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US EPA Urged To Re-Open The Remedial Investigation And Mandate Cleanup of PFAS “Forever Chemicals” Found At Curtis Specialty Papers Superfund Site In Milford NJ

May 8th, 2021 No comments

“Forever chemicals” PFAS apparently have been discovered in groundwater at the Curtis Specialty Papers Superfund site in Milford NJ along the Delaware River.

I’ve written prior posts that provide background information currently available to me regarding this issue (i.e. see this and this and this).

Because I got the runaround from NJ DEP, in order to focus EPA’s attention and secure commitments to assure proper permanent cleanup at the site, I just fired off this email request to Acting EPA Region 2 Administrator Walter Mugdan:

Dear Acting Regional Administrator Mudgan:

I am writing regarding the Curtis Specialty Papers Superfund site in Milford NJ.

I write to request that the remedial investigation and Record of Decision (ROD) for the site be re-opened, given recent discovery of PFAS in groundwater.

According to EPA Superfund Coordinator Pat Seppi’s Agenda for the April 26 meeting of the CAG for the Curtis Specialty Papers Superfund site in Milford NJ,:

“PFAS IN GROUNDWATER – CEA/WRA for PFAS approved April 14, 2021″

Immediately upon learning of this, I requested information from Ms. Seppi regarding the technical basis for this CEA/WRA.

My questions were referred by Ms. Seppi to NJ DEP case manager Gwen Zervas for response.

Ms. Zervas of NJ DEP has provided incomplete and contradictory responses to my questions and denied that NJ DEP issued a CEA/WRA. Ms. Zervas claims that the RP’s somehow issued their own CEA/WRA on a voluntary basis. Ms Zervas also failed to respond to my questions regarding remedial investigation and remedial action to address PFAS contamination, instead suggesting that EPA was the regulatory lead agency at the site.

As you may be aware, the public raised concerns about the presence of PFAS during the Superfund process. These public concerns were dismissed by EPA (see Appendix 5C of the ROD for public comment and EPA response).

I have filed public records requests to NJ DEP for the PFAS data and technical basis for this “voluntary” CEA/WRA.

I trust that I will not have to file FOIA requests to obtain relevant information from EPA.

In the meantime, I request your commitment and public announcement of EPA’s intent to re-open the remedial investigation and the ROD in order to develop appropriate remedial requirements to address the presence of PFAS in groundwater and potential discharge to the Delaware River.

also request that EPA formally consult with US Fish and Wildlife Service regarding potential natural resource injuries and compensation at the site.

I look forward to your prompt and favorable reply.

Bill Wolfe

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EPA and NJ DEP Can’t Get Their Stories Straight On Discovery Of PFAS “Forever Chemicals” At Curtis Specialty Superfund Site On The “Wild & Scenic” Delaware River

May 7th, 2021 No comments

DEP Denies Approval Of Groundwater Cleanup Waiver That EPA Claimed Was Approved On April 14

After Criticism, DEP Now Claims That Polluter Voluntarily Approved Their Own Groundwater “CEA” Waiver

So, Just Who Approved What and When Did They Do So?

On April 26, 2021, Pat Seppi of US EPA sent an email to the Milford NJ “Community Advisory Group” (CAG) for the Curtis Specialty Papers Superfund cleanup. The email announced the Agenda for the CAG meeting that night.

I was surprised by the fact that the Agenda, at the very bottom, announced a fait accompli:

PFAS IN GROUNDWATER – CEA/WRA for PFAS approved April 14, 2021

This PFAS CEA approval is a stunning claim for a number of reasons:

1) PFAS have gotten incredible public and media scrutiny, particularly in NJ;

2) a CEA is a significant regulatory document (“institutional control”), because under a CEA “constituent standards and designated uses are suspended in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:9C-1.6″ and a CEA almost always leads to a “passive remedy”, which is a bureaucratic euphemism for no cleanup.

3) DEP claims to be a national leader in setting PFAS cleanup standards and has been praised repeatedly by media and environmental groups;

4) this is a Superfund site along the Congressionally designated “Wild and Scenic” Delaware River – upstream of public water supply intakes – with substantial potential adverse natural resource and drinking water impacts; and

5) the public raised specific concerns about likely PFAS contamination during the Superfund cleanup process and those concerns were ignored by EPA and DEP.

How could something this significant and controversial be completely ignored and relegated to a bullet item on a meeting agenda?

I immediately sent a email to Pat Seppi of EPA asking basic questions about PFAS in groundwater and the approval of the CEA. I wrote about all this on April 26

Pat did not reply, but instead I got an email from Gwen Zervas of DEP on April 29:

Hello Bill,

EPA asked me to respond to your email since the PFAS CEA was established by DEP.

