WolfeNotes.com

Is DEP Commissioner Martin Really This Stupid?

“Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, argued that development along the Jersey Shore has been ongoing for decades, even before there was a coastal permitting program. He said it is not the state’s role to dictate how redevelopment should occur.

“People who live along the shore always live with a risk, and they know that. That’s understood,” he said. “We at the state are not going to tell these towns you can or cannot rebuild, but we will work with them to make sure that whatever comes back will be done in as smart or protective a fashion as possible.” ~~~ Huffington Post, 11/12/12

The DEP press office speaks for the Commissioner. So we take their comments seriously.

As you will recall, DEP Commissioner Martin proposed to clearcut a mature riparian forest in Bull’s Island State Park to protect park visitors from falling trees, after a camper was killed there.

On April 17, 2012, the Hunterdon County Democrat reported exactly what Martin thought government had an obligation to do:

Ragonese said that 80% of the trees within the 5-acre assessment area were deemed at “medium” to “high risk,” leading to the DEP’s decision to clear-cut the area and replant native species, including “smaller trees.” Sycamores won’t be in the mix, he said.

He hopes that people view the state’s approach as “responsible action to ensure our safety and responsibly deal with an issue. That’s what government is supposed to do.”

Five months later, after much public criticism, Martin did not budge one inch from protecting public safety from those deadly trees.

That is “what government is supposed to do“. On September 3, 2102, the Philly Inquirer reported:

Ragonese tells me “it’s a matter of the trees being dangerous; the root systems are bad. This incident that occurred brought to our attention an issue we did not know existed. If someone were to walk in the park and get hurt by a tree, I don’t know how we would be able to look them in the eye.” True, two more sycamores have fallen, though in forest area and toward the river. “If we don’t take these trees down now, they’re going to come down and fall,” he says.

Wolfe decries this tactic as fearmongering, the “stealth war on killer trees.”

Poor Larry, he just couldn’t look someone in the eye if DEP failed to protect them.

Yet this incredibly over-protective risk averse policy (to reduce low probability risks) simply does not apply to people who live along the shore (who are subject to high and preventable risks with huge consequences).

Oh no, DEP won’t get in the way of people taking reckless risks (after 33 people have died from Sandy and $20-$30 Billlion in damages were suffered), and allowing them to pass the costs on to federal taxpayers who subsidize the federal flood insurance program and beach replenishment program.

Oh no, protecting the public from storm risks is not the state’s role – those people at the shore know how to look out for themselves:

Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, argued that development along the Jersey Shore has been ongoing for decades, even before there was a coastal permitting program. He said it is not the state’s role to dictate how redevelopment should occur.

“People who live along the shore always live with a risk, and they know that. That’s understood,” he said. “We at the state are not going to tell these towns you can or cannot rebuild, but we will work with them to make sure that whatever comes back will be done in as smart or protective a fashion as possible.”~~~ Huffington Post 11/12/12

Is Bob Martin really that stupid?

Or is it purely ideology?

This is NOT Sandy (source: NJ Sea Grant "Manual for Coastal Hazard Mitigation")

To Get to Resilience, We Must Get Past Denial and State Abdication

“Waist Deep in the Big Muddy – The Big Fools Says to Push On“

“We have this insane mentality, this boosterism along the coast,” said Wolfe, the former state environmental official in New Jersey. “For years and years, people have been putting up warning flags. The state has known this, and instead of regulating more restrictively they’ve pushed right ahead.”

Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, argued that development along the Jersey Shore has been ongoing for decades, even before there was a coastal permitting program. He said it is not the state’s role to dictate how redevelopment should occur.

“People who live along the shore always live with a risk, and they know that. That’s understood,” he said. “We at the state are not going to tell these towns you can or cannot rebuild, but we will work with them to make sure that whatever comes back will be done in as smart or protective a fashion as possible.”~~~ Huffington Post 11/12/12  

[Watch HuffPost Live Panel discussion]

Why is DEP so deep in denial and lying about it ? (for illustration, see DEP press office comments in the above HuffPo story and in today’s Bergen Record story)

The above photo is the cover of a Report titled: NEW JERSEY SEA GRANT COLLEGE PROGRAM MANUAL FOR COASTAL HAZARD MITIGATION . If that is not an unheeded warning, I don’t know what is.

DEP’s legal responsibility is clear – the DEP Press Office can not credibly deny this.

DEP press office statements directly contradict  NJ law, which requires that DEP regulate land use, development, and infrastructure in the coastal zone.

Under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) and the NJ Coastal Area Facilities Review Act (CAFRA) DEP is legally responsible as the lead for coastal management. Under both federal and state law, DEP also is responsible for planning and permitting of critical public infrastructure, including sewer and water.

