow would be negligible. This was a very conservative assumption that the Department believes was appropriate in the Highlands Preservation Area given the Legislative mandate. Details on the development of the septic density standards is provided in Basis & Background of the Septic Density Standard of the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act Rule at N.J.A.C. 7:38-3.4, available through the Department’s website at http://www.nj.gov/dep/highlands/docs/septicdensity.pdf.
Precipitation falling on the surface of the land has three possible fates: runoff, shallow ground water infiltration and aquifer recharge. Under normal conditions all ground water recharge, whether shallow or deep is available to dilute the nitrate load from septic systems. The NJGS GSR-32 recharge calculation has been both peer reviewed and scientifically validated. The Department is convinced that the assumptions in the model concerning average recharge are appropriate to a planning level nitrate dilution analysis. Where better local information is available or specific geological conditions exist that would warrant a more conservative approach the rule at N.J.A.C. 7:15-5.25(a) allows an alternate standard to be determined.”
@page 812
http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/adoptions/adopt_080707a.pdf
Cornell v. Harvard. ECAC Championship game 2008.
Another fine Cornell tradition – players graciously acknowledge the support of the fans, after a tough loss in Championship game.
All together now:
