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Commission Avoiding Public Discussion Of Lax Wildfire Safety Land Use Standards

Current Rules Allow New Development In “Extreme” Wildfire Risk Areas

At a time when Murphy DEP Commissioner LaTourette is testifying to the Legislature and holding press events highlighting the extreme risks of wildfire in the Pinelands (and spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money suppressing those risks), why does the Pinelands CMP allow new development in “extreme” wildfire risk areas? 

[Update below]

According to the Pinelands Commission’s March 2022 Monthly Management Report, staff rejected my petition for rulemaking seeking amendments to the Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) to strengthen wildfire protections:

Attorney General Cynically Deploys Sham “Environmental Justice” Claims

NJ Spotlight Again Misreports The Story And Transcribes DEP Press Release

Are Parents Of Kids at “SafeSplash” Aware Of Indoor Air Risks?

I wonder what the DEP Vapor Intrusion study found and if there are data on indoor air at “SafeSplash Swim School” and whether the parents of kids are aware of these risks?

I Tweeted last week that NJ Spotlight would publish a story that grossly distorted one of my recent posts and provide cover for DEP.

I was exactly right about that (if wrong on the subject matter!), because, just as predicted, today Spotlight wrote about a new DEP “Natural Resource Damage” (NRD) lawsuit (hit this to read the complaint).

There are so many problems with the Spotlight story and the DEP complaint that it’s hard to know where to begin.

So, let’s start with 4 critical flaws I’ve written about that were totally ignored:

1. DEP still has failed to adopt enforceable NRD regulations. This assures a very bad outcome: either a pennies on the dollar settlement or a losing court case. DEP Commissioner LaTourette and the Attorney General are dodging accountability for these flaws. For details, see:

• Murphy Attorney General’s Office Evades Questions On Natural Resource Damage Lawsuits

2. NJ’s corporate polluters have evaded billions of dollars of NRD liability because they killed Senator Smith’s Legislative Taskforce on NRD standards. For that story, see:

• Big Corporate Polluters Quietly Veto Natural Resource Damage Compensation Standards

3. The public has been duped by conservation groups about all this, see:

• Conservationists Duped The Public On DEP Natural Resource Damage Program

4. The AG’s claims about “environmental justice” are cynical, false, unfounded factually and scientifically, and deeply misleading (see paragraph #7). This is a pattern of manipulation of the EJ issue. 

(and where are the DEP’s regulations to implement that “historic” environmental justice law?)

The DEP spin is egregiously disgusting in this NRD lawsuit – which implies that DEP is considering EJ in toxic site cleanup and NRD – because the NJ State environmental justice law explicitly exempts DEP’s toxic site cleanup program. That cleanup program is the technical and regulatory source of the DEP’s NRD program. For that story:

• NJ Gov. Murphy Signs Flawed Environmental Justice Bill Into Law

(1) – the Passaic River toxic site cleanup and dioxin are correctly noted as important.

But the bill exempts all toxic site cleanups from the environmental justice impact statement and cumulate impact reviews.

In addition, the AG/DEP legal complaint exposes serious flaws, which I summarize in emails to Spotlight reporter Jon Hurdle below.

But before we get into the details, I must note that Google maps of the site (205 Main Street, Lodi, NJ) tells me that the toxic contaminated site in question is currently occupied by “SafeSplash Swim School” (or adjacent to the contaminated site).

The DEP complaint notes that the site is contaminated with known carcinogens, which have migrated off site. The chemicals are volatile organics that travel quickly through soil and groundwater and migrate as vapors into nearby buildings (a process known as “vapor intrusion” – see paragraph #4).

I wonder what the DEP Vapor Intrusion study found and if there are data on indoor air at “SafeSplash Swim School” and whether the parents of kids are aware of these risks?

Here is my note to reporter Jon Hurdle on the complaint: (apologies for the fonts – this happens when I cut and paste emails and I don’t know how to fix it)

1) Per Google maps, it looks like the site is now occupied by “SafeSplash Swim School”. I wonder what the vapor intrusion study found about vapor migration and indoor air quality and human health exposure there. I wonder if parents know anything about this?

2) DEP issued a groundwater “classification exception area” (CEA) despite the fact that DEP admits that the contaminated groundwater plume has migrated off site. This is a violation of DEP’s own CEA regulations.

3) DEP issued an “RAO” without addressing NRD issues. This is a HUGE problem.

