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DEP Created And Gov.’s Office Approved A $142,500 Political Job In Record Time

Crony Hire Was Former Colleague Of DEP Assistant Commissioner Cecil, Who Conducted The Interview

No Job Postings, Solicitation, Or Competitive Civil Service Safeguards

This one smells so bad that I think I’m going to refer it to the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity And Accountability.

The Murphy DEP just made a highly unusual hiring decision that raises multiple red flags.

The DEP recently hired a former NJ Audubon staffer into a $142,500 job, with excellent benefits. Nice work if you can get it.

The job title is “Government Representative 2″ – in other words, a lobbyist, not a scientist, engineer, planner, or technician who make up the large majority of DEP staff.

The individual hired is a former colleague of DEP Assistant Commissioner John Cecil, who worked under his management control at NJ Audubon.

Mr. Cecil has ethical issues for his failure to disclose and recuse from DEP decisions related to his prior work at NJ Audubon, which included controversial logging on State lands and multiple “corporate stewardship” projects, including one at Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster.

Given these conflicts, one would think that Mr. Cecil would tread lightly and refrain from involvement with NJ Audubon issues.

One would be wrong.

Here’s DEP OPRA reply:

She [Ms. Meistrell] was interviewed on 10/05/23 by AC David Golden, AC John Cecil, and Lisa Barno.

It seems like Ms. Meistrell’s interview on 10/5/23 preceded the creation of her position. Another unusual situation (see below chronology).

Assistant Commissioner Cecil was involved in the creation of the new position, he participated in the interview, and he made the hiring decision – of a former colleague (we will discuss their shared controversial and deeply flawed pro-logging policy views in a future post).

Thus, Mr. Cecil compounded his prior ethical disclosure and recusal lapses with gross cronyism (at a minimum).

But it gets worse.

First, let me explain the unusual timing: (source: verbatim from DEP OPRA response):

The [hiring] request from the Program was submitted in Hiring & Recruitment Platform (HARP) on 12/21/23.  Governor’s Office approval was received on 02/01/24 and CSC approval was received on 02/14/24.

I worked at DEP for almost 14 years, 3 years as a political appointee approved by the Governor, and many times personally walked important documents that required DEP Managers and the Governor’s Office approvals, so I know first hand how cumbersome the system is. Under tight budgets and hiring limits, it is very difficult to create new positions, particularly in the $142,500 salary range.

In this case,  that all happened incredibly fast, and with several holidays slowing things down. This hiring required approvals of the DEP Assistant Commissioner (John Cecil), the DEP Assistant Commissioner for personnel or Management And Budget, and DEP Commissioner LaTourette. Then the Gov.’s Office and Civil Service and Treasury had to certify available funds.

Second, let’s take a look at the job position itself.

According to DEP OPRA response I just received: (these are verbatim quotes):

There was no Notice of Vacancy (NOV) posted for this unclassified position,

This is an unclassified appointment.

There was no Civil Service exam because this is an unclassified, at-will position.

There was no job posting for this unclassified appointment.

There was no job posting for Ms. Meistrell’s position.

Now that is a truly stunning example of cronyism, special treatment, ethical lapses, and abuse of power.

We will explain the implications for managing State forests and natural resources in an upcoming post.

Meantime, consider:

2C:30-2. Official misconduct

A public servant is guilty of official misconduct when, with purpose to obtain a benefit for himself or another or to injure or to deprive another of a benefit:

a. He commits an act relating to his office but constituting an unauthorized exercise of his official functions, knowing that such act is unauthorized or he is committing such act in an unauthorized manner; or

b. He knowingly refrains from performing a duty which is imposed upon him by law or is clearly inherent in the nature of his office.

The Same Thing Happened Last Year In The Pinelands

“As If On Cue”

Meanwhile, DEP Exempts wildfire Smoke From Air Pollution Inventory

(Caption: Delaware River near Watergap, 5 acre fire in Worthington State Forest, photo by Bruce Scruton, NJ Herald)

Firefighter arson is a persistent phenomenon involving a very small minority of firefighters who are also active arsonists.^[1] Fire-fighting organizations are aware of this problem. Some of the offenders seem to be motivated by boredom, or by the prospect of receiving attention for responding to the fires they have set.

