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Archive for October, 2013

A Fracked Gas Pipeline Thru The Pinelands To a Power Plant On Great Egg Bay is Not Sustainable or Leadership

October 28th, 2013 No comments

“Sustainable NJ” Called Out for Taking Corporate Money In Return For Providing  “Leadership” Platform for South Jersey Gas  Company

Time To Get Corporate Money Out of NJ Environmental Groups

Environmental activists protest gas pipeline at Stockton forum

By JOEL LANDAU, Staff Writer | Posted 1 hour ago

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP — The protests over a controversial gas pipeline proposal spread to an environmental forum Monday at Richard Stockton College.

State environmental activists complained that an environmental group accepted money from South Jersey Gas — which is proposing building a pipeline through a section of the Pinelands — and was allowed to be a sponsor of a forum to promote energy sustainability among local municipalities. The activists said the group allowed the utility “green cover.” […]

Bill Wolfe, director of NJ PEER, likened the relationship with the American Cancer Society presenting a conference sponsored by tobacco companies.

“People would say, ‘Come on. We can see right through this,’” he said.   ~~~ Press of Atlantic City 10/28/13

Let’s keep this short and simple.

Most progressive voices agree that we need to get corporate money out of politics. Well, we need to get it out of self proclaimed environmental groups too.

It is simply wrong for a group called “Sustainable NJ” to take money from South Jersey Gas Company (SJG) in return for providing them a “Leadership” platform, at precisely the time when the hugely controversial $100 million SJG pipeline is pending review by the Pinelands Commission.

The pipeline, whose route violates the forest protection standards of the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan,  is designed to carry 20 billion cubic feet per year of fracked gas to repower the $400 million BL England plant at Beesley’s Point on Great Egg Bay (the mouth of the Great Egg Wild And Scenic River). That plant lacks cooling towers and slaughters billions of aquatic organisms.

The BL England plant would emit over 1.2 million tons of CO2 – not counting all the methane gas emissions from the pipeline and fracking wells. Methane is at least 23 time more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

So, a group of activists from NJ’s largest environmental organizations distributed leaflets today at an event sponsored by Sustainable NJ.

That event, at Stockton State College, featured Jeff DuBois, President, South Jersey Gas, as a “Sustainable Leader”.

The objective of the leafletting was to raise awareness of the SJG pipeline and to call out Sustainable NJ – in front of their own members – for taking SJG money in return for providing them green cover at a critical juncture in the review of the SJG pipeline.

After speaking with several SNJ members entering the event today, I’m fairly certain that few SNJ “Green Team” members are aware of the proposed SJG Pinelands pipeline or the fact that SJG is funding SNJ in exchange for the “leadership” platform – an outrageous quid pro quo.

Just think for a moment how outrageous the SJG – SNJ relationship is.

It is actually worse than the American Cancer Society taking tobacco industry money to provide a platform to praise the tobacco industry as “leaders” in public health.

A project with just ONE of these environmental harms would be deemed “unsustainable” – the SJG has them ALL, so let’s list them:

  • creation of huge new greenhouse gas emission
  • diversion of $500 million in capital investment to fossil infrastructure than undermines the economics of renewable energy
  • violation of the forest protection standards of the Pinelands National Reserve, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
  • distribution and expansion of markets for 20 billion cubic feet per year of fracked gas
  • repowering a $400 million power plant that fails to include  cooling towers, located on the Bay of a Wild and Scenic River.

Sustainable NJ took the SJG money in a quid pro quo deal to promote the corporate sponsor of this disastrous pipeline project as a  “Sustainable leader”.

It is actually difficult to imagine a more Orwellian situation – maybe a nuke plant in the Grand Canyon to promote Ecotourism by the National Parks Service ?

Shame on them.

I hope  their members force the leadership of that organization to either resign or change policy.

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Gov. Christie Claims NJ Had a “Massive Plan” in Place Prior to Sandy

October 27th, 2013 No comments

The Gov.’s  So Called “Massive Plan” Had Massive Flaws

The Governor Was Not Prepared for Sandy – He Now Blames Local Officials

Christie’ DEP Actually Dismantled Climate Adaptation Planning and Downgraded Priority on Coastal Hazards

Christie remains in Denial – NJ the Only State in Northeast without a Climate Change Adaptation Plan

I spewed coffee on the keyboard after reading this blast of bullshit Gov. Christie just told the Bergen Record:

Christie told The Record in an interview last week that a state emergency plan had been in place since after Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. “There was a massive plan,” Christie said. “They’re confused because they’re confused,” he said of local officials. “But there was a plan — but a lot of the plan, the responsibility falls on them,” he said. 