Classification Exception Areas are established when ground water exceeds the applicable standards.  PFAS was detected above NJ standards at the Curtis site, therefore a CEA and well restriction area were established.  No decisions have been made regarding any remedial action requirements to address PFAS; the establishment of a CEA and WRA occur when contamination exceeding standards has been identified.

A full investigation of surface water and whether PFAS from the Curtis site has been discharged to the Delaware River has not yet been conducted.

Let’s repeat what DEP wrote on April 29: “since the PFAS CEA was established by DEP.”

Because the DEP email was at best vague and misleading, I wrote back asking for clarification and a full response to the specific questions I asked (you can read my specific questions here).

Gwen Zervas of DEP responded by email of May 4, 2021.

DEP now denies they issued the CEA that US EPA said they “approved” on April 14 and that DEP, just days before, themselves said they issued! (i.e. “since the PFAS CEA was established by DEP.”).

Here’s what DEP now claims: (emphases mine):

Hi Bill,

I hope the information below answers all your questions.

The CEA/WRA for PFAS was proposed by the responsible parties voluntarily.  Per NJ’s Tech Regs (NJAC 7:26E-4.3(a)7) a CEA proposal must be proposed as part of the Remedial Investigation Report.  The remedial investigation for PFAS is not complete at this site, however the responsible parties proposed it at this point in the process to be protective.  In accordance with NJAC 7:26E-5.1(b)1, a remedial action is required when “The concentration of any contaminant exceeds any applicable remediation standard;”.  The establishment of a CEA/WRA does not mean a remedial action is not required; rather CEAs and WRAs are institutional controls that are put in place until such time the standards are met.  When a remediation standard is exceeded, a remedial action is required per NJAC 7:26E; establishment of a CEA/WRA does not negate that requirement.

Please note that the DEP has mapped the CEA/WRA in our GIS system, but letters have not been sent out to the local officials yet regarding the CEA/WRA but will be soon.  Notification of the CEA/WRA was done by the responsible parties in accordance with DEP requirements.

As you know, the Curtis Specialty Papers site is a CERCLA site and EPA is the lead regulatory agency; DEP is the support agency.  The remedial investigation and subsequent remedy selected at the site did not address PFAS because PFAS were emerging contaminants with no standards at the time the remedial investigation was conducted.  Recently, the responsible party has conducted two rounds of ground water sampling for PFAS and based on that data proposed a CEA/WRA for the site.  The PFAS contamination has not been delineated yet.  Future actions for PFAS, including a remedial investigation (including an ecological evaluation), feasibility study, Proposed Plan and Record of Decision should be conducted under EPA oversight since EPA is the lead regulatory agency, with DEP as the support regulatory agency.

Gwen

Translation: As soon as DEP faced scrutiny and criticism about the CEA, they changed their story.

After writing that DEP had “issued the CEA”, just days later DEP now claims that the CEA was proposed by the polluter “voluntarily”.

Think about that: the polluter voluntarily proposed an “institutional control” that effectively amounts to a waiver oof groundwater cleanup requirements! And DEP thinks that this is intended to “be protective”! Protective of what? Corporate profits? And EPA reports to the public that the CEA was approved. Nothing to see here – move on!

DEP’s own regulations do not provide for a polluter to issue their own CEA – a fact that DEP admits. Issuance of a CEA is DEP’s regulatory job, a document that is required to be based on science and law. A “voluntary CEA” amounts to privatization of DEP’s own regulations.

DEP claims that a CEA dos not waive cleanup requirements, but I specifically asked DEP to identity a single case where a CEA was issued and DEP imposed mandatory active groundwater cleanup requirements (virtually all CEA sites have “passive” cleanups, which means just leave the pollution in place and monitor it). DEP did not respond to that question. So, in practice, a CEA effectively all out always waives groundwater cleanup requirements.

DEP admits that there is no scientific or technical basis for the CEA.

DEP falsely claims that:

The remedial investigation and subsequent remedy selected at the site did not address PFAS because PFAS were emerging contaminants with no standards at the time the remedial investigation was conducted.”

DEP fails to note that public comments on the EPA Superfund Record of Decision specifically raised the likely presence of PFAS and that the scope of EPAs’ remedial investigation ad remedy selection are not limited to hazardous substances with state promulgated standards.

DEP’s misleading and false excuse contradicts EPA’s own response to the public comment on PFAS in the Record Of Decision (see prior post’s excerpt of EPA Response in Appendix 5C of the ROD)

In response to my questions, DEP openly admits that the polluter is in control of the process, particularly regarding public involvement and notification.

In response to my criticisms, DEP now admits that there is no public participation in the CEA or  groundwater cleanup.

