WolfeNotes.com

I urge the Commission to conduct technical reviews and submit technical comments on DEP regulatory proposals, instead of vague and misleading political endorsements.

The NJ Pinelands Commission is by law an independent regional planning and regulatory agency.

The Commission is bound by law to base its decisions and actions on the best available science in accordance with the policies and standards adopted in the Pinelands Protection Act and codified in the Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP).

The Pinelands Act directs and authorizes the Commission to adopt more stringent regulatory standards than DEP, in order to protect unique and sensitive Pinelands ecosystems.

The Commission is independent and not a political institution or an arm of the Governor’s Office (despite the fact the Gov. Murphy installed his political loyalist as Chair of the Commission).

Yet, based on my review of recent comments submitted to DEP in support of DEP’s recent flood rules, it is obvious that the Commission has been captured by the Governor’s Office and is running political interference for the Gov. and the DEP.

So, I just fired off this letter to the Commission:

Dear Pinelands Commission:

Please consider the following as public comments during your upcoming public meeting.

I just read the Pinelands Commission’s 2/2/23 written comments submitted by Stacey Roth on proposed DEP stormwater management and Flood Hazard Act regulations.

The Commission supported those proposed rules on the following basis:

“Development within the State of New Jersey must be designed and constructed to manage not only for today’s flood conditions but for the significantly higher precipitation level anticipated to occur in the future.“

Yet, according to the DEP proposal itself, the proposed rule’s precipitation, runoff, flood elevation, and storm frequency data do not reflect current conditions and do not reflect projected (modeled) conditions.

Accordingly, as explained below, the Commission’s comments are not accurate.

1. DEP based the rule on the 100 year storm event, despite the fact that NJ already has experienced several far more severe 500 year storm events.

DEP’s proposal documents the fact that NJ has suffered 500 year (or more) Storm events and flooding (proposal @ page 10):

Specifically, the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida resulted in flooding significantly more severe than FEMA’s published 100-year flood at various locations in New Jersey:

Raritan River at Bound Brook:

• Flooding during Tropical Storm Ida equaled 1999’s Hurricane Floyd, which was the highest elevation ever recorded at Bound Brook.
• Including Floyd, flooding at this location in the past 23 years has equaled or exceeded FEMA’s 500-year flood elevation three times.
• The Raritan River during Tropical Storm Ida peaked at 42.13 ft NGVD (41.21 ft NAVD) which is 3.01 feet above FEMA’s 100-year elevation (38.2 ft NAVD) and 0.21 ft above FEMA’s 500-year flood elevation (41.0 ft NAVD).

Raritan River at Bridgewater

• Flooding during Tropical Storm Ida peaked at roughly FEMA’s 500-year flood elevation (41.0 ft NAVD) which is 2.8 ft above FEMA’s 100-year flood elevation (38.2 ft NAVD)

Millstone River at Manville:

• Flooding during Tropical Storm Ida peaked at roughly one foot above FEMA’s 500-year flood elevation (43.5 ft NAVD) which is 2.5 ft above FEMA’s 100-year flood elevation (41.0 ft NAVD). Thus, flooding at this location peaked at approximately 3.5 feet above FEMA’s 100-year flood elevation.

DEP then explains the significance of the 500 year flood event: (@page 11):

“These examples illustrate not only that Ida was a significant flood event that exceeded the anticipated flooding depicted on available flood mapping products, upon which many roads and buildings were financed, constructed, and insured in the impacted communities, but also that there is an upward trend in the number and severity of flood events in the State. As noted above, flooding in Bound Brook has exceeded FEMA’s 100-year flood elevation four times and FEMA’s 500-year flood elevation three times since 1999, which leads to the conclusion that we are already experiencing increased flooding as compared with past recurrence interval calculations.”

Despite the facts that NJ is already experiencing 500 year floods and that climate science projects that extreme storms will significantly increase in rainfall amount, rainfall intensity (short severe bursts of rainfall that create floods), and extreme rainfall frequency, the DEP did not even use the 500 year storm.

Instead, DEP merely added a 25% “safety factor” addition to the current 100 year storm event they’ve been using for decades.