“You know, when a disaster happens, it does not mean that the state is going to substitute ourselves in for every function that is supposed to be a municipal function,” Christie said. “We may help to pay for some of it through federal aid, we may help to supplement it, as we have with zoning officials and inspectors, to try to help make that process move along more quickly. But those things, which are municipal functions before the storm, are municipal functions after the storm and will just be supplemented by us on a case-by-case basis.”

The “Plan” the Governor is referring to is known as the State “Hazard Mitigation Plan”. The Governor himself must approve this Plan under federal and State law.

State government is the lead agency for developing, overseeing, and implementing the plan. The Plan is supposed to specify actions that local governments are required to take.

The State’s role is to not only develop the plan, but to monitor and enforce compliance with the plan.

The Governor is simply lying about all the warnings he ignored and the inadequacy of the State’s Plan. He is evading his responsibility under the law.

But you don’t have to take my word for it – here is the legislative testimony of CHristie’s own DEP Commisisoner, Bob Martin, who explained the State and Governor’s role quite clearly:

I’d like to start off by framing out how we operate in an emergency response point of view from the State. So, I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about that and then the scope of responsibilities DEP has, that fits into an overall comprehensive plan.

First off, the State operates during emergencies based on planning – significant planning that occurs at the state level.

Each department operates with its own plan and ties into an overall unified command which is operated and coordinated by  the State Police.

All the major decisions, critical decisions, are made by the Governor. […]

We do not operate in silos as an organization – we operate clearly together as a team.

The Cabinet members sit with the Governor, helping to inform him on those decisions.  ~~~ DEP Commissioner Bob Martin. Testimony to Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. December 3, 2012 – watch it, begins at time 1 hour 47 minutes

Got that? “All the major, critical decisions, are made by the Governor”.

Not the Mayor, or local police and fire Departments – or even the Planning and Zoning Boards.

As we’ve noted numerous times, that Plan – updated in April 2012 AFTER  Hurricane Irene – did not consider the lessons learned from Irene and did not consider climate change, sea level rise, and storm surge that did all the damage by Sandy.

As I wrote, here is that caveat from the Plan itself:

Technical information on the four (4) most recent disasters and climate change issues are still being reviewed and are not included in this April 2012 NJ Hazard Plan update.  ~~~ NJ Hazard Mitigation Plan (April 2012)

That Plan did not require that critical infrastructure – like wastewater  and drinking water treatment plants – have basic protections, like a vulnerability assessment, a climate adaptation plan, and basic things like back up power and adequate fuel to power back up diesel pumps and generators.

Or ways to prevent disasters like the massive drinking water pipeline break in Monmouth County, which should have been a huge wakeup cal about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure

That Plan did not have maps of where the locations that are most vulnerable to storm surge and flooding are, or how high and wide the floodwaters and storm surge would go.

That Plan did not have plans for local officials to follow, like DEP had piloted in 3 shore towns in a pilot project known as the Coastal Community Vulnerability Assessment.

Just the opposite: Christie’s DEP dismantled climate adaptation planning and coastal hazard planning.

Those GAPING DEFECTS meant that local officials and the operators made huge preventable mistakes – critical errors that should not have happened – like loss of hundreds of drinking water and sewage treatment plants and over a hundred millions of dollars of NJ Transit trains.

In contrast, NY State and NY City had adequate plans in place and suffered far less damage.

How could the Bergen Record forget its own coverage and fail to hold the Governor accountable?:

Christie: No knowledge of NJ Transit’s hurricane plan before Sandy hit:

Governor Christie said Wednesday that he had no idea NJ Transit had a plan in place months before Superstorm Sandy hit last year that called for storing commuter trains in upland sites — which the transit agency didn’t do — resulting in more than $120 million in damage to locomotives and railcars that were left in low-lying yards in Kearny and Hoboken. […]

“I did not have a specific, personal knowledge of this plan before the storm and, as almost every department of government has a plan, I’m sure that the people of the state will not be shocked to know that I haven’t read every one of them,” Christie said. “So I didn’t know about it.”

So, let;’s recap:

  • Christie said he had no knowledge of climate change and had not been briefed on climate change risks;
  • Christie said he had no knowledge of NJ Transit’s so called “Plan” (actually a 3 page memo, not a plan)
  • Christie’s DEP dismantled climate change adaptation planning and abandoned coastal hazard planning
  • Christie and his DEP ignored multiple warnings from scientists about NJ’s high vulnerability to sea level rise, storm surge, and climate change drive extreme weather
  • Christie’s DEP admitted that State flood hazard maps were decades old, dating to the Carter Administration, yet still refuses to update them and opposes legislation to require that they be updated
  • Just as failures start to get reported in the press a year after the storm, Christie now claims that hazard planning is a local responsibility, despite directly contradictory testimony of his DEP Commissioner that the Gov. is the decider.

