WolfeNotes.com

“I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half”

~~~ Jay Gould (Wiki)

 

The most powerful of all was the banker JP Morgan. He arranged deal after deal that allowed the Robber Barons to build giant industrial monopolies. They were called “trusts”. Here is a famous cartoon of Morgan sitting on his throne holding the reins of the economic power of America in his hands.  ~~~  Adam Curtis

Democracy Perverted In Chris Christie’s NJ

Corporations Have Bought DEP, BPU, the Pinelands Commission, and Cops

So, this is what its come down to:

Cops – with the threat of arrest – enforcing a 3 minute limit on public comment at a public hearing.

Follow this twisted path:

Beginning in April 2012, the Pinelands Commission meets behind closed doors for 18 months with the South Jersey Gas Company to negotiate the “terms of review” under the Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) for their 22 mile, $100 million pipeline through the Pinelands.

After this is discovered, the public blasts the Commission for creating the appearance of “regulatory capture” and a corrupt review process.

(meanwhile, during the course of these closed door negotiations with the Commission, the DEP and BPU issue their approvals of the project, all of which is being quarterbacked by Gov. Christie’s Office. In fact, the BPU is so bold as to specifically incorporate the Pinelands Commission approval – via  a MOA – in their June 21, 2013 approval Order, 6 months before last night’s public hearing on the MOA!).

In response, I file a public records request to look into this 18 month review process. But, instead of being fully transparent in light of this reasonable public perception and responsive to valid criticism, the Commission hunkers down and denies the public records request. Strike One.

Meanwhile, the “terms of review” under the CMP morphs into an $8 million bribe to circumvent compliance with the CMP itself. The way to circumvent the CMP, which prohibits their project, is via a “Memorandum of Agreement” (MOA) which enables it. Strike Two.

Then, the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, the Commission releases (dumps) a complex draft “Memorandum of Agreement” (MOA – (AKA as “the bribe”) with the Board of Public Utilities (BPU). Why BPU? Read on.

After the Thanksgiving weekend, the public is given just a week to review the draft MOA ( i.e. bribe) – and the entirety of the project that the Commission has been negotiating for 18 months – before a Monday Dec. 9 public hearing.

After expediting it, they hold the hearing way down south Jersey, in Galloway Township (is that below the Mason-Dixon line?).

The hearing is the ONLY hearing on the complex $100 million gas pipeline to fuel a $400 million power plant. That’s right – one hearing on both the MOA and the overall project. Written comments must be submitted just 4 days after the public hearing, by Friday Dec. 13, when the record is closed.

BPU is used to launder the $8 million bribe from South Jersey Gas Co. because the Pinelands MOA rules limit eligibility for a MOA to a “public development agency”, and South Jersey Gas is a private for profit corporation (and BPU isn’t even a “development agency”, they are a regulatory agency). Strike Three

Rubbing salt in the wound and adding insult to injury, south  jersey ratepayers will pay for the $8 million bribe in their monthly gas bills – while South Jersey Gas earns a 10% profit on it!! (an $800,000 profit off the bribe – not bad work, if you can get it!)

But, despite the strikeout, the batter refuses to step out of the batter’s box and the umpire has been paid off, so the at bat continues.

A week after dumping the draft MOA-Bribe (Wednesday December 4), the Pinelands Executive Director and Staff make a lengthy and highly misleading presentation of the MOA-Bribe.

Commission staff use that presentation not to respond to and address all the flaws the public has pointed out – the reasons why they should flat out kill the project – but instead, acting like a defense lawyer for South Jersey Gas, to justify the project and rebut every public criticism. Strike four.

Then, placing the cherry on the top of this corruption Sunday, Pinelands Executive Director Wittenberg imposes a 3 minute time limit on public comments at the single public hearing on the $8 million bribe (despite Pinelands public hearing rules which encourage broad and meaningful public participation and authorize her to schedule multiple additional public hearings when justified by significant public interest controversy, which is clearly the case here).