And look how they then falsely stated that it would be adequate – a statement made before the facts on 500 year storms are summarized on page 10-11: (@page 5):

“This rulemaking incorporates anticipated greater depths of precipitation for the two, 10, and 100-year storm events for the purposes of stormwater management.These proposed amendments are necessary to ensure that buildings, roads, stormwater management features and other structures are designed and constructed to manage and be protective for today’s flood conditions and precipitation as well as anticipated future conditions and precipitation. […]

Specifically, the flood hazard area design flood elevation is based on a flood that is 25 percent greater than the 100-year peak flow rate in the stream or river being analyzed and mapped.”

The technical regulatory fine print for this standard is on page 102:

“6. Table 3.6B below sets forth the change factors to be used in determining the projected 100-year storm event for use in this chapter”

The 100 year storm – even with an additional 25% “safety factor” increment – can not “ensure that buildings, roads, stormwater management features and other structures are designed and constructed to manage and be protective for today’s flood conditions and precipitation as well as anticipated future conditions and precipitation.”

That proposed new standard is already exceeded now, never mind projected climate driven increases.

DEP admits this multiple times in the proposal:

“More than 12 rivers exceeded their 100-year flood levels”

“On August 27 and 28, 2011, Hurricane Irene resulted in record breaking floods on many New Jersey streams, with 33 USGS stream gauges recording peak flows equal to or greater than the 100-year recurrence interval (USGS, 2011).”

DEP exposed the inadequacy of the 100 year design storm for the purpose of justifying their new 25% “safety factor”.

But, ironically, in doing so, DEP also exposed the flaws in relying on the 100 year flood.

2. DEP Ignores Land Use Increases In Development. DEP’s proposed new standards are obsolete for the same reasons that DEP correctly rejects current rainfall methods

Just some basic observations make it obvious that, in addition to underestimating extreme rainfall amounts and flood elevations, DEP is failing to consider a basic driver of increased flood impacts.

Flooding is a combination of the amount and timing of rainfall and the ability of the landscape to absorb that rainfall.

NJ is a highly developed state.

Development destroyed forests, wetlands, and natural landscapes that absorb rainfall and dampen flooding. It also puts people and property at risk when located in areas prone or vulnerable to flooding.

Development also increases impervious surfaces that dramatically increase the generate stormwater runoff volumes.

Yet the DEP proposal ignores the changes in land use and impervious surfaces that generated huge volumes of stormwater that contribute to bad land use decisions that result in devastating deadly flooding.

The proposal ignores existing development, it will influence new development at the margin, and it therefore depends on market forces, not any overarching State Land use and climate plan or infrastructure investment program.

A critical Star ledger editorial got that:

“A lot of New Jersey was developed prior to the stormwater regulations,” Obropta said. “The state needs to require municipalities to begin retrofitting existing development with stormwater management if we have any hope to reduce flooding.”

The proposal ignores existing development.

The proposal does very little to cap or reduce impervious surfaces or stop the loss of natural lands like forests, wetlands and stream buffers. It guarantees that the flooding problems will get worse.

I urge the Commission to conduct technical reviews and submit technical comments on DEP regulatory proposals, instead of vague and misleading political endorsements.

Bill Wolfe

 

The Sierra Club’s endorsement of Independent Chris Daggett for Governor has caused a stir in political circles.

As with almost all hyped news, the corporate media coverage and political blogosphere are narrowly focused on the short term electoral implications, and are completely ignoring the policy debate, or asking how we got to this juncture and what it means for policy going forward.

I’d like to take a step back and try to foster a discussion about what this means for policy, and promote a shared understanding of the history of how we got to a point where Sierra does not renew its endorsement of a Democratic incumbent Governor in favor of a third party candidate.

How did it come about that a self-described and widely considered liberal, pro-environment, global warming fighting, green power champion incumbent is abandoned by Sierra?

How did Sierra come about endorsing a man who chaired the pro-development anti-environmental DEP “Permit Efficiency Review Task-Force”?

The answer is found in an old fashioned story of co-optation and inside baseball. This dynamic necessarily leads to ignoring organizing and an impaired ability to develop any kind of public movement to provide political support for policy goals.

Ironically, Sierra Club’s early cheerleading for Corzine and their too close relationship with DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson basically created a very unhealthy dynamic. They got a lot of press blowing Corzine so full of hot air that he looked like a giant on the environment. Now,like Wall Street brokers cleaning up the mess they made, they are getting a lot of press slaying him.

From the beginning of the Administration, Sierra greatly inflated and unconditionally supported Corzine’s accomplishments (e.g. the warm embrace of Lisa Jackson’s “Category One” stream protections, and Meadowlands signing statement of the Global Warming Response Act).