State government has additional coastal land use and infrastructure responsibilities under the NJ State Planning Act.

Why is DEP denying all this? Particularly, these 3 aspects:

• DEP conducted a pilot storm risk reduction program along the shore (aptly titled: “Getting To Resilience”) and in March 2012, DEP issued a directly on point Report: NJ Coastal Community Resilience Report, which states:

“Coastal Community Vulnerability Assessment Protocol (CCVAP) is a GIS-based methodology to assist land use planners, hazard mitigation planners, emergency managers, and other local decision-makers in the identification of their community’s vulnerability through virtual mapping. By applying the methods defined in CCVAP to the pilot communities, areas were identified where built infrastructure, sensitive natural resources, and special needs populations overlapped areas of potential inundation. This vulnerability mapping supports community efforts to make the connection between the potential consequences of sea level rise and inundation to their vulnerability – ultimately toguide the community for resilience planning.

Getting to Resilience is a questionnaire developed as a non-regulatory tool to help coastal communities build capacity for resilience to coastal hazards and sea level rise. The application of the survey was intended to highlight positive actions already underway within the pilot communities and to identify opportunities to improve local resilience through planning, public outreach, mitigation, and response mechanisms. This questionnaire validates the hazard planning that the communities have begun to implement and identifies opportunities to incorporate adaptation strategies in broader community planning.”

That DEP Vulnerability Assessment Report found:

The scientific community has arrived at a strong consensus that global climate change is occurring and resulting in changes to shoreline dynamics1. Climate change threatens to accelerate sea level rise and increase the frequency and intensity of coastal storms. As a result, citizens, development, and ecosystems will become more vulnerable to the impacts of coastal hazards, making it imperative to identify areas where special needs communities, vital public facilities and roads, and sensitive natural resources overlap areas of potential inundation. These issues need to be considered as New Jersey’s coastal communities plan to become more resilient.

• As required by the federal CZMA, every 2 years DEP prepares a Coastal Hazard and Vulnerability Assessment Report – here’s the relevant DEP findings from the DEP’s Section 309 Coastal Hazards Assessment:

“Many parts of New Jersey’s densely populated coastal area are highly susceptible to the effects of the following coastal hazards: flooding, storm surge, episodic erosion, chronic erosion, sea level rise, and extra-tropical storms. Reconstruction of residential development and the conversion of single family dwellings into multi-unit dwellings continues in hazardous areas… the value of property at risk is increasing significantly. With anticipated accelerating sea level rise and increasing storm frequency and intensity, vulnerability to the risks of coastal hazards will not abate; it will only become more costly. […]

…in certain instances, structural engineering solutions will not be practical or economically feasible. In these cases future public and private development and redevelopment must be directed away from the hazardous areas. While some derogatorily refer to this option as “retreat,” from the perspective of sound planning based on the best available science, the concept actually involves “strategic adjustment.” Prudent planning requires that we expand upon the existing studies of the societal, economic, and environmental costs of possible mitigative actions while the greatest number of alternatives exist.”

• The infrastructure assessment element of the Christie State Plan explicitly noted the failure to plan for climate change adaptation, highlighting the limits of reliance on local voluntary actions:

“While the State Development and Redevelopment Plan has promoted sustainability from its beginnings, it has been less consistent in promoting resilience, defined as accounting for, or mitigating (by reducing risk and vulnerability), costs reasonably anticipated during the life of each infrastructure project, including disruption from natural or manmade hazards. Compartmentalization (“silos”) of infrastructure investment decision making, both within and across state agencies and between local and state governments, is still a problem.”

This level of denial and abdication warrant legislative intervention and federal regulatory oversight.

Gov. Christie Drunk On Springsteen and Snooki

 Time to Form A Coastal Commission To Plan For A Climate Changed Shore

“This is too important a place in the fabric of New Jersey’s culture to not rebuild it. I’ve never had any doubt in my mind that we’re going to rebuild it,” Christie said. “I do not intend to be the governor who presides over the idea that this is going to be gone. I refuse to accept that.” (Asbury Park Press 11/10/12)

[Update: 2/25/13 – We told you so! Asbury Park Press reports today:

Seaside Heights plans seawall with MTV funds

SEASIDE HEIGHTS — Snooki, Pauly D and the rest of the cast of “Jersey Shore” drew crowds and controversy over four summers in the borough, but their final act could leave the greatest impression.

The cast of the MTV hit reality show helped raise $1 million during a benefit broadcast in November.