But, our little story is not yet over –

Wittenberg, whose job as Hearing Officer at the public hearing is to maintain Order, allows a loud group of union guys to heckle environmental speakers – repeatedly – despite being asked to do her job and maintain order.

At formal public hearings, heckling is strictly prohibited – violators are given a warning and then ejected.

But, Wittenberg actually encouraged the heckling.

So, when my chance came around to speak to the packed room, I took exception to the heckling and the 3 minute limit.

Hecklers can proceed.

And I was told to sit down or get arrested.

Remarkably, months ago, I predicted exactly this would happen as a result of a DEP deadline for the BL England plant to make a “go/no go decision on re-powering – and warned the Commission that if they went down this road that they would destroy the independence, integrity, and credibility of the Commission and themselves.

And they did it anyway!

As my Grandfather used to say: How do you like dem apples?

[Epilogue: I didn’t get arrested (my dog was in the car). I sat down – but I didn’t shut up.]

[Update:  Battle lines drawn on proposed Pinelands pipeline agreement

Bill Wolfe, the director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsbility (PEER), said the $8 million amounted to a bribe that private citizens would never get away with.

“You think you could write them a check and get to do what you want to do?” he asked.

Important Public Hearing Tonight – Be There!

Don’t Pimp The Pines!

Just Say NO WAY To M-O-A!

The only public hearing on the Pinelands Pipeline is tonight, 5 pm Galloway Township Municipal Building, 300 E. Jimmie Leeds Road, Galloway, NJ. (full information here).

Please go, bring friends and family, and speak out against this terrible fossil fuel project.

Here are the talking points of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance (PPA) – and there is tons of information and analysis at the PPA website.

Here are bullets on my top ten reasons for opposing it:

1) Climate change imperative –

• approaching and already may have exceeded tipping points for catastrophic climate change
• rapid rate of increase in CO2 and GHG emissions must be stopped, followed by deep cuts in current emissions
• no more fossil infrastructure – accelerate transition to renewables
• Global Warming Response Act emission reduction goals ignored
• lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from the gas source (fracking); pipeline; & BL England plant and current climate impacts on Pines forests and ecology were completely ignored during the Commission’s review

2) Violates the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP)

• prohibited use in forest area
• CMP MOA regulations lack science based standards to assure “equivalent protection”  – unfettered discretion
• draft MOA seriously flawed –
• “waiver of strict compliance” – “demonstration of compelling public need” is the appropriate CMP review framework
• MOA with BPU is illegal – BPU not a public development agency. Can’t use BPU too justify a private corporate speculative investment.

3) Jeopardizes the Integrity of the Commission and the CMP

• appearance of an $8 million bribe to purchase approval
• the review process reeks of “regulatory capture” by South Jersey Gas Co.
• No independent scientific and engineering reviews
• Cave to political pressure by Governor Christie and special interests

4) The Project is not needed

• energy planning – demand forecast, capacity, efficiency, renewables, economic analysis – seriously flawed
• “reliability” is a post hoc rationalization – project designed long before Sandy
• the Christie Energy Master Plan does not trump the CMP and is not binding on the independent Pinelands Commission

5) Alternatives are feasible, more environmentally sound, and create more jobs

• alternative energy planning scenarios
• alternative pipeline routes
• alternative technology

6) Promotes fracking

7) Undermines investments, economics and technical aspects of renewable energy

8. continued operation of BL England plant

• slaughters billions of aquatic life and harms Great Egg Bay ecosystems and fisheries
• emissions create health risks for nearby residents

9) Huge ratepayer ripoff and corporate subsidy

• current huge SJG rate increase does not consider this $100 million pipeline
• will result in significant future gas and electric rate increases for south jersey
• BL England $400 million re-powering is a speculative investment – “merchant plant” –

10) Extremely Bad precedent – huge future implications

• gas export infrastructure
• electric infrastructure and other linear development
• other State “public-private partnership” MOA’s – “death by a thousand MOA’s”

[End Note: Of course, everyone must strenuously object to the arbitrary and illegal 3 minute time limit imposed on public testimony. South Jersey Gas has been granted hundreds of HOURS of behind closed doors access to Commission staff!