And to top it all off, DEP punts and points the bureaucratic finger at US EPA, who they correctly note is in charge of the Superfund cleanup.

Ironic, because this whole fiasco began when EPA wrote that DEP had “approved” the CEA on April 14 – a claim that now turns out to be false.

Maybe Jon Hurdle of NJ Spotlight – who has written many puff pieces praising DEP’s science, regulation, and policy o PFAS – can get to the bottom of this.

(but I’m betting that Mr. Hurdle does not cover this story, because it would contradict his narrative of fluff praise of DEP on PFAS leadership. The facts here clearly show DEP letting a corporate polluter off the hook for PFAS cleanup and keeping the issue quiet, and then, when called out on that, pointing the finger at EPA.

I have no explanation for the failure of Riverkeeper and other environmental groups.)

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The Final Frontier In NJ’s Long Running Land Use War

May 2nd, 2021 No comments

Climate Emergency Demands A Forest And Farmland Preservation Act

NJ friends are telling me disturbing things.

They say that at a recent BPU solar meeting, that the solar industry was seeking support from conservation groups for some kind of solar “dual use” policy for siting massive solar arrays on farmland, supposedly allowing agricultural uses to be maintained. BPU spewed the industry’s Orwellian terms and BPU staff recommended:

2. Dual-Use Agriculture (“agrivoltaics”):

New Jersey has a rich agricultural heritage that must be considered with the State’s move toward a carbon-free energy sector. While all projects must meet the siting criteria described in the “Siting” section below, this Successor Straw also proposes to pilot a program for grid supply solar projects that are compatible with agricultural uses.

Staff currently proposes to define a dual-use solar energy generation facility as a facility: (i) that allows the use of the land below the panels to simultaneously be used for agricultural or horticultural use; and (ii) for which productive agricultural or horticultural use continues, as a condition for receiving incentives as a dual-use project. Staff anticipates that a cross-agency team will further define the pilot program and develop technical rules for dual-use farmland standards.

e. Solar Siting

As evidenced by the proposed design of this Successor Program, Staff seeks to uphold the State’s policies of expanding New Jersey’s commitment to affordable renewable energy while also preserving and protecting open space and farmland. Staff suggests that this is best accomplished by encouraging the development of solar facilities on the built environment and marginal lands and away from open space, flood zones, forested lands, high value agricultural lands and other areas especially vulnerable to climate change.

The solar industry argued that such a policy was better than allowing farmlands to be converted to development.

[Update: 5/4/21 – here’s that absurd premise “development is inevitable and unstoppable” and false comparison, right out in the open in a Spotlight Op-Ed today:

This [solar] income can easily make the difference between a sustainable farm that can be passed on to the next generation and one that must be carved up into residential building lots or sold off to a warehouse developer. ~~~ end update]

Now if that were not crazy enough, I was told that Tom Gilbert of NJ Conservation Foundation spoke and he signaled a willingness to compromise on some kind of policy whereby solar could be sited on less productive or abandoned farmlands.

Of course, those lands should be priority targeted for planting trees, or afforestation:

A key finding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) new special report is that it is likely that some degree of “afforestation” will be needed to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Tom has been horrible on climate and energy policy, he was terrible in recent testimony on “forest stewardship” legislation, and now he’s selling out land use.

Don’t let that happen.

Instead of compromising away what little is left of NJ’s forests and farmlands, it’s time for the conservation, environmental, justice, and climate communities to work together and fight the final battle to preserve what’s left.

The current incremental strategy – which amounts to case by case litigation, local site specific land use battles, and reliance on the land trusts and Foundation funded “environmental groups” to cut deals with the solar industry – surely has failed and will kill what’s left.

The climate science; land use, forestry, and agricultural policy; and the politics could actually work together to support a very aggressive demand for a NJ Forest And Farmland Preservation Act.

The idea is simple: preserve what’s left before NJ’s is either fully built out or inundated by sea level rise.

(and where are all those people now living along shorelines and rivers going to relocate when the inevitable next major floods hit and the sea level rises? Not all of them can move to Florida. They’re going to demand to develop what’s left of NJ’s higher elevation lands.)

[Update: 5/7/21 – this is no theoretical issue. Take a look at the dystopian disaster of climate refugees in California right now. ~~~ end update]

This final frontier of the NJ land use battle could be tied to climate policy via carbon sequestration (in soils and vegetation).

Forests and soils store (sequester) large amounts of carbon – as DEP’s Climate science based Global Warming Response Act “80 x 50″ Report documents. That alone is a compelling reason to preserve what’s left of NJ’s forests and farms.