4) DEP’s “passive remedy” was not a permanent remedy and even DEP admits that contaminants are moving off site and the groundwater will be polluted in excess of standards and not be restored “for decades”.

5) DEP approved the Newark complex cleanup liability scheme without consideration and capture of NRD liability.

6) Despite contamination at the site being known to DEP for almost 40 years, DEP still does not know all the potential responsible parties – as a result, they sued phantom “xyz” corporate RP’s and phantom “1-10″ individual RP’s. This is absurd and patently illegal (If you can’t understand that, think of a prosecutor going to court to indict some unknown individual for a hypothetical crime).

7) The EJ assertions are opportunistic, false, and grossly political and have zero scientific or factual basis. This is cynical and disgusting.

8) DEP has not only failed to adopt NRD regulations. DEP has taken down and eliminated their prior “groundwater injury formula” that was posted on the DEP website and provided as DEP Guidance. It was based on gallons of groundwater polluted and the BPU approved water rate for the location in question. Instead, DEP merely identified the area of the groundwater plume (a little over 3 acres)

9) I reiterate my prior point about DEP failure to adopt NRD regulations. This is a certain legal loser, if the polluters challenge it.

10. The quality of AG/DEP science and their legal performance have radically declined.

Here is my initial note to Hurdle:

Jon – did you read the complaint? My goodness, right off the bat in paragraph #4 DEP fails to correctly state the science on the health effects of VOC’s, PCE and TCE.

They are classified as known human carcinogens and probable human carcinogens.

Yet DEP fails to include cancer in the health effects! This omission is NOT an oversight. It’s because DEP has sided with the chemical industry to downplay the risks of indoor air and vapor intrusion! Go look at DEP’s published “indoor air” “vapor intrusion” Guidance and health screening levels (which DEP has a failed to adopt as regulatory standards, which makes them unenforceable and subject to weak litigation claims).

In contrast, in the very next paragraph, DEP does note that PCB’s “increase risk of cancer”.  But this too understates the risks because PCB’s are classified as “probable human carcinogens”.

These scientific facts would the relevant to Spotlight’s Colonia High School cancer cluster story, no?  (gotta love that Facebook epidemiology!)

On the legal side, I haven’t read the full complaint yet, but Tittel is correct and it is not just his personal view. Several cases and many NJ lawyers have exposed the legal weakness of DEP’s NRD program, which is a result of DEP’s failure to adopt NRD regulations, as they agreed to do in a prior judicial settlement agreement signed by DEP Commissioner Brad Campbell.

You know this, yet still swallow AG/DEP spin.

Why is that?

To Doug O: shame on you.

Suspected School Cancer Cluster Attributed To “Radioactive Rock”

Woodbridge Was Named NJ’s “#1 Sustainable Town”

Ask yourself: who benefits from diversion from multiple known sources of carcinogens in search of that Unicorn? 

This is a tragic story, so please take my headline in the absurdist spirit it is offered.

Watch the NJ Spotlight television story:

• Why Al Lupiano raised alarm over possible Colonia HS cancer link

The absurdity – if it is not obvious after watching that story and glancing at the aerial photo above – is that the cause of a highly unusual suspected cluster of rare cancers is being attributed to a radioactive rock (based on Facebook “epidemiology”); thus “the Unicorn”.

The absurdity stems from the fact that the high school in question is literally immersed in a sea of carcinogens, a partial list of which would include:

• hazardous air pollutants emitted by thousands of cars per day on the Garden State Parkway;
• hazardous air pollutants emitted by the petro-chemical-pharma complex of northern NJ;
• benzene and related toxic air pollutants emitted by the nearby gas station;
• vapor intrusion of toxic chemicals into indoor air from leaking underground gas tanks;
• drinking water, which DEP knows is contaminated by over 500 unregulated toxic chemicals;
• breathing ambient air, which exceeds DEP cancer risk benchmarks (look at DEP Maps)

(here’s the cancer risk map for benzene  – DEP is minimizing these risks by presenting them as single chemicals – directly in conflict with the legislative mandate in the “environmental justice” law which directed DEP to consider “cumulative impacts”).