Because Sierra had so highly praised Jackson for those stream rules (before they read the fine print) and Corzine for passage of the GWRA, it made it very hard to tell the truth about flaws and to focus on DEP’s total failure to implement the Act. It also created all sorts of political momentum for polluters and special interests to secure additional rollbacks of stream protections and hijack the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) cap and trade program bill. (for a critique of the GWRA, see: Star-Ledger Op-Ed: “No Teeth in ‘Tough’ Pollution Law”)

Sierra also either outright supported or looked the other way as Corzine continued to slash DEP budgets. Corzine watered down, ignored, or even rolled back every one of the policy commitments of his Gubernatorial electoral environmental platform (mandatory chemical plant safety, et al). Yet, there was no criticism for any of these compromises and sellouts – which sent a huge signal that Corzine would get a pass for promoting economic development over environmental and public health concerns.

At the same time, Sierra repeatedly pulled punches by withholding public criticism of the policies of their “friend”, DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson. This dynamic included playing co-opting inside games in Jackson’s hand picked “stakeholder processes”.

For example, Jackson created the “Site Remediation Taskforce” that provided political cover to further dismantle and privatize the DEP toxic site cleanup program. When enviro’s agreed to participate “in the room”, their successful high profile media campaign to expose flaws in the DEP program fell flat and ran out of the media and political energy required to lobby for real change.

Similarly, Jackson issued an Administrative Order that established the “Permit Efficiency Review Taskforce” in response to political pressure by the NJ Builders Association and business community. The business community manufactured another bogus attack on DEP’s alleged role in the housing market and economic collapse. Jackson caved to that gross lie. Yet, instead of criticism of this Taskforce’s anti-environmental agenda, Jackson was given a pass. And now we are seeing the political consequences of that mistake, because now Chris Daggett will get a pass for Chairing that effort. How many people know that DEP Commissioner Jackson abolished the Division of Science and research, based on this Task Force Report. 

Jackson negotiated and publicly sold the controversial “Permit Extension Act” on behalf of Corzine, thereby providing green cover

Yet we have heard very little from Sierra and enviro’s about all that. Had Christie Whitman done anything remotely similar to that kind of attack on DEP and science, Sierra would be holding multiple press conferences on the State House steps.

On the Legislative front, Sierra never pushed either for legislative oversight or to strengthen environmental laws. They basically gave a pass to friendly democrats who chaired the environmental committees, Assemblyman John McKeon and Senator Bob Smith. Neither Legislators nor Sierra had any appetite in holding fellow Democrats Corzine or Lisa Jackson of DEP accountable. Just look at how the Inspector General Cooper’s Encap Report was handled – softball questions and a pass by enviro’s.

Sierra’s multiple accountability failures misled the public, provided green cover, and thereby enabled some really bad stuff at DEP on the regulatory front and in the Legislature (privatized LSP, Permit Extension Act, RGGI, et al)

Of course, things got so bad that even Sierra was forced to criticize Corzine to maintain their credibility.

We would not have gone down this road if Sierra and other enviro’s told the truth and held Corzine accountable to his campaign promises (which he failed uniformly to deliver on) from the outset.

The political lessons to be learned here? – play it straight with the press and use media strategically. Don’t get co-opted by the inside game. The Democrats are not necessarily your friends. Organize

Spinning Out Of Control And Believing You Own Bullshit

Sometimes my skepticism and sometimes cynicism gets overwhelmed by the Orwellian reality.

Anyone who has been paying attention – and I don’t mean the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC,  NPR, et al – has come to realize Ukrainian President Zelensky is a propaganda artist and gaslighter who has zero credibility among academics and serious people.

His latest stunt before the US Congress was the final act for him, as he destroys his country “fighting Russia to the last man”.

So, today, we create our own inaugural Zelensky Award – and I personally nominate this statement for First Prize:

“Every natural resource of our state belongs directly to the people of New Jersey, and as the trustee of their natural resources, it is our job to make sure that when pollution damages our environment, the people are paid back for the harm to their natural resources,” DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said in a written statement.

“A true turnaround story, this settlement would transform one of New Jersey’s most notorious polluted sites into one of our biggest environmental success stories—one that delivers the natural resource quality that every community deserves, shoulder-to-shoulder with a good corporate citizen determined to repair the environmental damage of our shared industrial past. My sincere thanks to BASF and every partner that contributed to this success for the people of New Jersey.”