The Commission denied my OPRA records request to document the extent of this involvement, including meetings with Director Wittenberg, Counselor Roth, and planner Liggett and even the Commissioners themselves! So, in addition to gagging the public, they are trying to cover their tracks.

It would take me more than 3 minutes to explain why the Commission has statutory authority and jurisdiction to regulate the impacts of climate change and how the science shows that Pines forests and ecology are already being impacted.

And those critical legal and scientific points are assumptions in my first point! 

The only reason for the 3 minute limit is to suppress opponents arguments and ram the approval through to meet the financing needs (i.e. “regulatory certainty” and the DEP regulatory deadlines for the BL England plant (i.e. the December 31 “go/no go” certification).

That is an outrage that shocks the conscience – Chinatown!

[Update: oops, I left out pipeline safety issues – fires and explosions! And sinkholes! A real serious issue in already wildfire prone pines forests. Sorry, I probably left out lots of stuff!

Second oops – I left out risks of horizontal directional drilling under wetlands, lakes, rivers and streams. One accident would be a catastrophe.

Third oops – I left out impacts from disturbance resulting from construction of the pipeline – as Commissioner Ashmum said, it is “ridiculous” to claim that these impacts are “minimal”.

Fourth oops – not really an oops, I just received the PPA paper but was aware of the problem which was recently reported by Kirk Moore’s set up story: Pipeline pros and cons to be aired.

PPA paper destroys the “reliability” argument. I would add 2 things to that:

1) the project was designed and approved long before Sandy, so the reliability argument is merely a post hoc rationalization to provide a basis for regulatory approval and public support;

2) it is ludicrous to attempt to justify a fossil fuel project on the basis of reliability. The GHG emissions will make coastal storms and flooding far WORSE!

Former Head of DEP Air Program Intentionally Misleads Public

Flawed Air Quality Analysis Fails to Consider Climate Change or Emissions From Gas Pipeline

“Maintenance of acceptable air quality in the Pinelands is critical to the protection of public health and welfare, as well as the ecosystem.” ~~~ Source: CMP basis and background document, adopted on November 21, 1980. This line is the first in the chapter devoted to Air Quality (4 pages). 

 

The following unprofessional and flagrant abuse warrants investigation and disciplinary action. I need to get deep in the weeds to make this point, so follow me.

Let me be clear at the outset that I am not talking about legitimate policy or technical disagreements – but outright, wholesale, systematic, intentional, major substantive misrepresentation that borders on fraud.

The issues involve alleged air quality benefits to the Pinelands region resulting from the re-powering of the BL England plant in Beesley’s Point from coal to natural gas.

Pinelands Commission staff have misrepresented this issue intentionally to mislead the public and Pinelands Commissioners. The misrepresentations are not only unprofessional, but border on scientific fraud and official misconduct under State ethics laws.

So, lets take a closer look at the details and chronology of this purported “DEP Air Quality Benefits Study” as I back up that serious charge. In Part I below,  we will look at some of the details and then, in Part II, the next post, we will discuss the revealing chronology.

Part I)  Technical Misrepresentations

First of all, the document in question is not – repeat not – a “DEP Air Quality Benefits Study”. The “study” was NOT conducted by DEP. Instead, the so called “study” was conducted by a private consultant paid for by the owners of the BL England Plant. According to a DEP September 16, 2013 memo to Wittenberg:

Attached is a description and results of an air quality modeling analysis conducted to assess the air quality benefit of the Repowering Project in the Pinelands Area. The figures in this memo were provided by the environmental consultant AECOM under contract with RC Cape May and under the supervision and approval of NJDEP.

So it is false to call this a “DEP study”.

Second, the scope of the so called “DEP study” is inconsistent with what Wittenberg’s requested in terms of geographical and technical scope of work to DEP. Specifically, in a July 31, 2013 email, Wittenberg requested that DEP conduct an “evaluation of the public benefits” of the repowering to the “Pinelands area”. DEP memo:

In your email dated July 31, 2013, you requested an evaluation of public benefits of the Repowering Projects to the defined Pinelands Area.