It has been reported that roughly 100 U.S. firefighters are convicted of arson each year.^[3][4] ~~~ Wikipedia

For the last few years, DEP Commissioner LaTourette, the DEP Forest Fire Service, and DEP Press Office have been flogging the wildfire issue, greatly exaggerating the risks.

They have conducted an unprecedented campaign of media events, tours, press releases, prescribed burn media demonstrations, and legislative testimony, see:

• Murphy DEP Caught Blowing Smoke On Wildfires

The DEP’s public relations campaign coincided with rising public awareness of western wildfires and strong public opposition to the smoke and forest destruction created by DEP’s “prescribed burn” program. Public awareness was spurred by the national scandal of a US Forest Service “prescribed burn” in New Mexico that caused one of the largest wildfires in southwestern history. That disaster forced USFS to impose a moratorium and review and reform its prescribed burn program.

That USFS accident should have shed light and triggered critical scrutiny of DEP’s prescribed burn program and well as misguided recent legislation that eliminated liability for damages caused by prescribed burns that get out of control. But that review never occurred, e.g. see:

• DEP’s Own Analysis Of The Dynamics Of The Wharton State Forest Wildfire Illustrates Why Their “Forest Thinning” And “Firebreak” Logging Plan Won’t Work

Instead, DEP recently took steps to deregulate prescribed burns and exempt the unhealthy smoke they create from the air pollution inventory mandated by the federal Clean Air Act.

This demonstration aims to exclude certain ozone monitoring data from April 13, 2023, June 2, 2023, and June 29 – 30, 2023, due to the impact of multiple wildfires on New Jersey’s ozone air quality. …. A copy of the Department’s proposed Exceptional Event Demonstration is available on the Department’s website at public-notice-and-2023-ozone-ee-demo.pdf (nj.gov).

The DEP public relations efforts have paid off by diverting any critical review of DEP, instead portraying DEP Forest Fire Service and prescribed burns very favorably. The campaign’s success includes millions of dollars in federal grants and state appropriations: (DEP press release):

The Murphy Administration responded to the busy fire year by supporting the Forest Fire Service with a $3 million budget boost in FY23 to enhance protection of lives and property through investments in new equipment and staff.

Yesterday, when I received the DEP press release warning the public about risks of wildfire and touting DEP’s prescribed burn program, I was thinking about Tweeting “The arson starts tomorrow”.

Seriously.

And I’ll be damned, just one day later, there was an unusual small wildfire in the Delaware Gap. That fire occurred not only one day after DEP’s press release, but less than a mile from a DEP prescribed burn.

And it generated the same very favorable media coverage and support for DEP’s controversial prescribed burn program. The local newspaper story read like a DEP press release.(see the NJ Herald story by pro-logging DEP transcriber Bruce Scruton, who also mis-reported the controversial DEP logging on Sparta Mountain).

Exactly the same thing happened last year in the Pinelands – when I recall asking reporters to look into the proximity of the wildfire to the DEP prescribed burn program.

• Latest Pinelands Wildfire Raises Serious Questions About DEP Forest Management

The DEP attributed the cause of that remote Pinelands fire to a campfire, which I also found highly suspect given its remote location and low probability of campers being in that area at that time of year and day of week.

Even NJ Spotlight expressed skepticism and dropped a hint: (quote from Spotlight email)

• As if on cue, the firefighting service tonight reported a five-acre blaze near the Delaware Water Gap, which they say is unrelated to an earlier prescribed burn in the area.

Yes, as if on cue. They say.

COAH Repeal Ignored Environmental Protections

Proposed Legislation Would Mandate That Some Environmental Features Be Considered

Yesterday, Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith and Senator McKeon introduced a bill (S3065) that is purported to:

Excludes environmentally sensitive and flood-prone land from designation as vacant or available for purposes of affordable housing construction.

It is a flawed and poorly crafted bill that would merely eliminate any mandate to build affordable housing on some environmentally sensitive lands.

It would not block towns from building affordable housing on those lands.

The language to identify environmentally sensitive lands is vague, limited, and confusing as well. The Pinelands and Coastal Zone are not specifically included. The Highlands Preservation Area is, but the Planning Area only gets partial protections in certain voluntary “conforming” towns.

Category One Stream buffers, vernal ponds and buffers, intact forests, steep slopes, T&E habitat, prime soils and agricultural lands, well head protection areas, aquifer recharge areas, the capacity of water supply and wastewater treatment infrastructure, and other environmentally sensitive features are not specifically included.