But we also need and will become far more reliant on the food that NJ farms produce (way beyond the current “locavore” and “farm to table” boutique trends).

And we don’t have enough water supply or wastewater treatment capacity to serve the new development of those precious lands.

And we don’t have the money for the roads, schools, and other infrastructure and social services for that new development.

And compliance with our carbon budget would make such development impossible.

NJ is already built out and the climate emergency will greatly worsen current density problems and increase the costs of the current development footprint.

Financing could come from some form of  progressively structured carbon price/tax (way beyond the meager RGGI allowance prices and Societal Benefits Charge), new corporate taxes, and expansion of the current Green Acres, Farmland Preservation, and TDR programs in the Pinelands and Highlands.

The total cost of the program could be lowered by an appraisal method that based “market value” on environmental constraints, not local zoning and so called speculative “development potential”. The local property tax avoidance benefits of the current farmland preservation programs could be factored into the compensation scheme. Compensation to landowners could be phased. Courts have supported deep diminution of property value against “takings” challenges, so the private landowner compensation would not need to be close to 100%.

Politically, this initiative could attract a coalition with all the anti-warehouse development folks and the urban EJ folks who seek private and public reinvestment in urban communities (without gentrifying them). Massive urban forestry and housing energy efficiency and electrification programs – required to meet climate goals –  would provide major employment and economic benefits to urban communities.

But in order to make this happen, there would need to be a radical transformation in the thinking and politics of the current crop of NJ’s conservation, climate and environmental “leaders”.

It would require that major donors – Foundations like Wm. Penn and Dodge – actually fund something that upsets the political and economic status quo and challenges corporate interests ands corporate power.

What the heck, we could even call it the Jeff Tittel Legacy Act! (and justify it by the climate emergency).

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May Day – Time To Demand FDR’s Second Bill Of Rights

May 1st, 2021 No comments

From The New Deal To The Green New Deal

Beyond The Biden-AOC Reforms

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[Update: 5/3/21 – Read Chris Hedges’ “Don’t Be Fooled By Joe Biden” ~~~ end update]

With all the legacy media chatter about Biden’s First 100 Days and the repeated invoking of the history of the New Deal – and we realize that Biden is no FDR and that FDR certainly was no Socialist, but instead saved capitalism from the revolutionary forces unleashed by the Great Depression – we thought we might rehash the elements of FDR’s “Second (Economic) Bill of Rights”.

The political economy  and program of FDR’s New Deal and FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights have been lost completely in the current discourse, even by so called progressives like AOC and the activist proponents of the Green New Deal, like the Sunrise Movement.

That quasi-radical political economy of FDR’s New Deal was reflected in Bernie Sanders’ version of the Green New Deal – but that program and strategy have been co-opted by corporate Democrats and the progressive left, who have basically sold out to Joe Biden’s mild corporatist reforms.

Sanders’ GND was grounded in the need to challenge corporate and billionaire class power via democratic movement politics:

We cannot accomplish any of these goals without taking on the fossil fuel billionaires whose greed lies at the very heart of the climate crisis. These executives have spent hundreds of millions of dollars protecting their profits at the expense of our future, and they will do whatever it takes to squeeze every last penny out of the Earth. Bernie promises to go further than any other presidential candidate in history to end the fossil fuel industry’s greed, including by making the industry pay for its pollution and prosecuting it for the damage it has caused.

And most importantly, we must build an unprecedented grassroots movement that is powerful enough to take them on, and win. Young people, advocates, tribes, cities and states all over this country have already begun this important work, and we will continue to follow their lead.

I haven’t heard any of that from the Biden administration or its sycophants among the beltway green groups and “progressive left” (that includes AOC, The Squad, and the Justice Democrats, who all have folded completely and are all in with “bi-partisan Joe”).

So, it would behoove the media and so called progressives to reflect on not only Bernie Sanders’ vision of the GND, but on FDR’s Second Bill Of Rights, set forth in his State of the Union address to Congress on January 11, 1944 (emphases mine):

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
  • The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
  • The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
  • The right of every family to a decent home;
  • The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
  • The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
  • The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

Note that FDR recognized the relationship between economic insecurity and the rise of Fascism.

Note that FDR proposed universal rights – not identity politics based patronage.

Note that FDR recognized the relationship between economic security at home and “peace in the world” – and did so decades before Dr. King connected those dots in his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech in 1967. King said:

A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. …

We must rapidly begin…we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. …

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. …

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. …

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Let us recall this rich legacy and reject the corporate Democrats and their minor reforms that are designed to co-opt real change.

We must move “beyond Biden” and identity politics – and look to FDR’s history in combining social and economic justice and activist government, in light of the climate emergency.

(photo above – Colorado River, Utah)

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