But the so called DEP study” did NOT examine “public benefits” – it presented BL England’s views of the “air quality benefit” of repowering – obviously, a “public benefit” is very different than “air quality benefits”, which in this case was narrowly restricted to a sham comparison of coal versus natural gas emission rates.

Third, and the most serious misrepresentation, is the way Ms. Weinberg publicly presented this “study” (on Wednesday December 4 – see this for Wittenberg’s powerpoint).

The presentation of air quality issues begins on slide 13.

Slides 13 -14 are based on the “DEP study”, while the source of slides 15 – 16 regarding historical annual operating hours of the BL England plant is not attributed. However, with no source attribution, the following the “DEP” slides 13-14 and the sequence clearly implies – and was meant to create the appearance – that the data came from the same DEP study summarized in previous slides 13 – 14.

Note that the “study” is now described as “DEP Air Quality Modeling”. Ms. Wittenberg knows that that phrase is a regulatory term of art, with defined technical content. So this description not only implies that the “study” was conducted by the DEP but that it meets DEP’s rigorous air quality modeling regulatory requirements.

I am not making mere semantic distinctions here – Ms Wittenberg clearly understands the significance of this, because she previously served as DEP Assistant Commissioner with management responsibility over the DEP’s air quality planning and permitting groups that actually conduct modeling and impact analysis.

There are several relevant and applicable DEP regulatory Guidance documents on air quality modeling, human health and environmental impact assessment, and power plant permitting, including:

• Guidance on preparing an air quality modeling protocol
• Guidance on preparing a risk assessment for air contaminant emissions
• Guidelines for evaluating proposed emission rates
• Inclusion of Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP’s) in air permits
• Modeling and permitting for PM 2.5 Sources
• Procedures for conducting risk assessments to determine incremental health risks
• Sources requiring an air quality impact analysis
• State of the Art Applicability for Modified sources (BL England is modified source)
• Risk assessment guidance

The so called “DEP study” Ms. Wittenberg alludes to does not come remotely close to meeting the substantive requirements of ANY of these DEP regulatory requirements for conducting air quality modeling and impact analysis from a power plant.

Ms. Wittenberg KNOWS ALL THIS so she is intentionally misleading the public and the Commissioners regarding what was done and who did it and what it means.

Fourth, it is important to understand the difference between an emission rate and actual air pollution emitted. Generally, emission rates are expressed as pound of pollution per hour. This rate must be multiplied by hours of operation to calculate pollution emissions.

This distinction is critical to understand the opponents argument that, even with lower emission rates of natural gas compared with coal, pollution will increase due to increased plant operation.

(and this does not include the actual health impacts and risks of those emissions, which the so called “study” does not even attempt to consider, which is another major flaw outside the scope of this analysis).

The so called study is based exclusively on pollutant “emission rates of  criteria air pollutants” from coal fired versus natural gas plants. The study states this (@ page 2):

BL England Air Pollutant Emissions – Current and Repowering Project

The Repowering Project will be fueled exclusively by natural gas. By retiring the two existing coal-fired boilers and converting the residual oil boiler into a gas boiler, significant reductions in air pollutant emissions will occur. Table 1 shows the hourly and annual allowable emission rates of criteria air pollutants before and after the Repowering Project. The pre-project PM2.5 emissions were assumed equivalent to PM10. The station’s current permit allowable emission rates were discounted to the limits established in the NJDEP Administrative Consent Order (ACO). The pre-ACO permit allowable emission rates were much higher.

But this so called study DOES PRESENT ACTUAL BL ENGLAND PLANT OPERATING DATA (they must be implied or assumptions in the model).

This is a huge flaw and the public can not verify the findings because of the omission of this critical data on BL England plant operating history and the predicted on line or capacity factors of the proposed repowered gas plant.

However, Ms. Wittenberg’s powerpoint (slides #15 – 16) provide this operating data – but that data did not come from the DEP study. The source of this data is not provided. Nor is the implied use of the data in the so called “study” explained.