And the Bergen Record lets him get away with all this bullshit.

Un-fucking believable!

Worse, after all this evasion and lack of accountability on failures in Sandy preparation, to top it off, the Record repeats the misleading dune myths and gives the Gov. a pass on climate denial:

But he has treaded lightly on the subject of climate change and sea levels. He said the DEP’s one-foot elevation standard was “to try to make sure we account for any eventualities in the future — not necessarily sea rise or any of that stuff but, you know, more intense storms that could come later on.”

He added: “I hope they don’t come, but if they do come, we want to be ready. If you’re going to do this, better safe than sorry. I don’t want people to have to do it twice. So let’s do it once.”

No wonder the Gov. has favorable poll numbers – the press refuses to tell the public the truth about his record.

 

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New Jersey “Abnormally Dry” October – Are We Heading Into Drought? And Why Don’t You Know About This or Any Other Environmental Problem?

October 26th, 2013 No comments

Where Is the Update of the NJ Water Supply Master Plan?

Climate Change Will Increase Extreme Weather – More Floods AND More Droughts

Christie Administration in Denial and Pre-election Suppression Mode

Christie Imposed a Statewide Gag On DEP Until After the Election

[Update – 10/30/13 – The Star Ledger finally covers the issue, as usual, the story relies exclusively on the State weatherman who again downplays the significance, fails to mention that reservoir levels are just one drought indicator, and of course, not even a hint that this is another facet of extreme weather linked to climate change, see: N.J. dry spell continues, but reservoirs remain at acceptable levels]

 

The most recent NOAA Drought Monitor regional  Northeast Drought Monitor classifies most of NJ as “abnormally dry”.

But, curiously, the NJ DEP “drought indicators”, last updated October 13, 2013, do not show this abnormal pre-drought condition.

The lag in DEP drought indicator data is not quite as bad as the multi-year delay in releasing the legislatively mandated update of the Statewide Water Supply Master Plan.

We have been told that DEP Commissioner Martin does not welcome any “bad news” and that the Goveror’s Office has blocked any DEP staff attendance at public events until after the election.

The Governor doesn’t want any repeats of things like the Roxbury Fenimore Landfill fiasco – which, among many other things explains why the Department of Health and Human Services has refused to present its health study findings in Pompton Lakes. Residents there are fed up with delays in releasing that data and have blasted NJ DHSS managers:

Thank you for your response but as you know the scheduling of a public meeting to release the results of the Pompton Lakes’ DuPont Plume Household Health Survey results began with communication in 2011/2012 with talk of scheduling a public meeting to release this information time and time again.

The fact that this information has not been released to the public yet is not only astounding but totally inexcusable. Since so much time has gone by, the only remedy is to schedule the Open Public meeting Immediately along with a Health CAG meeting.  The Health CAG has not met since 2011 as you know and the members are never the same as we both know.

The public has waited far too long to receive this information that is critical to the health, safety and overall well-being of their families.

I have yet to hear a justifiable and logical reason for as to why the release of this information is being held up.

Respectfully,

Lisa Riggiola

Executive Director

Citizens For A Clean Pompton Lakes

Pompton Lakes, NJ 07442

But, ah, what’s a little suppression of public health info? (snark)

So, let’s get back to the abnormally dry conditions.

I am reluctant to post this datas because in May, I suggested that perhaps the State was slipping into an early drought, just before record late spring and summer rainfalls emerged! We wouldn’t want to be accused of crying wolf!!

Regardless, the people of NJ deserve to be aware of current conditions – at a minimum, DEP is again falling down on that job.

More likely, the failure of the DEP to update drought status reports is part of a coordinated state government wide policy of the Christie Administration to withhold and suppress any “bad news” in the runup to the election.

We’ve had this political suppression confirmed by DEP sources and NJ academics who work closely with the DEP on environmental science and data.

Who knows, after reading this, some intrepid journalist might just consider how much “bad news” DEP scientists are sitting on and forced to suppress at the direction of management – and file OPRA requests to get it and report it to the people of NJ who have a right to know.

Like what else could explain the NJDHSS delay in meeting with the people of Pompton Lakes?

