WolfeNotes.com

Question:
If NJ is losing jobs, residents, and economic development to Northeastern Pennsylvania as the Star Ledger recently reported, and we are seeking to redevelop urban NJ, and we need to raise gas taxes or tolls to improve NJ transportation infrastructure, then why are we spending a half a billion dollars to accelerate the Pennsylvania hemorrhage, promote rural development, and ignoring far more cost effective urban NJ transit needs?
I have not analyzed this project, so I’m just asking. Investment in a network based on inter-city hi-speed rail (point to point) would be a different kettle of fish and something I strongly support.
$551M rail project on track
ANDOVER TWP. | Norbert Hornstein’s daughter was sitting in traffic on Interstate 80 recently when she noticed the solution to her problems just off the highway: a train station.
For his daughter and other drivers clogging up the road, Hornstein hopes the Lackawanna Cut-Off project moves forward, bringing the promise of passenger rail service between Scranton, and New York City.
“To me, it makes all the sense in the world. To me, the big question is, ‘When?'” the Denville resident said. “We’ve waited long enough.”
The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority and NJ Transit held a public hearing Thursday in Sussex County to present the project’s latest environmental assessment. Coming about 30 years after the rail line was removed, it offered Hornstein and other residents a glimpse of plans to restore the 133-mile route.
With the report, state and federal transportation officials propose starting the project with a 52.3-mile stretch heading east from Andover Township. It would be completed in about four years. Funding has not been found to complete the remaining portion through Warren County and into Pennsylvania, officials said.
(complete article: http://www.njherald.com/story/11CUTOFF-web

Trenton Politicians are Not Serious about Global Warming

[Update: 7/20/08 – “Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.” Al Gore
http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/304/

I wrote on Wednesday about DEP’s proposed new rules to create a pollution trading scheme under “RGGI” (the northeast state’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative), see:

Global Warming rhetoric meets reality
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2008/07/global_warming_rhetoric_meets.html

Based on the comments, it is obvious that we have a “failure to communicate” (Cool Hand Luke).

So let me take another stab at one key point – ideally, this could be the question of the day for the site. I throw down that challenge to site editors. I dare you to ask this question of Star Ledger readers (or better yet, conduct a formal poll of NJ residents on it)

Are you willing to pay more than 50 cents per month to prevent global warming?

[Note – good suggestion that the word “prevent” should instead be “reduce” or “mitigate”. Global warming is already happening now and can not be prevented.]

Governor Corzine and the NJ Legislature say the answer is NO.

They enacted a law that lets polluters off the hook for paying pollution fees that might cost any more than 50 cents per month in the average homeowners electric bill.

That alone is an outrage.

The fact that the proposal allows a 9% INCREASE in CO2 emissions, when for YEARS it has been sold to the public as an emission REDUCTIONS plan, just adds insult to injury. (as we all know due to the extensive PR, that the Global Warming Response Act mandates a 20% reduction by 20202, and 80% by 2050)

Have I made myself clear?

(technical note: the DEP rule stated that the RGGI proposal allows for a 4% increase in average missions from 2002 – 2004 across the 10 state RGGI region. This downplays the fact that it allows for a LARGER 9% increase in NJ emissions. How this data was reported reveals DEP’s attempt to mislead.

Additional bonus point observation for those that really get down in the weeds: DEP adds further misleading analysis by comparing RGGI pollution allowances with PROJECTED emissions under what is an assumed “Business as Usual” scenario (BAU). Again, this grossly misleads, because the BAU scenario assumes an incredible growth of electric demand (27%) by the year 2020. So, instead of the real emissions REDUCTIONS mandated by law, RGGI merely SLOWS THE RATE OF INCREASE in the growth of emissions. Comparing RGGI pollution allowances with a Projected BAU scenario is the same methodology that the Bush Administration’s Department of Energy has been severely criticized for by national environmental groups. Yet that same method applied in NJ by DEP has been praised by environmental groups. Go figure.).

Dupont Logo from Deepwater facility –
Better living through chemistry?