Now, Seaside Heights officials want to use that money for a seawall that could protect the boardwalk where the gang partied and played until summer 2012, shortly before superstorm Sandy crashed into the real Jersey Shore.

We also told the Gov. that sea walls don’t work – end update]

And the Star Ledger called that a “sobering message“. Sober? The Governor is drunk on nostalgia.

Nostalgia will get you nowhere (“… that waitress I was seeing lost her desire for me...”)

There’s a time and a place for cheerleading and inspiration and all the Springsteen and Snooki Jersey Shore Photo-Op cultural bullshit.

But now, when expectations for a global warming driven future of the shore are forming, it’s time to Get Real.

So, are there any adults in the room? It’s way past the Good Governor’s bedtime.

Perhaps the legislature might want to stand up and be counted?

Because King Christie, enrthralled by his boyhood rapture, is taking some unilateral and significant steps right now – Star Ledger tells us :

Calling Sandy “our Katrina,” Christie said he would work to ensure New Jersey receives the same attention and federal support given to states along the Gulf Coast after the 2005 hurricane there. He said he planned to meet with his cabinet in the days ahead to map out a long-term strategy.

Do Senate President Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Oliver think that the Legislative branch and the people of the state have a seat at the table in developing  a “long term strategy” for the shore?

Or are they going to sit back and defer to Christie’s Cabinet meetings?

The Asbury Park Press makes very clear the emotions and vision driving the Governor:

“There are certain iconic places that those of us who have lived here all our lives just know about and take for granted,” he said. “You look in here and you see the damage that’s done inside there. Does Madame Marie’s come back, or doesn’t it? And if it doesn’t, then it does affect the culture of the state. It’s a different thing. It affects our history and the way we look at ourselves. That’s why this rebuilding phase is going to have to be done really carefully and smartly and not in a rushed way.”

Do public policymakers and the people of the State think that science and responsible land use planning should play a role in shaping the future of the shore? Or how, as the Governor says, “we look at ourselves”?

Perhaps the Governor and Legislators and the public should ask DEP Commissioner Martin a few questions and read stuff like this, from DEP’s own “Coastal Community Vulnerability Assessment Protocol“

The scientific community has arrived at a strong consensus that global climate change is occurring and resulting in changes to shoreline dynamics1. Climate change threatens to accelerate sea level rise and increase the frequency and intensity of coastal storms. As a result, citizens, development, and ecosystems will become more vulnerable to the impacts of coastal hazards, making it imperative to identify areas where special needs communities, vital public facilities and roads, and sensitive natural resources overlap areas of potential inundation. These issues need to be considered as New Jersey’s coastal communities plan to become more resilient.

Now is the time to discuss strategic retreat from high hazard coastal areas, develop a plan for adaptation to climate change, and get serious about accelerating an emergency transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Perhaps the best way to do that is via a Coastal Commission (a Highlands or Pinelands for the shore) to finally realize the vision of the 1973 CAFRA statute, which called for a “comprehensive environmental design strategy” for the coast.

Madam Marie’s and the Silverball Museum Arcade may be at the top of Governor Christie’s Agenda, but – borrowing from Patti Smith – not mine.

I prefer something along these lines.

[Update – I don’t want this important point by my friend Bill Neil to get lost in the comment section:

But this is not happening in an ideological and political vacuum: the Governor of NJ at the moment is a fan, big time of austerity and cutting the entitlements he doesn’t like.  So how do you pull that off – increasing entitlements at the riskiest of places – while going after Social Security and Medicaid – and you can fill in his NJ state favorites for me.

[Update #2: 11/11/12 – Let’s not forget this classic QOTD:

“I’m not afraid to listen to Bill Wolfe when he has a good idea,” [Senator] Smith said. Wolfe says he would like the Legislature to take a stronger stance with a bill to require action by the DEP. ~~~  Kirk Moore of the Asbury Park Press story on 9/27/10

FYI to readers: I initiated and wrote the bill that created the non-regulatory Coastal & Ocean Protection Council (since abandoned by Christie under Executive Order #40) and staffed Governor McGreevey’s Highlands Task Force and wrote the DEP and environmental provisions of the Highlands Act (both with Senator Smith, the prime sponsor).

Whitman Quietly Set Back Efforts to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions For a Decade While At EPA

The New York Times today provided a platform to former NJ Governor Christie Whitman to try to shape the Obama Administration’s second term priorities and policy.

Read her bizarrely revisionist, partisan, and hypocritical Op-Ed : Climate Change Should Be Front and Center, where she opens with this:

If nothing else, the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, both fiscal and physical, should put the issue of climate change front and center for President Obama’s second term.