MAPS SHOWING THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE 2014 AIR TOXICS OF CONCERN IN NEW JERSEY

To see a state map showing the spatial variation in modeled air concentrations (at the census-tract level) for one of the fourteen chemicals of concern, click on the chemical name:

Acetaldehyde Benzene 1,3 Butadiene Carbon Tetrachloride Chromium VI Diesel Particulate Matter Ethylene oxide

Formaldehyde Hydrazine Naphthalene Nickel Compounds Nitrobenzene Tetrachloroethylene Vinyl Chloride

Keep in mind, also, that the infamous childhood cancer cluster in Toms River was caused by an unregulated air pollutant.

Finally, NJ has some of the highest cancer rates in the world. The NJ Department of Health maintains and maps data from a statewide cancer registry.

The absurdity of it all is compounded by the fact that Woodbridge NJ was declared NJ.s “#1 Sustainable Town” by the sham corporate funded greenwashing group “Sustainable NJ”.

For those who prefer visual images (photos) to support a story, check this one out:

• Take a Look At NJ’s #1 Ranked “Sustainable” Town

Ask yourself: who benefits from diversion of attention (e.g. critical media coverage, public outrage, stricter legislation and DEP regulation, lawsuits, etc) from multiple known sources of carcinogens in search of that Unicorn? 

[Update: 4/6/22 – Here’s background on the “Facebook epidemiologist”:

He has an environmental sciences degree from Rutgers with a minor in industrial hygiene safety engineering. He worked for nine years as a federal EPA emergency responder, cleaning up radioactive materials, chemical spills and biological agents.

For the past 18 years, he has worked for Marine Spill Response Corp, the nation’s largest oil spill cleanup company.

Longtime occupational exposure to carcinogens – blames high school rock.

BTW, DEP used to have a “medical surveillance program” to monitor DEP employees who were exposed at hazardous waste sites. I was part of the program from 1985 to early 1990’s, when it was eliminated by budget cuts.

[End Note:

It is no accident that so many NJ schools are sited next to highways and other totally inappropriate locations and that the petro-chemical industry (including Big Pharma) and toxic chemicals are severely under-regulated.

That is the result of ignorant and corrupt local and state officials and the greed of corporate polluters and the constellation of NJ’s development community (corporate land owners, builders, bankers, real estate, construction unions, etc).

Local officials site schools on the cheapest land, with no regard whatsoever for children’s health and well-being. Doing that saves taxpayers money and reserves more valuable land for development and the profits of developers (maybe they can build an elementary school on the highway median).

State officials abdicate any state responsibility to adopt land use and siting standards, health and school safety codes and stricter environmental regulation. This abdication is in response to the corrupt lobbying of many of these same corporate interests.

I worked on outing these scandals during the Corzine administration, when we documented that scores of “Abbott” schools (under NJ Supreme Court case law for minority/disadvantaged school districts) were to be sited on former, even active, toxic waste sites and that hundreds of millions of dollars of money that was supposed to benefit poor and black kids’ education was spent on cleaning up toxics school sites and consultants.

We could not get the legislature, Corzine DEP, SCC/SDA or media – or even the SCI investigators – to engage those corrupt abuses.

Just as bad, the only environmental group that would engage even remotely was the NJ Environment Federation. They crafted a Foundation driven narrow “school health” campaign that was limited to application of pesticides on school grounds and mold in buildings, ignoring virtually all other school health issues (land use, siting, air, drinking water, toxic sites, etc).

Nothing has changed since then (photo Trenton State House press conference, circa 2008)

Wildlife Conference Workshop Openly Reveals The Logging Game Plan

Beware Of Fake “Partnerships”

RGS is now coordinating the development of partnerships with conservation partners, consulting foresters, forest product companies to recruit and assist nearby private landowners. Our partnerships are based on the opportunity to write and implement good forest management plans on the basis of demand for low-grade pulpwood and other products.

[Update below]

I’ve often criticized NJ Audubon, NJ DEP, forestry consultants, and wealthy landowners for working together to promote logging of public lands, all for self serving interests and contrary to the public interest.

Typically, those logging plans misleadingly claim that NJ’s forest are old “single age class” and lack “diversity”. The logging plans are alleged to promote creation of “young forests” that provide critical habitat and conservation of an endangered bird species. These sham plans have justified logging private lands in NJ for decades (to qualify for tax breaks) and now threaten public lands.

These are cynical political schemes that mislead the public, manipulate or misrepresent science, or promote narrow single species management to the detriment of ecosystems and the public interest.

In NJ, NJ Audubon and NJ DEP have used golden wing warbler and ruffed grouse species as a pretext for logging (which they parade under the Orwellian slogans “active management” or “treatments”).