On a night like this
So glad you came around,
Hold on to me so tight
And heat up some coffee grounds.
We got much to talk about
And much to reminisce,
It sure is right
On a night like this.
“`Bob Dylan
[With 6 Updates below ]
At the invitation of Councilman Ed Meakem, I trekked up to Pompton Lakes last night to talk about toxic pollution from the Dupont site and to explain why the NJ cleanup laws and lame DEP lame oversight justify a critical and skeptical stance. I’m certain that my night was not the kind of night Mr. Dylan had in mind, but it sure was interesting and well worth sharing what I found, saw, and heard – on a night like this!
Meakem called me after he read this post, where I praised his leadership: Hammer meet nail
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2008/07/hammer_meet_nail.html
I wrote that after learing about the most recent toxic pollution at the Dupont site Pompton Lakes council wants independent test for toxic vapors
http://www.northjersey.com/environment/environmentnews/Pompton_Lakes_council_wants_independent_test_for_toxic_vapors.html

I arrived early for the 6:30 public hearing to explore the Dupont site. The Dupont site manger, a Mr. Dave Epps, refused my request for a tour and even blocked me from taking any photo’s at the gate – I was so impressed by Dupont’s bold “safety” claim, I just had to snap off a photo though! (you see, Dupont has polluted virtually the entire town a with a toxic soup of lead, mercury and organics. As a result, Dupont already has paid more than $38 million to settle a lawsuit by 427 residents for damages caused by mercury and lead poisoning of children. See: http://www.wilentzpersonalinjurylawyers.com/press/articles/article_acid_brook.html

Dupont Pompton Lakes site.

I promptly left the site as ordered by Mr. Epps, but the Wakenhut rent a cops then followed me around the working class neighborhood that surrounds the plant – I managed to shake them and was able to bushwack onto the grounds, but got driven away by a torrential rainstorm:

homes surround Dupont toxic site

Soaked to the bone, after the deluge passed I explored the perimeter of the Dupont site and managed to come across a soccer field and the DEP “Cannonball Trail” trailhead. Since most folks prefer to live, work and have their kids play as far away from a toxic waste site as possible, lets just say I was surprised by what I found –
This soccer field is named Dupont Field. It is completely surrounded by groundwater monitoring wells and a “pump and treat” system. I was told that the highly polluted groundwater is pumped out of the ground, treated, and then recharged back into the ground ON the soccer field. So kids play on a hazardous wast treatment unit! Only in NJ!

Dupont Field

NJ has hundreds of miles of outstanding hiking trails – along with that toxic legacy. As the nation’s most densely populated state, why not co-locate? This is the trailhead for the DEP “Cannonball Trail” – yes, those are monitoring wells –

The “Cannonball Trail” trailhead.

Just 10 feet to the left of this point, is a real field of dreams – so many monitoring wells and what look like vapor ducts I couldn’t count them:

The Dupont site was fenced with the typical signs – which got me to thinking about law enforcement and property rights: First, the signs provide no warning that the land behind the fence is a toxic waste site or that wildlife, fish, soil, and water are contaminated;

Second, and more important, just who is trespassing here? Dupont dumped toxic chemicals on the land and in the water. Those chemicals have migrated off site and poison surrounding homes, residents, drinking water wells, Wanaque River, Acid Brook, wildlife, fish, and Pompton Lake. Those chemicals and Dupont have trespassed!

JUST WHO IS THE TRESPASSER?

Blocked by fences and hounded by rent a cops, all I managed to see of the Dupont site was this out building (that could be another monitoring well in foreground and some kind of air emissions stack, but I have no info on what goes on in that building):

I finally ended up at the public hearing – I was the first invited guest asked to speak!
Here’s what I warned the Borough Council about: NEW JERSEY TO PRIVATIZE POLLUTION REGULATION TO SAVE MONEY — Outsourcing Clean-Ups Is Recipe for More Toxic Disasters, Legislature Told
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1027
I was not sure if this woman lives in the vapor intrusion zone, or whether her kids play on the soccer field. But it did seem like she was just a little concerned.