It’s a “story” all right – and it is shameful for a DEP Commissioner to elevate a narrative “story” over facts, science, history, and policy.

A “story” dutifully transcribed by Ocean County “news” outlet WOBM:

https://wobm.com/new-jersey-ciba-geigy-update/

We welcome endorsements, testimonials, and additional nominations from our readers and will award the prize on April 1.

Dispatch from the Sonoran – Over and out.

NJ Audubon Is NJ’s Top Ranked Green Grift Operation

Recent $6 Million Dark Money Donor Just The Tip Of The Iceberg Of Corruption

We begin this long overdue series with a spotlight on NJ Audubon Society (NJAS), because they are quantitatively by far the most greedy and egregious “Green Grifters” who most transparently and corruptly serve corporate interests and most consistently undermine and sell out conservation values and the public interest. But they are not alone. And Mike Catania’s model (Duke blood money) “Conservation Resources, Inc.” is right up there on the corporate influence and corruption scale.

We will name names and we will follow the money. We will illustrate examples of how that corporate money influenced the issues these conservation groups work on and the positions they take. We will provide links to all the documents that support our claims.

The corporate money also determines what issues these grifters don’t work on – for example, NJ Audubon never opposed the Penn East pipeline, fracking, or LNG export terminal. As a result of Dupont money, they never work on toxics in Delaware  River/Bay or wildlife. DEP abandoned proposed wildlife criteria, with no criticism or opposition.

The role of corporate money in influencing and outright co-opting NJ conservation groups has been a decades old problem, perhaps best illustrated by the dirty deal to forego cooling towers for the PSE&G south Jersey nuclear plants. That deal saved PSE&G billions.

Another blatant corrupt example is deal in support of the PSE&G Susquehanna – Roseland transmission line through the Delaware Watergap and Highlands. [A reader just noted NJAS hypocrisy, because a top killer of bald eagles is electrocution.]

But what we are witnessing today is quantitatively and qualitatively different and expressly corrupt.

NJ’s Green Grifters have dramatically changed the entire landscape of NJ’s environmental activism and policy advocacy over the last 25 years.

Through a conscious strategy that relied on: 1) the increasing influence of corporate money (e.g. see NJAS Annual Reports for tons of corporate funding, including PSE&G and Orsted $), 2) corporate Board appointments, 3) corporate staffing, 4) wealthy donors, 5) elite Foundation grants, 6) DEP “partnerships”, DEP grants and Stakeholder processes (including millions in State contracts, e.g. see ducks), 7) Gov. Office, BPU, and DEP revolving door staff appointments, a form of “brood parasitism”, 8) Trenton Gubernatorial cover and legislative capture (e.g multiple press conferences with Governor Murphy and Senator Smith’s Forestry Task Force), 9) inter-locking and self promoting coalitions, self dealing, log rolling, and astroturfing, and 10) a coordinated strategy of inter-locking Boards of directors and financial campaigns, these Green Grifters have drown out and virtually destroyed NJ’s long tradition of aggressive environmental advocacy and activism. It’s dead. Period.

With federal education money and PSE&G funding, NJAS are even indoctrinating our kids: the kids are not being taught civics, inspired to be the virtuous citizen, and introduced to the history of environmental activism. Instead, they are being told how to raise money, and for a corporate greenwashing slogan, not a program based on science and law!

• Freehold Students Trained on New Fundraising Strategies to Raise Money for School Sustainability Projects

And PSE&G gets all the good press they pay for, with greenwashing headlines like this:

• New Jersey Audubon and PSEG work to protect Newark’s bird population – The Raptor Trust

In place of NJ’s tradition of aggressive activism is a corporate friendly agenda that emphasizes a set of voluntary, local, and market based incremental and slogans and symbolic feel good measures that award winning writer Chris Hedges calls elite boutique activism.

We now get a lot of toothless crap that sounds good. Or other voluntary projects that actually undermine regulatory protections. 

There was the unforgivable theft of environmental and State Parks money by the “Keep It Green” Coalition – a $1 million+ campaign to mislead NJ voters, with funds benefiting friends, family members, and fellow grifter contractors and consultants.

In place of NJ’s environmental community’s multi-organizational political electoral endorsement process, these same Green Grifter groups founded and funded and sit on the Board of the fraud that parades under the name “NJ League Of Conservation Voters” (NJ LCV)..