Most recently, I warned that NJ Audubon was organizing this politically powerful group to promote logging in the currently ongoing work of the legislative Forestry Taskforce. NJ Audubon openly deployed a political threat to “activate their supporters” – and they did so today in a blast email to their members (email provided upon request).

But you don’t have to take my word for that.

Here’s the Audubon/DEP game plan, presented today in Long Branch at a workshop of the

• 77th ANNUAL NORTHEAST FISH & WILDLIFE CONFERENCE

The 77th Hybrid Annual Northeast Fish & Wildlife Conference is hosted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Fish and Wildlife and will be held on Sunday, April 3 – Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Note that the speaker’s title is Director of Forest Market Strategy: (Note: yes, I understand that this is in Pennsylvania, it involves National Audubon, and is by the Ruffed Grouse Society):

Expanding Habitat Work on Private Lands by Partnering with Industry and Consulting Foresters

Description

Authors: Ben Larson, Ruffed Grouse Society & American Woodcock Society

RGS & AWS is working with other conservation organizations, agency partners, consulting foresters, and forest product companies to expand forest habitat work on private lands in key areas of PA.

Since 2017, The PA Game Commission, American Bird Conservancy, Indiana University of PA, RGS, and other partners have improved forest habitat quality on over 177K acres of state game lands, particularly by implementing “Dynamic Forest Restoration Blocks” (‘DFRBs’) that balance age classes, improve structural diversity, and address threats at biologically meaningful scales (2,500-25K acres).

To expand upon these established or ongoing DFRBs on state game lands, RGS is now coordinating the development of partnerships with conservation partners, consulting foresters, forest product companies to recruit and assist nearby private landowners. Our partnerships are based on the opportunity to write and implement good forest management plans on the basis of demand for low-grade pulpwood and other products.

In December, RGS, ABC, Audubon Mid-Atlantic, and Domtar announced a partnership that will focus in NW and central PA. RGS is also working with Pixelle, which operates a paper plant in SE PA. Both our private lands partnerships will involve targeted landowner outreach and connecting interested landowners with excellent consulting foresters.

Speaker

Ben Larson(Speaker)Ruffed Grouse Society, Forest Conservation Director/Director of Forest Market Strategy

In case you missed it, let’s repeat that – which confirms, in their own words, my accusations:

RGS is now coordinating the development of partnerships with conservation partners, consulting foresters, forest product companies to recruit and assist nearby private landowners. Our partnerships are based on the opportunity to write and implement good forest management plans on the basis of demand for low-grade pulpwood and other products.

This is exactly what NJ Audubon has been doing for over a decade with DEP and what they are now doing with Senator Smith Forestry Task Force. Don’t let them get away with this sham.

(We exposed similar symbiotic self dealing between DEP, conservation groups, and wealthy land owners, see:

• Murphy DEP Sponsors $5,000 A Week Junkets – Funded By A Wall Street Billionaire – To Entertain Their “Conservation Community” Friends)

That workshop is just one of several at the Conference that expose the money and special interests who are colluding to form “Partnerships” to log forests under the guise of protecting wildlife – here are several others:

Effects of Forest Management on the Conservation of Bird Communities

The Effects of Timber Harvesting on Small Mammal Abundance and Foraging Behavior with Implications for Tick Densities

The Dynamic Forest Partnership: Implementing Best Management Practices for At-risk Forest Birds on Private and Public Lands in the Central Appalachians

Expanding Habitat Work on Private Lands by Partnering with Industry and Consulting Foresters

Best Management Practices for the Conservation of Rare Bee Species in Forest Openings

Transferable Models: How a Partnership and a Grant Program are Supporting and Accelerating Strategic Conservation Gains in the Delaware River Watershed and Beyond

Using Autonomous Recording Units and a machine learned classifier to assess Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) occupancy in managed forests

Beware of fake “Partnerships”.

[Update – a NJ friend just sent me a news clip on the Conference from the Asbury Park Press. Of course, they drank the Kool-aid and printed the press releases of conservation groups.

Still, ironically the story absolutely confirms my point – these people are self interested and only lobby for government money that their organizations benefit from.

They long ago abandoned advocacy of the third leg – government regulation – of what they used to call the “3 legged stool of conservation” (i.e. private stewardship, preservation, and government regulation).

Alabama Hills National Scenic Area