This is Steve Madonna (no relation to the more famous and attractive namesakes). Steve was the NJ Environmental Prosecutor in the Florio Administration – was that is, until his Office was abolished by another “Open for Business” Governor, Christine Todd Whitman. Steve does toxic torts and represents residents in Pompton Lakes – Dupont has already paid out millions for damages associated with lead and mercury poisoning of kids.

Homeward bound, I stopped at “The Office” in Morristown for dinner and a few pints – all on a night like this.

Update #6 – The Dupont Pompton Lakes toxic contamination story isn’t going away – check out the latest:
http://www.northjersey.com/environment/State_will_check_rate_of_cancer_in_plume.html
State will check rate of cancer in plume
Thursday, March 12, 2009
BY ELAINE D’AURIZIO
POMPTON LAKES — Mayor Katie Cole has requested the results of a state health study to see if cancer clusters exist among residents living above a plume of contamination in the borough’s northeastern section.
The state Department of Health and Senior Services says it will respond to her by early April with the results.
Cole said she asked for the study of the entire plume — some 437 homes — but especially for Barbara Drive and Orchard Street, because residents “kept coming up at meetings to say there were numerous cases of cancer at those locations.”

“I needed the experts to investigate to see if those statements were true,” she said. “And if they are, we would have to move to the next step, to follow up with whatever is needed — perhaps surveys or health screenings for people.”
Testing last May by DuPont, whose former explosives factory is responsible for the contamination, revealed elevated levels of chemicals or “intrusive vapors” in the groundwater under as many as 400 buildings in the plume. The pollution is from the degreasers tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), which were used as cleaners by the factory. It operated in town between 1902 and 1994.
DuPont has offered to pay to install mitigation systems — basement venting — and to be involved in the design of filtering systems to be put in the affected homes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection are monitoring the testing and installation of the systems. And recently, the borough hired an environmental firm to watch DuPont’s cleanup and remediation efforts.
The EPA, DEP and the borough all have advised residents to install the systems in their homes. Some residents have refused, saying they fear depreciation of their homes and have health concerns for their families.
Cole hopes the study will calm those fears.
But Marilyn Riley, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Senior Services, said the study’s goal is to “see if there are any unusual trends, any larger number of cancers.”
“Basically, we are looking at data in the state’s Cancer Registry,” she said. The registry gets its information from doctors, hospitals, clinics, radiologists, laboratories and dentists, all of whom are required to report cancer diagnoses treated in the state since 1978.
“We would have to study the location of the cancer, the type of cancer,” Riley said. “You verify what cases are, where they are.”
The process to identify clusters is indeed complicated, said Michael Greenberg, associate dean of the faculty of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Greenberg has worked on many studies throughout the state looking for cancer clusters.
“It’s like detective work,” he said. “What you are looking for is an excess of that particular disease of a particular area at that particular time.”

Copyright © North Jersey Media Group
[Update #5 – 3/11/09 – Holy cow! Where has DEP been all these years? Looks like my original July 10, 2008 post was right all along – Over 90% of homes tested were poisoned by toxic vapors from Dupont. Read this:
Act against vapors, residents told
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
BY ELAINE D’AURIZIO
NorthJersey.com
STAFF WRITER
POMPTON LAKES — The most recent tests of toxic vapors seeping through soil under basements in the town’s northeastern section confirm that homeowners there should take advantage of technology being offered free to remove those vapors, state and federal environmental officials said Monday.
Those tests, of soil under 37 homes and apartment buildings scattered above the plume of contamination in the groundwater, found vapors above acceptable levels in more than nine of 10 cases, indicating that vapors were likely seeping into basements.
Link to Full story:
http://www.northjersey.com/environment/Act_against_vapors_residents_told.html
[Update #1: Boro to hire DuPont watchdog http://www.suburbantrends.com/NC/0/870.html
[Update #2: read Dupont’s proposed vapor intrusion cleanup plan:
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/srp/community/sites/dupont_pompton_lakes/final_virmwp.pdf
[Update #3 – Chemical fears bring community to prominent law firm http://www.northjersey.com/environment/environmentnews/Chemical_fears_bring_community_to_prominent_law_firm_.html
[Update #4: Citizens unite over DuPont
http://www.suburbantrends.com/NC/0/918.html

Corzine First Step “Modest” – allows for INCREASE in CO2 Emissions
[Update: 7/20/08 – “In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.”
Al Gore
http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/304/
DEP has finally laid the global warming cards on the table and – to mix a metaphor – it ain’t a pretty picture.