 

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Ocean County Hazard Mitigation Plan Shows Major Portions Of County Underwater Due to Sea Level Rise

October 26th, 2013 No comments

Dunes Offer No Protection – Back Bay Flooding NJ’s “Achilles Heel”

More Evidence That Gov. Christie’s Denial & Rebuild Approach Are Fatally Flawed

The Ocean County draft Hazard Mitigation Plan should be a huge wake-up call to the people of Ocean County (you can view and download the plan here).

The Plan is just more evidence that shows how extremely reckless and irresponsible Gov. Christie’s push to rebuild the shore is, without considering future risks due to climate change and sea level rise.

The State is spending billions of taxpayer dollars on infrastructure and allowing people to rebuild in areas that will be under water permanently, even without a storm.

The Plan is the first County plan I am aware of that considers the vulnerability, risks, and impacts of climate change, sea level rise, and extreme weather and coastal storm surge.

It is  not clear what other coastal county Hazard Mitigation Plans also consider climate change impacts – we hope to report on that soon.

The Ocean County Plan shows the major portions of the county will be permanently inundated – underwater – due to projected sea level rise. Sea level rise make storm surge far worse.

The plan is the subject of public hearings next week (see Ocean county’s press release here:

The meetings are scheduled for 6 p.m., Monday, Oct. 28 at the Ocean County Southern Service Center, 179 South Main St., Manahawkin and 6 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 30 in Mancini Hall at the main branch of the Ocean County Library, 101 Washington St., Toms River

I testified during last week’s Legislative hearing in Tom’s River about that plan and urged legislators and the public to review it carefully.

Prior to that hearing, I visited the Ocean County Planning Department to ask to borrow maps from the Plan to use at the Legislative hearing. County planners were unaware of the Hazard Mitigation Plan, which was prepared by private consultants working for the Ocean County Sheriff’s Office.

A I’ve written numerous times, the Christie Administration has refused to consider these climate change issues in Sandy preparation or Sandy recovery. And FEMA flood elevation maps and the National Flood Insurance Program also do not consider these projected conditions and risks.

Back bays are particularly at risk – underwater – permanently inundated, with just 1 foot sea level rise. The range of sea level rise values is from 6 inches to over 6 feet.

Rutgers professor Michael Kennish has called back bay flooding NJ’s “Achilles heel”: (Kirk Moore, APP)

Back-bay areas will be New Jersey’s “Achilles’ heel,” said research professor Michael Kennish. “They have no really good way to protect against back-bay flooding.”

And Rutgers Professor Psuty has warned that dunes are not a panacea: (Sarah Watson, AC Press)

While New Jersey and other states have put a major focus on building extensive dune systems following Sandy, those dunes will only protect the immediate oceanfront area, Psuty said. Communities on the bay side of barrier islands will see no protection from the dunes, he said.

“I’m afraid when I hear our local politicians talk about the dunes, they think the dunes solve everything and that is just not the case.”

And Professor Miller warned:

It is estimated sea levels will rise between 2.5 and 6 feet by the end of the century. If those forecasts prove accurate, New Jersey’s effort to require those rebuilding to elevate at least one foot above the current base flood mark is not enough, said Ken Miller, a geologist and sea level rise expert.

“If New Jersey wants to be moving forward to incorporate sea level rise, there needs to be a minimum of two feet above base flood elevation in the current maps,” he said.

Sea level rise was responsible for an additional 38,000 homes to flood during Sandy, Miller said.

The draft plan is now out for public comment, so now is the time to consider how sea level rise will impact the shore and plan accordingly.

Kirk Moore has a related story today regarding lack of adequate storm preparation in Ocean County, see: Ocean County’s Sandy prep called inadequate

I would add that this is not exclusively a County issue – the State has lead role in Hazard Mitigation Planning, so much more accountability needs to be done on Christie Administration’s failures.

NJ Transit is just the tip of a large iceberg.

More to follow as this develops.

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View From the Pequod

October 25th, 2013 No comments

‘My means are sane, my motive and my object mad.’ (Ahab, Moby Dick)

Sunrise at Normandy Beach (9/18/11)

Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.  (Ecclesiastes, 1:17)

Message for the sloganeers – Stronger than the Storm, Jersey Strong, US Strong:

But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling; though we know the sea to be an ever-lasting terra incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.

(Chapter 58, p. 294 – Moby Dick)

 

On the seaside, the ruins recent

from the latest storms

remind of ancestral wealth

pillaged purloined pawned

by an unthinking grandfather

who lived the life of a lord  

and drove coming generations to

despair and ruin     ~~~  ~~~ “Across a New Dawn”  Kofi Awoonor

Normandy Beach (9/19/13)

sunset, cape may point

 

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