Because Whitman is making self-serving and revisionist coastal land use and climate change policy claims, I am forced to set the record straight.

Whitman never made climate change “front and center” when she had the opportunity to do so as NJ Governor and as US EPA Administrator.

While her State Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Shinn did pioneer a greenhouse gas emissions inventory for NJ [a politically safe move with no regulatory teeth], Whitman severely undermined efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while at EPA.

Whitman was NEVER held accountable for this little known but significant fact, and I’ve never seen media or environmental group criticism of it. (NRDC blamed the “do nothing Bush Administration”, as if Whitman had no role – but she brought EPA general counsel Bob Fabricant to Washington from Trenton (read on) – and I still recall the embarrassing NY Times article where she confused global warming with ozone depletion).

I will be very specific here.

While EPA Administrator – at Whitman’s direction –  Whitman’s chief legal counsel, Bob Fabricant, wrote a legal memo that reversed the Clinton Administration’s conclusion that CO2 was a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

Whitman relied on that and did virtually nothing on global warming.

That set back national global warming emission reduction efforts by more than a decade.

Four years later, Fabricant’s analysis was rejected and reversed by the US Supreme Court in the “Massachusetts” decision, which ruled that CO2 is a pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act (The Supreme Court even cites Fabricant’s opinion in the text of the opinion, (@ p.8) citing EPA Federal Register notice 68 Fed. Reg. 52924 – . 52925–52929 (2003 ):

On September 8, 2003, EPA entered an order denying the rulemaking petition. 68 Fed. Reg. 52922. The agency gave two reasons for its decision: (1) that contrary to the opinions of its former general counsels, the Clean Air Act does not authorize EPA to issue mandatory regulations to address global climate change, see id., at 52925–52929; and (2) that even if the agency had the authority to set greenhouse gas emission standards, it would be unwise to do so at this time, id., at 52929–52931.

I provide the full chronology and legal documents in links on this post (scroll down, this post begins with 9/11 dust issues).

Whitman is the ultimate hypocrite and revisionist!

(and I didn’t even mention her “coastal reforms” to NJ’s Coastal Area Facilities Review Act (CAFRA), which promoted lots of the sprawling coastal development that was just wiped out by Hurricane Sandy, the event that Whitman says should be a wakeup call! ) 

In concluding, a couple of facts are in order, as Whitman distorts history:

1. The Republicans blocked climate change legislation, and continue to do so – not the Democrats as Whitman misleadingly implies with this whopper:

It’s unfortunate that Democrats failed to pass cap-and-trade to limit carbon emissions when they had control of both chambers of Congress, as getting it through the House is going to be a tough challenge now.

2. The Obama Administration’s climate bill was a disaster – it included weak greenhouse gas emissions reductions and $60 billion in subsidies to “clean coal” (a sham).

The world’s leading climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, said this about the Obama cap & trade program:

“Cap and trade with offsets would guarantee that we pass climate tipping points, locking in climate disasters for our children. Cap and trade benefits only Wall Street and polluters, sacrificing humanity and nature for their profits.”

PEER worked with EPA whistleblowers, two career enforcement lawyers, who made a superb video about why cap and trade can’t work:”The Huge Mistake”  – watch it!:

And last, here is full disclosure that should have been provided to NY Times readers:

1. Gov. Whitman’s hands are unclean – there’s blood on them – from her actions declaring the post 9/11 air in southern Manhattan safe, a move a federal judge found “shocked the conscience”. Many have died due to her reckless disregard (see this for links).

2. Whitman’s “open for business” policies in NJ, which included a failed and since rescinded “Open Market Emissions Trading” scheme, amounted to a war on the environment. All this is documented in her US Senate confirmation hearings as EPA Administrator, see this for Senate transcript.

3. Whitman had her own “streamlining” “red tape” slashing policy, known as “STARR” – “Strategy for Regulatory Reform” – which amounted to little more than providing favors for special interests and political allies, by rolling back costly environmental protections.

4. Whitman should disclose her client’s economic interests, see:

The Nuclear Industry’s New Shill: Christie Todd Whitman

The last thing we need is Ms. Whitman righteously entering the debate.

Sewer & Industrial Wastewater Discharges Upstream of Drinking Water Intakes

Shit literally happens when the power goes out

wastewater treatment plants above water supply intakes (Source: NJDEP TMDL)

You won’t hear much talk about this map and most north jersey residents probably are not aware that their drinking water is taken from rivers that receive millions of gallons of treated sewage and industrial wastewater.

Wastewater treatment does not remove all chemical contaminants, which flow down river and are taken in by the drinking water intakes.

The drinking water treatment process does not remove 100% of all chemicals either, so those chemicals are present in your tap water.