As I’ve written, NJ LCV was created with an express intent to replace the voice and political and media power of Sierra Club’s Jeff Tittel. Carleton Montgomery of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance brags on his website bio that he was a founder of NJ LCV. Look at all their Boards of Direcors and note the overlapping memberships and interests.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves – let’s get back to the narrower focus of today’s initial post, NJAS. We’ll deliver the receipts on all this in future posts in this series.

NJAS is the group that openly bragged about a greenwashing “partnership” with Donald Trump at his Bedminster NJ golf course. As far as I know, they never repudiated or apologized for that relationship.

NJAS is the group that openly celebrated their “Corporate Stewardship Council”, with funding from some of NJ biggest corporate polluters and developers and greenwashers.

NJAS is the group that made a U-Turn and reversed their position of support for preservation of large intact blocks of Highlands forests and maximizing canopy cover, to supporting logging those same forests.

NJAS is the group that misled the public and lied about logging public forests.

NJAS is the group that gladly accepted $330,000 from Wall Street billionaire and owner of the bird slaughtering hunting compound known as Hudson Farm. Incredibly, that private money was dedicated to drafting a Forest Management Plan for logging publicly owned State forests in the Sparta Mountain WMA, in the heart of the protected NJ Highlands. And the same billionaire funded joint DEP conservation community junkets.

NJAS is the group that sought and accepted $830,000 of COVID PPP “forgivable loans” (grants), despite an endowment of millions of dollars, million dollar annual budget surpluses, and a dedicated revenue stream that was not impacted by COVID. Not one NJAS employee was laid off, and not one suffered a reduction in their high salaries and benefits. Pure greed prompted their COVID PPP money grab, which could have gone to real people in need.

NJAS is the group that engages in grossly unethical conflicts of interest, whereby their former head of NJAS Corporate Stewardship Council and the champion of logging NJ public forests, John Cecil, is now Murphy DEP Assistant Commissioner with power over the fate of those forests, and the revolving door swung open whereby NJ DEP’s former head of Science and Research, Eileen Murphy, is now NJAS head of Trenton lobbying. You really can’t make this stuff up.

NJAS is the group that hired a former Exxon-Mobile “biostitute” as CEO.

Repeat: the current CEO of NJAS was a former Exxon-Mobil “scientist”. Exxon Mobil joined NJAS’ “Corporate Stewardship Council” (and became a corporate donor) AFTER NJAS hired their employee.

NJAS tentacles (and their corporate backers) are everywhere:

• Former NJAS lobbyist Kelly Mooij, despite a lack of qualifications, was installed by Gov. Murphy as the Director of Clean Energy at BPU.
• Staffer Madeline Urbish went from NJAS to the Gov. Office and to a politically connected Trenton lobby firm, to Gov. Murphy’s friends at off shore wind developer Orsted.
• Former NJAS Policy Director Drew Tomkins was installed at the Work Environment Council, a previously progressive oriented labor group.
• Eileen Murphy, former head of DEP Science and NJAS current lobbyist is a Co-Chair of Senator Smith’s Forestry Task Force.
• John Cecil, from head of NJAS “Corporate Stewardship” and logging projects, is now Murphy DEP Assistant Commissioner.

 In the bird world, this practice is known as “brood parasitism”.

NJAS even works the Gov.’s wife, Tammy!!

• Climate Change Education Panel Discussion Hosted by First Lady Tammy Murphy on Nov. 16

But today’s NJAS fundraising email on their $13 million SOAR fundraising campaign is so over the top and so illustrative. (see above) in prompted this long overdue series. A six million dollar dark money donation should trigger all sorts of red flags.

But so is the prior NJAS fundraising email I got about a ZEISS  optics sale – for sophisticated optical equipment  that cost more than I – and millions of NJ resident – spend on food for 6 months!

And so is the prior NJAS fundraising email I got about incredibly carbon intensive luxury “eco-tourism” tours. More than I spend in 6 months!

And so is the prior NJAS fundraising email urging support for federal legislation that would appropriate more funding to them.

NJAS is the group that advocates for Delaware Watershed funding that they would benefit from:

• Action Alert: Please Help Protect the Delaware River Basin:

Since first appropriated in FY18 at $5 million, the Program has now grown in funding to $10.5 million in FY22. This year, New Jersey Audubon and the Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed is urging Congress to increase funding to $13.5 million to address key issues facing the future of the Delaware River Basin. Act now to increase federal investment in New Jersey and throughout the watershed.