Bill Wolfe

Last week, we criticized the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for missing the first key deadline of the highly touted “Global Warming Response Act” (GWRA). That law mandated a 20% reduction in emissions by the year 2020, and a dramatic 80% reduction by 2050. The law required DEP to submit a plan to the Legislature with detailed recommendations about how those lofty emission reduction goals were to be achieved (see: NEW JERSEY MISSES FIRST GLOBAL WARMING TARGET — Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan Due This Week Delayed Until Fall or Later
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1072
In light of this criticism, we would be remiss if we failed to note DEP’s first actual accomplishment. DEP took its first proposed regulatory step – officially published in Monday’s NJ Register. The proposal would establish a pollution trading program under the “Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative” (RGGI). RGGI is one small part of the program to meet the GWRA goals. We previously critiqued the RGGI program as a sham and subsidy for major polluters (see:
Lame global warming bill goes to Governor
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2008/01/weak_global_warming_bill_goes.html
And we can now understand why DEP is reluctant to release a comprehensive emissions reduction plan required by law – a plan with numbers and schedules and specific enforceable regulatory requirements to achieve the numerical goals.
But you don’t have to take our word for it on the RGGI program – here’s the key RGGI fact that DEP won’t tell you in any press release – it is buried in the Orwellian fine print of the rule proposal.
Despite what you’ve been led to believe about steep emissions REDUCTIONS, the RGGI pollutant trading program allows for an INCREASE in current emissions. Here’s that Orwellian contradiction documented in DEP’s own words – words which also document the fact that economic impacts trumped science and the legal mandate to reduce emissions. According to DEP:
“The initial regional cap is 188 million short tons of CO2 per year, which is approximately four percent above annual average regional emissions during the period 2000 through 2004 for electric generating units that will be subject to the program.
This phased approach,…. is intended to provide market signals and regulatory certainty so that electricity generators begin planning for, and investing in, lower-carbon alternatives throughout the region, but without creating dramatic wholesale electricity price impacts and attendant retail electricity rate impacts.” (see page 4:
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/rules/proposals/070708a.pdf
We must note that what DEP seeks to avoid and describes as “creating dramatic wholesale electricity price impacts and attendant retail electricity rate impacts” were estimated at about a 1% increase in current electric rates – $5.96 PER YEAR, or 50 CENTS per MONTH for a typical NJ household! (see economic analysis on page 72 of DEP proposal).
If a 50 CENT PER MONTH rate increase is the economic pain threshold – and it still allows for INCREASING emissions – how are we ever going to get DEEP REDUCTIONS which will cost REAL MONEY?
We felt it important to address this fundamental issue immediately. We will provide readers with a detailed analysis of the entire DEP RGGI proposal – but only after we digest all the loopholes, exemptions, offsets, and polluter subsidies in the proposal.
The rule is open for public comment for 60 days – until September 5, 2008.
See page 1 of the above link to the DEP proposal for information on how to submit your comments.
In the meantime, for the wonks out there, here is a critique of emissions trading:
EPA EXPERTS CAST DOUBTS ON GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS TRADING — Verification and Enforcement Challenges May Cripple Global Warming Strategy
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1038
And here is NJ’s bad experience with market based emissions trading OMET :
NEW JERSEY REJECTS EPA PLAN FOR TRADING POLLUTION CREDITS — Rebuked EPA Weighs Enforcement Against Companies Using Credits

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=185
More to follow.