The bill excludes “regulated” lands. But that broad term is seemingly working at cross purposes to the narrow specific excluded lands. The broad exclusion of lands that are “regulated” opens a can of worms: DEP “regulates” a LOT more land than the bill contemplates, including the coastal zone, sewer service areas, septic service areas, brownfields, or just about every acre of land in the state.

In addition to the flaws and poor drafting, the bill seems intended to fix a major flaw in the recent COAH repeal legislation. (see:

• Proposed Affordable Housing “Reform” Bill Ignores Land Use Planning And Environmental Considerations

Curiously, both Senators voted YES in support of the COAH repeal legislation (see the Roll Call votes).

But that COAH repeal law did not require protections for environmentally sensitive lands!

In a February 13, 2024 NJ Spotlight Op-Ed, my friend, attorney Bill Potter warned exactly about these major flaws in the subsequently enacted COAH repeal bill:

Most troubling of all, the 76-page bill does not so much as mention the municipal mandates to protect the environment in all its many features and human impacts:

• Freshwater wetlands, preservation of natural stream buffers, no-build flood-prone areas, wooded hillsides and steep slopes, as well as such perennial hot topics in land use disputes as controlling stormwater runoff (sure to increase with global warming), traffic impacts, sewerage capacity and water supply, all are given short — if any — shrift in Sen. Singleton’s omnibus legislation.

The Supreme Court in each Mount Laurel decision eloquently described various environmental limitations to the allocation of affordable housing obligations. For example, “They do not extend to those areas where the State Plan discourages growth — namely open spaces, rural areas, prime farmland, conservation areas, limited growth areas, parts of the Pinelands and Coastal Zone areas” among others.

Section 6(b)(4) of S-50 does contain the “land capacity factor … which shall be determined … by estimating the area of developable land in the municipal boundaries that may accommodate development through the use of the land cover data most recently published by the [DEP] and weighing the factors based on the land area type in which such land is located… ”

How’s that? Apparently, this boils down to “the land capacity for affordable housing is the area of land suitable for such development,” a perfect tautology! Is this intended to substitute for the explicit environmental limitations that run throughout the Mount Laurel decisions — as guardrails against what the Court refers to as simply “bad planning?”

Protecting the environment through “sound land use planning” is the oft forgotten twin pillar of the “Mount Laurel Doctrine” — as writ large in Mount Laurel II, 40 years ago. The justices embraced the overarching principle that municipalities have both obligations in their land use plans — they must protect our environment while they also provide a “realistic opportunity” for constructing or rehabilitating much-needed housing for those who need it most.

What explains Smith and McKeon’s vote in SUPPORT of the flawed COAH repeal bill and sponsorship of a bill to correct those flaws just weeks later?

Why didn’t they both fight for floor amendments to the COAH repeal bill if they really wanted to protect the environment?

What the hell is going on here?

Is this just more Trenton Earth Day Kabuki?

EPA Announces Upcoming 2024 PFAS Investigation in Soil

Former Mayor Seeks To Block Release Of EPA Report Prior To Meeting

(Caption: Curtis Specialty Papers Superfund Site on Delaware River, Milford Borough, NJ. Old photo – Buildings have been demolished)

Tonight, the EPA will brief the Milford Borough Community Advisory Group (CAG) in Milford on the status of the cleanup of the Curtis Specialty Papers Superfund site along a Wild And Scenic stretch of the Delaware River.

In an unusual move, the meeting agenda includes opening remarks by Nick Henry, Aide to Rep. Thomas Kean, Jr.

It’s been 3 years since the EPA CAG agenda included PFAS “forever chemicals”, which EPA found at very high levels at the site.

I’ve been critical of EPA’s failure to include PFAS chemicals in the cleanup at the site.

I requested that EPA re-open the remedial investigation, formally consult with US Fish and Wildlife Service, and mandate cleanup, see:

• PFAS “Forever Chemicals” Found In Groundwater at Over 900 TIMES NJ DEP Standards At Curtis Specialty Superfund Site Along The Delaware River

• 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

The off site sampling of the Delaware river, sediments, and biota (fish, birds, etc) has been limited, thus, given the river’s Wild and Scenic designation, consultation with US FWS is particularly important.