It is a highly misleading practice to juxtapose data and findings from a “DEP study” sequentially with data from another source (BL England?) in a way that clearly creates the appearance that the unsourced data was part of the DEP study.

If a scientist did this his reputation would be shot and his paper would never be published. A graduate student could not get away with such misleading crap in a Master’s Thesis.

Fifth, In addition to all this – and this is a HUGE gaping flaw in the air quality review – the scope of the study was limited to “criteria pollutants”, which means that it did NOT address the most important pollutants that will be emitted by the pipeline project – directly and indirectly – greenhouse gases CO2 and methane!

Let’s repeat that: the Pinelands Commission ignored greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts from a major regional fossil fuel project, when:

1) The Pinelands Protection Act and the Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) provide clear authority, jurisdiction, policies, standards, and regulations pertaining to the air quality and ecological impacts of projects regulated by the Commission – including primary, secondary, induced, and cumulative impacts;

2) The sole – exclusive – stated purpose of the South Jersey Gas Co, pipeline, according to Commission staff, is:

To supply natural gas to the existing Beesley’s Point coal-fired electric generation plant (B.L. England) located outside the Pinelands, in Upper Township

(note that the staff’s stated purpose does NOT include “reliability”, a justification that clearly was post hoc).

3) The South Jersey Gas pipeline will directly emit greenhouse gases, as will the BL England power plant and other gas users;

4) According to the US Forest Service and the Commission’s own scientists, Pinelands forests and ecosystems currently are being adversely impacted by climate change caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG);

5) greenhouse gases (GHG) have been defined and regulated as “air pollutants” in NJ since 2005;

6) The NJ Global Warming Response Act mandates that statewide GHG emissions be reduced by 80% from 2006 levels by the year 2050 – the Commission’s decisions must be guided by these mandatory emission reductions;

7)  current US EPA regulations mandate that gas pipelines report greenhouse gas emissions;

6) current US EPA regulations mandate that gas fired power plants report GHG emissions;

8.  there are readily available US EPA adopted GHG emissions factors for regulated activities and sources, including natural gas drilling and gas wells, storage facilities, transmission lines, pipelines, and related infrastructure;

9) proposed EPA regualtions will require GHG emissions reductions from gas power plants;

10) South Jersey Gas Co. voluntarily reports to investors current greenhouse gas emissions:

The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule, which required LDCs like South Jersey Gas to put in place monitoring and recordkeeping systems that are establishing the baselines for reporting that went into effect in 2010.

SJI management understands that there are risks and opportunities associated with this challenge. Our responsibility to customers and shareholders is to prepare for a carbon-constrained economy in the future. Our company has taken action to better understand the sources and magnitude of GHG emissions for our overall enterprise, including an enterprise-wide GHG inventory completed in 2010. Using this information, we are regularly evaluating options to reduce GHG emissions within our operations and continue developing options for our customers to reduce their emissions as well. We are committed to remaining informed about GHG policy developments and to developing strategies that allow us to capitalize on opportunities stemming from climate change initiatives.

So, to summarize: imagine that – South Jersey Gas is more concerned about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions than the NJ Pinelands Commission!

Part II) Corrupt Chronology

A clear understanding the chronology can explain why all these misrepresentations occurred.

(continued, next post)

[End note: Some have said that climate change is a global – not a local – problem and that this pipeline and repowering project will have invisibly small impacts on the global problem.

That is just wrong thinking, for a number of reasons. But let me offer just one, and use the DEP’s own flawed “air quality study” to refute it.

The DEP and the Commission recognize that reductions in mercury emissions would have positive local impacts resulting from mercury bioaccumulation.

Well, mercury used to be considered a “global” problem too – local emission sources and local impacts were not considered in regulatory reviews – that has all changed.

The local and the global are connected – our regulatory reviews need to reflect that.]