For example, the Passaic Valley Water Commission’s (PVWC) Little Falls Water Treatment Plant (LFWTP) treats surface water diverted from the Passaic and Pompton rivers.  At the confluence of the Pompton and Passaic Rivers, the Wanaque South intake diverts water into the Wanaque Reservoir.

The LFWTP intake has been deemed “highly susceptible” to pollution, primarily due to the fact that there are over 70 upriver sewage and industrial treatment plants discharging wastewater to the Passaic and Pompton rivers (and hundreds of toxic waste sites and old landfills leaching chemical poisons into the river) (see above map).

DEP does not have a comprehensive grasp of this set of issues (see: FILTER THE CHEMICAL SOUP IN NEW JERSEY’S DRINKING WATER).

But DEP does have a patchwork of permit requirements designed to prevent and reduce chemicals discharged to drinking water supplies (but not eliminate them), such as industrial pre-treatment and wastewater treatment.

(see this recent GAO Report about the effectiveness of those Clean Water Act programs – see also the recent NY Times investigative series, “Toxic Waters”, especially That Tap Water Is Legal but May Be Unhealthy

Federal and State Safe Drinking Water Regulations require routine monitoring for many chemicals, including VOCs at community water systems (but not all). As the NY Times wrote:

Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times.

But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2000.

And the drinking water systems treat the raw water they take from the river, but again, the monitoring is not comprehensive, hundreds of chemicals known to be present are unregulated, and the treatment is not 100% effective in terms of removing all contaminants (especially when the power goes out).

So, quite a bit slips through the cracks under the best of circumstances.

But when the power goes out, all bets are off.

To address some of these threats to water supplies, DEP recently restricted sewage treatment plants who discharge to the Passaic and Pompton rivers above drinking water intakes under a Clean Water Act “Total Maximum Daily Load” (TMDL).

The DEP phosphorus TMDL looks at specific individual pollution sources (see above map) and imposes regulatory mandates. The TMDL states:

Algal blooms in raw drinking water sources can cause taste and odor problems and treatment inefficiencies, having a negative impact on conventional treatment at a drinking water system. When algae are present in large amounts purveyors must increase the use of disinfectants and oxidants to treat the algae resulting in an increase in disinfection byproducts such as trihalomethanes, some of which are listed by EPA as likely carcinogens. 

The Christie DEP opposes the TMDL program as just more “job killing” “red tape” “unfunded state mandates”. Christie prefers “regulatory relief” in the form of voluntary “common sense” local “partnership” efforts. [He also kills inconvenient independent science and technical bodies, like the Drinking Water Quality Institute.]

Under federal law, the DEP has studied these risks to drinking water, but instead of detailed work (backed by regulatory mandates on individual pollution sources and discrete chemicals like the phosphorus TMDL), including detailed sampling of the individual industrial and sewage treatment plant effluent for all chemicals known to be present, the ambient concentrations in the river water, and the finished drinking water (for all chemicals known to be discharged to the river).

Instead, to implement “Source water protection” and gage “susceptibility”, DEP looked at average densities of pollution sources per square mile, not individual sources and individual chemicals, e.g. “the density of known contaminant sites, solid waste landfills, NJPDES surface- and storm-water permits, and compost facilities”, see:

SUSCEPTIBILITY OF SOURCE WATER TO COMMUNITY AND NONCOMMUNITY SURFACE-WATER SUPPLIES AND RELATED WELLS IN NEW JERSEY TO CONTAMINATION BY VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS 

The 1996 Amendments to the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act require all states to establish a Source Water Assessment Program (SWAP). New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) elected to evaluate the susceptibility of public water systems to contamination by inorganic constituents, nutrients, volatile organic and synthetic organic compounds, pesticides, disinfection byproduct precursors, pathogens, and radionuclides. Susceptibility to contamination in surface water is a function of many factors, including contaminant presence or use in or near the water source, natural occurrence in geologic material, changes in ambient conditions related to human activities, and location of the source within the flow system. The New Jersey SWAP includes four steps: (1) delineate the source water assessment area of each ground- and surface-water source used for public drinking water; (2) inventory the potential contaminant sources within the source water assessment area; (3) determine the public water system’s susceptibility to contaminants; and (4) incorporate public participation and education (www.state.nj.us/dep/swap).

So, there you have it – under the best of circumstances, the best of cases, there are serious risks to our drinking water that remain unaddressed by state and federal regulators.

No wonder mum’s the word on the huge problems  and public health risks when the power goes out.

(and the Passaic is not alone – take a look at this statewide map of intakes:

(source NJDEP - NJGS)