Last I can recall, the EPA was investigating but had not mandated the cleanup of PFAS. It seems like the new 2024 sampling will be limited to soil.

Yesterday, when I received the meeting agenda via email from EPA, I noticed that it included an update on PFAS cleanup. So, I immediately sent EPA a request to provide EPA reports to be discussed:

Hi Pat – could you send me this Agenda document so I can be prepared at the meeting to ask informed questions:

“Summary of Previous PFAS Investigations”

The former Mayor immediately responded to EPA shut that down and in the process he attacked me personally, see:

On 04/08/2024 1:23 PM EDT Henri Schepens <schepensmilfordboro@gmail.com> wrote:

Mr Wolfe,

Why the need to send a reply all? This meeting is for Milford residents to get updated project information on the site. It  is NOT intended to be a soapbox for you to sharpshoot the presentation and agitate the audience as you have done in past meetings.

Henri Schepens

Thus far, EPA has failed to even respond to that request and has not provided the documents I requested, so it looks like EPA is listening to local political arguments.

My reply to Henri Schepens sheds light of the motives operating among some locals:

Henri – The meeting is NOT intended only for Milford residents. It is a US EPA meeting to brief the public on the activities of the federal government.

Your “outside agitator” mentality is, frankly, not only factually in error, but un-American.

I have voiced fact, science, and law based criticism of EPA’s actions at the site. I am an expert with over 40 years of professional experience, not a “sharpshooter” and I use the public arena to inform residents, on a pro-bono basis.

A rational person would assume that residents and local officials would appreciate that kind of independent accountability oriented professional assistance, which is motivated by protection of public health and the environment of your community and residents.

In contrast, some local officials and residents have explicitly voiced concerns for economic development and property taxes. One would think that those views would be rejected as inappropriate to the policy approach to cleanup of a toxic waste site.

Those are the kind of priorities that lead to the tragedies we’ve seen at this site. (including a preventable accidental death we warned about years ago).

I take strong offense to your ad hominem and false and defamatory remarks and offer a chance for you to withdraw them and apologize.

Wolfe

So, if any readers have the time, the meeting tonight is at 6:30 pm, in the Milford Borough firehouse.

Little Done 6 Years Into The Murphy Administration

Christie Regulatory Rollbacks Remain

Bend Over, Earth Day Is Coming

The NJ environmental community just released the most false praise of and groveling before Governor Murphy and his flaccid DEP in NJ history. Read it and weep:

Dear Governor Murphy,

Over the past seven years of your administration, New Jersey has made remarkable progress in becoming a national leader on environmental and climate action.

Never before has a Governor who has done so little on the environment received so much praise.

Never before – including the Whitman and Christie DEP’s – has DEP done so little on the regulatory front and so much on the press office public relations front.

There is an easy to understand and accurate barometer to measure that failure right on DEP’s own website.

Just look at the DEP Rule Re-adoption Without Change page.

Regulations expire every 5 – 7 years. The expiration is intended to provide an opportunity of continuous improvement, as science and conditions change and lessons are learned about flaws in the regulations. But DEP may readopt without changes to maintain the status quo.

The Murphy DEP has readopted 51 regulations without change, including 8 years of Christie DEP rollbacks.

The pro-business and strongly ideologically anti-regulatory Christie DEP rolled back protections in freshwater wetlands rules, and forestry and public access to the coast and rivers and landfill closure and flooding and Highlands protection and sewer plants and clean water and stormwater management and private site cleanup and coastal zone management  and a broad waiver post Sandy and toxic cleanup program and septic systems a broad waiver of regulations and Green Acres and OPRA public records  and drinking water and phosphorus (water quality) and water pollution and rocket fuel in drinking water (and other unregulated chemicals).

Get that? By re-adopting all these regulations without change, the Murphy DEP has approved of all these Christie DEP rollbacks.

In addition, the Christie budgets slashed DEP funding and staffing, Christie Executive Orders rolled back DEP’s discretionary power and abolished programs and institutions, the Christie DEP failed to act on numerous fronts, e.g. land use, air and water quality, chemical safety (TCPA an RTK), etc and even blocked the Drinking Water Quality Institute from meeting for several years.

Christie DEP settled billion dollar Natural Resource Damage (NRD) lawsuits for pennies on the dollar.