 

Chemical Industry Used DEP Cleanup Delays to Privatize Program

Now They Can’t Even Meet The First 5 Year Deadline To Sample Sites

Chemical Industry Says They’re Too Busy “Chasing Every Molecule”

Privatization Is Not Enough – Polluters Want A Complete “Paradigm Shift”

DEP Still Flying Blind – Mandated Risk Priority System Still Not In Place

LSRP’s Not Subject to OPRA – Communities in the Dark

“A bald faced strategem of diversion – let’s get past the slogans”  ~~~ Bill Wolfe, NJ PEER

“I take issue with the revisionist history of Mr. Wolfe”  ~~~ Mike Engenton, NJ Chamber of Commerce

It is hard to overstate the hypocrisy and chutzpa of this lame duck legislative maneuver, even by NJ standards. Follow me:

A controversial bill with significant implications is moving under the media radar and quickly through the lame duck legislative session.

The bill, sponsored by Environment Committee Chairman Smith, is greased: out of seemingly nowhere, it was quietly introduced on November 18, heard for discussion last Thursday (Dec. 5), and – despite receiving harsh opposition (from yours truly, listen here) – is posted on the agenda and likely to be released from the Environment Committee a week later, on December 12 (under cover of media focus on the clean car and RGGI bills cynically posted to provide diversion).

[Update: 12/11/13 – exactly as predicted, NJ Spotlight takes the bait and reports on the political stunt diversion while big corporate polluter bill stays under the radar:  DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS WANT NJ BACK IN REGIONAL CLEAN-AIR INITIATIVES.

It is simply amazing that this cynical game is played so consistently yet media – like Charlie Brown – always takes the bait.  – end update].

There is an identical Assembly version, sponsored by the Assembly Env. Cmte Chair, so it looks like this is the typical stealth – ram it through in lame duck – kind of thing.

The bill  (S3075) would extend a key cleanup mandatory deadline set by the Legislature under the 2009 “Site Remediation Reform Act”(SRRA), the controversial legislation that privatized the cleanup of toxic waste sites in NJ.

During the run-up to and legislative debate on the SRRA, corporate polluters mounted a massive PR campaign and lobbying effort to blame DEP for delays and backlogs in cleaning up thousands of toxic sites – delays caused largely by the private sector’s refusal to spend the billions of dollars required to cleanup sites.

Like the little boy who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy as an orphan, the polluters used the delays as evidence to claim that DEP bureaucracy is the source of the delay and convinced DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson to say  “the DEP cleanup process is broken” – the huge backlogs thus became the primary rationale to privatize the cleanup program.

Privatization – we were told repeatedly – would lead to quicker, better, and cheaper cleanups.

Once DEP bureaucrats and red tape were eliminated, cleanups would be driven by market incentives and proceed like greased lighting!

To hold polluters accountable to those promises of faster cleanup, the law gave polluters 5 years to complete a document known as a “remedial investigation” (RI). An RI is basically a study that samples and characterizes pollution of soil and groundwater at a toxic site.

Under the law, if a polluter failed to meet the 5 year deadline for completion of the RI, then DEP would assume direct oversight of the cleanup of the site:  No more private LSPRP in charge.

An RI is just the FIRST STEP in the cleanup process – it is not the cleanup of the site –  so the 5 year deadline was more than adequate time to do the work, especially considering the fact that mandatory cleanup deadlines were discussed and some imposed by DEP years BEFORE the passage of the 2009 law, so the polluters had plenty of advanced warning that deadlines were coming.

The generosity of the 5 year 2014 deadline also is illustrated by historical context – the NJ toxic site cleanup program is mature and DEP and the polluters have been working on most of these sites for up to 37 years, since the 1976 passage of the Spill Compensation and Control Act, NJ’s state version and model for the better known federal Superfund law.

The 5 year RI deadline is the only mandatory deadline in the law. There are other deadlines, but the DEP has discretion to extend several other regulatory deadlines and has consistently failed to enforce those deadlines, e.g. polluters had 3 years, or until 2012, to hire a Licensed Site Remediation Professional (LSRP).

Yet, according to the testimony of the chemical industry – there are 700 – 900 toxic sites where LSRP’s have not yet been hired, a major unenforced violation of DEP regulations. Other testimony by Mike Pisauro, an LSRP Board member, estimated are that there are many more than that, perhaps as many as 2,000 sites in violation of law that DEP has failed to take enforcement action.