The core component of the Program is competitive grants through the Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund, a program administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is as corporate dominated and corrupt as NJAS. Just LOOK at all those corporate partners!

NJAS is a group that issues an”Action Alert” that left out the fact that they receive funding the the Delaware Watershed Fund and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

And NJAS is a group that didn’t mention that those funds are in addition to receiving some of the Wm. Penn Foundations’ $100 million Watershed initiative.

And NJAS is a group that does virtually nothing on real Delaware Watershed water quality issues – from land use to toxic discharges and regulation under the Clean Water Act’s SWQS, WQMP, NPDES, and  TMDL programs (you can Google the acronyms!) Dupont “Clear Into The Future” funding is behind that abdication, see:

• Life On The Delaware – Summertime and the Livin’ Is Easy

NJAS only supports politically safe bi-partisan federal legislation that provides funding to them.

Look closely at anything NJAS does, and you will find a corporate interests or a financial benefit to them.

That’s not conservation, that’s corruption. And it is all done right in the open.

(Part II will name the number 2 and 3 Green Grifters Groups – and if you have any dirt, give is a holler!)

[End Note: – A reader sent this, which is consistent with the pro-hunter relationships with NJAS logging projects:

They partnered with Wildlife Management Institute for CARA  –Conservation Reinvestment Act – that was back in the nineties and they wanted massive amounts of federal taxpayer dollars to be divided among hunters and so called non game programs. But the lion’s share went to hunters and to conservation education which by the way could not be negative toward hunting. That was the National Audubon but  affiliated  New Jersey Audubon was the co-director along with a NJDFW of Teaming  with Wildlife in NJ, which ushered in increased tightly coordinated power between most Audubons and the hunting community and not a single animal group paid attention to it.

The Spirit of Kumbaya Prevails – Over An Invisible Community

The Regulatory Lion Has Lain Down With the Conservation Lamb

When I came to Trenton in the fall of 1985 as a DEP policy planner fresh out of Cornell Graduate School, there were 2 spheres of the NJ “environmental community”:

1) the “conservation groups” (NJCF, Audubon, TPL, TNC, PPA, ANJEC, and several smaller regional land trusts) who worked primarily on open space and voluntary land acquisition, a voluntary State Plan, and voluntary local Environmental Commissions. They would take credit for or co-opt the work of more aggressive local groups that would arise to fight developments, especially in the Highlands.

2) the Trenton groups (NJ PIRG, NJ Environmental Federation, Sierra Club) who focused on air and water pollution, toxic waste sites, hazardous and solid waste management, public health, and environmental quality. They were supplemented by very aggressive local and regional groups like Madelyn Hoffman at GREO, Bob Speigel at Edison Wetlands, Joe Morris Jersey City chromium and brownfields; Peter Montague, and nascent environmental justice groups forming in Newark and Camden who worked on stopping garbage incinerators, banning ocean dumping, anti-toxics, Pollution Prevention, the Precautionary Principle and pesticides. Labor was involved via Rick Engler at NJ Work Environment Council.

There was very little overlap in the issues they worked on; or the legislative, regulatory, and political agendas; or the funding sources; or the media; or the political endorsements; or the overall message, framing, strategy, and tactics used – thus there was little conflict or competition between the two groups.

But that all changed dramatically when two things happened:

1) The Whitman administration divided the community.

Whitman’s attacks, primarily on DEP and environmental regulation, created incentives for the conservation community to find political cover for their failures to criticize the Whitman administration, who they were working with on a “million acre” open space goal. Mike Catania led that effort. They also sought to tone down the Gov.’s harsh critics.

At the same time, some Trenton labor leaders who were close to Democrats (Jeff Scott of CWA 1034, DEP’s local) – who funded NJ Environmental Federation, a leading Trenton group – thought they could form a coalition to co-opt the Republican leaning conservation groups to back their agenda. At the time, CWA/NJEF’s agenda primarily focused on stopping Gov. Whitman’s deep cuts to DEP’s budget (thus the CWA’s leading role. Tim Dillingham, then head of Sierra, was involved as well. That’s where the first successful Constitutional dedication of the Corporate Business Tax campaign came from. Full disclosure: CWA paid my salary at the time and I did the research for an was on the inside of this strategy – on several issues, it went straight from Torricelli to Gore).

These parallel incentives for both camps led to the formation of a “unified” community coalition under the banner of “The Environmental Summit” led by conservationists and Republican Candy Ashmum.

It turns out that Jeff Scott was dead wrong – he failed to co-opt the conservationists, they co-opted everyone else. The hunter was captured the game! (h/t Jerry Garcia!)

2) Conservation groups and their Foundation backers challenged the prevailing leadership and sought an ideological and political shift

The conservation groups – backed by NJ’s elite corporate Foundations (Dodge, Wm. Penn, et al), grant funding from DEP programs, like the CBT fueled Watershed Planning Process and all the local watershed groups, and corporate “mitigation” money provided by Mike Catania’s “Conservation Resources, Inc.” model  and the rise of NJ Audubon’s “Corporate Stewardship” – began to expand their scope and encroach on the sphere of operations and the traditional turf and issue set of the Trenton based groups. Conservation leaders like Catania, Ashmum, and Daggett also sought to shift the policy agenda away from some Trenton DEP based regulatory issues (like toxic sites, air and water pollution, command and control regulation, and corporate accountability) and moderate the “strident” voices of people like Jeff Tittel. They wanted to stop working at cross purposes and airing dirty laundry.

[Update: Jeff Tittel correctly takes me to task for minimizing exactly what these people wanted to do. He writes:

They didn’t try to moderate my voice -the tried to drown it out –  the funders gave money to the groups to use one funder put it to take the press away from jeff tittel and gave money the weenies and njef to do it – they failed ~~~ end update]

A decade or so later, new groups emerged on the scene, like Food And Water Watch, Sustainable NJ, NJ Future, NJ LCV, “Renew NJ”, Delaware River Partnership, and the EJ groups. These folks had little to no historical, political or institutional understanding or scientific or regulatory expertise in many issues.

Some of the groups were Foundation money created – basically astro-turf operations.

So, 25 years later, here we are. Sitting around the DEP’s Stakeholder table.

My goodness, it’s now OK that a former Exxon Mobil “scientist” heads “partner” NJ Audubon:

An entire community, sold for the proverbial mess of pottage.

The dreams of Chris Daggett (Dodge Foundation), Mike Catania (Duke Foundation), and Candy Ashmum (recently deceased) have come true: the NJ environmental community is finally unified, controlled, and speaks with one voice.

But it is the voice of a eunuch, where the lowest common denominator of “consensus” calls the tune. [BTW, for the language police out there, the term “eunuch” in this context has no gender basis. The definition includes: “an ineffective person”. Look it up!]

Those pesky Trenton radicals – who used aggressive tactics and harsh rude media rhetoric to criticize DEP, the Governor, Legislators, and powerful NJ based chemical, pharmaceutical and energy corporations and land developers – have been marginalized and co-opted by the moderate and civil conservation community.

The primary focus on making “politically unfeasible” demands for State legislation and regulation backed by enforcement teeth and funding has been diverted to modest, incremental, market based incentives.

Rude nasty voices of criticism from people like Joe Morris (Jersey City), Bob Speigel (Edison Wetlands), Bill Neil (NJ Audubon), Curtis Fisher (NJ PIRG), Bill Wolfe (NJ PEER) and Jeff Tittel (Sierra Club) have been defunded, effectively silenced, and exiled.

No more will loud voices from Trenton be splashed across NJ news to make the placid privileged lives of conservationists in Basking Ridge uncomfortable.

No more will internal disagreements spill into public view and no longer will “green” dirty laundry be aired.

An entirely new group, NJ League Of Conservation Voters, now provides political cover for lame political endorsements and day to day policy defense for the Gov. and DEP.

The core leaders all take care of each other: they log roll on funding, they sit on each others Boards of Directors (in the corporate world, this is denounced as corrupt: “interlocking directorates”. I call it the “Green Mafia”), and they all come from the same elite class and cultural background.

No longer will there be all those disturbing press conferences, protests, and media events attacking and ridiculing government and corporate NJ.

The community is unified.

Civility, consensus, and partnerships with government and corporate NJ rule the day.

The community can finally work in partnership with the governor and the legislature to promote corporate friendly, market based, voluntary, individual incentives and local solutions, not some one size fits all, top down, Trenton based, Soviet style, command and control regulatory mandates!

[End Note: I just received a detailed email from my friend Bill Neil that provides several specific examples of the dynamics I’ve overviewed above. Bill reminds me that I left a lot out. I’m aware of an in agreement with everything Bill wrote. Bill is a brilliant writer, so I’m trying to get him to guest author a followup Part 2 of this post, fleshing those issues out in detail. We’ll let you know how I make out.