If the DEP has not enforced something as simple and basic as a 2 year old deadline for hiring an LSRP, how can the legislature and the public trust them to enforce something complex, like a 2 year extension for “good actors” with legitimate delays in completing the RI due to technical problems beyond their control? (two illustrations were offered: inability to secure access to property for of site sampling and co-mingled plumes of groundwater contamination from multiple sources – as if these were novel issues. The criteria in the draft bill are not limited to those to examples.)

While DEP has failed to enforce their own regulations, I’m told that they sent out a bunch of scary letters threatening to enforce the mandatory the RI May 2014 deadline – “please don’t blame us, we have no discretion, our hands are tied by the legislature” – almost as if they wanted to trigger exactly the backlash by polluters that led to this relief bill.

Additionally, again according to the testimony of the chemical industry, as I’ve previously warned,  DEP has failed to meet a May 7, 2010 deadline set by the Legislature to adopt a “Remedial Priority System” (RPS) to set science and risk based priorities to guide the cleanup program and inform the public about the “worst” or highest risks sites in their communities.

At the hearing, DEP was nowhere to be found. It is simply amazing that the Legislature is provided a briefing on the status of implementing a major environmental law by Hal Bozarth of the chemical industry, and not the DEP.

There appears to be some warped idea that privatization of the toxic site cleanup program has cut DEP completely out of the picture, while the chemical industry is put in charge.

Senator Smith was a prime sponsor of the SRRA, so of course he would prefer to keep discussion of flaws and  failures in implementing the law under the radar, especially when his attempt to “fix” those flaws ignores glaring problems and benefits only a handful of major corporate polluters for dragging their feet in and failing to meet cleanup deadlines. For some reason, Smith and cosponsor Senator Bateman both missed the hearing.

We opposed  the SRRA and predicted it would be a disaster – and it is turning out to be a slow motion train wreck.

To understand the nature of that disaster, we urge readers to take the time to listen to the remarkably arrogant and disingenuous testimony of the NJ Chemistry Council and the NJ Chamber of Commerce.

Instead of taking responsibility for failure to meet the 5 year deadline they promised they would achieve, and humbly asking for a small bore 2 year extension under narrow circumstances that were publicly justified, the polluters went large and on offense.

The Senate bill provides for a 2 year extension, under certain circumstances. DEP would conduct an expedited review and provide a public notice, much like a permit process.

But the polluters rejected that approach – they want even more!

They asked for a broader, automatic 5 year extension that would be self implementing (i.e. no DEP review, no public transparency – just a private certification).

Hal Bozarth of the Chemistry Council even used blatantly false examples to justify the need for the bill.

Bozarth claimed that complex RCRA and Superfund sites caused delays in completing the RI. But the SRRA carves out federal RCRA and Superfund sites and EPA does not allow NJ’s LSRP program at those sites because NJ’s SRRA law does not meet minimum federal requirements. And complex high risk sites are supped to be under DEP oversight, not LSRP cases.

Going even further beyond the scope of Smith’s relief bill, amazingly, the LSRP representative asked for amendments that amounted to permission to withhold information and coverup the existence of toxic contamination. Specifically, the professional standards of current require disclosure and reporting of the discovery of “immediate environmental concern” conditions and the discharge of toxic pollutants at a site. The LSRP explained that that mandatory disclosure and reporting requirements hurt them in getting work from clients to do what are called “due diligence reviews” before purchasing property.

If those reporting and disclosure requirements were eliminated, and LSRP’s could keep that information confidential, then they could get more business! Yippie! Lets us be allowed to hide the known presence of toxic contamination!

Bozarth, from the chemical industry  even had the balls to ask for major relief from liability, financial assurance requirements to allow self guarantees, and to be subject to even weaker cleanup standards!! (i.e. the industry designed Risk Based Corrective Action, what Bozarth called a “paradigm shift”).

Like I said, this was outrageous, even for NJ lame duck standards.

We’ll keep you posted – the bill is up again on Thursday.