The Murphy DEP has maintained that pro-corporate practice (e.g. see BASF and American Cyanamid deals) and done nothing to strengthen the NRD program to improve DEP’s legal leverage and avoid having to settle for peanuts.

Six YEARS into the Murphy Administration, and NONE of this dismantling and rollbacks have been restored and strengthened by the Murphy administration. One Murphy Executive Order on regulatory policy may even make Christie’s policy even worse.

Revealing a similar pattern, the Murphy DEP adopted just 13 new regulations. Most of them were either required by federal EPA, were minor rules, or were weak efforts that are full of loopholes.

Some were even supported by the chemical industry. The DEP even openly admits this in a response to the Chemistry Council:

In recent years, the Department has streamlined the risk assessment process for air permits by providing the regulated community with a simple-to-use Risk Screening Worksheet (Worksheet) (http://www.nj.gov/dep/aqpp/risk.html). The use of this Worksheet eliminates the need to perform refined air quality modeling for a significant number of permittees. If the facility has the potential to emit one or multiple HAPs, the Worksheet can assess risk at the same time for multiple HAPs. Similarly, when a permittee runs an air quality model for the refined risk assessment for one pollutant, the permittee can use the same run for multiple pollutants.

Notice that DEP did not mandate cumulative risk assessments for multiple hazardous pollutants, or require consideration of undue burdens and health vulnerabilities of at risk environmental justice communities, or establish stricter modeling and air monitoring, particularly in urban areas where schools and people live in close proximity to toxic polluters.

They did just the OPPOSITE and made them weaker.

Yet the current Director of Sierra Club, NJ Chapter recently testified to the Senate Environment Committee and claimed, paraphrase, “as a former DEP employee, I can assure the Committee that DEP has strict hazardous air pollution requirements”!!! 

The Murphy DEP’s highly touted signal accomplishments on the regulatory front – e.g. rejoining RGGI, CO2 emissions rules for a handful or power plants, environmental justice, “forever chemical”, and inland flooding rules – are full of loopholes and will have little or no impact on current greenhouse gas emissions and levels of pollution in EJ communities (see above HAP regulation).

The flood rules were obsolete before they were even proposed, because they relied on the outdated 100 year flood and rainfall events.

The “forever chemicals” rule just exposed DEP’s failure to regulate hundreds of currently unregulated chemical and mandate state of the art treatment for drinking water to remove these chemicals.

Finally, the Christie DEP was led by a former corporate consultant from Accenture, Bob Martin. Martin did his corporate consulting in Europe with European players.

The Murphy DEP is even worse, led by Shawn LaTourette, a former corporate lawyer who represented some of NJ’s worst corporate polluters. He has gross conflicts of interest right here in NJ.

Yet while Bob Martin was criticized as too pro-business, there has not been a peep of criticism of Shawn LaTourette, just the opposite. Gov. Murphy even had the balls to call LaTourette an “Erin Brokovich” public interest lawyer, a disgusting lie that went unchallenged by the press or environmental groups.

Not surprisingly, DEP’s failure to act and maintain continuity with the Christie DEP has led to an explosion of warehouse developments, further loss of the few remaining acres of forests and farms, stagnation on the water quality front as global warming drives even worse outbreaks of harmful algae blooms, and greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption and vehicle miles traveled are all increasing. Bears are being slaughtered. Loggers continue to manage NJ forests. The solar industry is declining and off shore wind is off track. The Energy Master Plan is in shambles. Electrification of buildings is stalled. I could go on but won’t.

[Update: A long time Trenton observer sent me this note:

Murphy is  worse then Christie – DEP budget is lower and has significantly less staff -bigger backlog of park repair – Turnpike widenings  Murphy further weakened storm water rules was even criticized by Trump fema – more roll backs or weaken of clean up rules – more privatization- sprawl is back – ~~~ end update]

 In conclusion, it is obvious why this lame letter was released right now.

We are two weeks from Earth Day.

The DEP will make an Earth Day announcement, enviro’s will praise it and declare victory. They’ll take the press clips to their Foundation donors as evidence of success.

The press will  write glowing headlines and stories.

And nothing will change.

[End Note: The NJ Spotlight story URL gives the game away. The letter was organized by corporate friendly anti-regulatory Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed. More on exactly who they are coming soon. A teaser: (note: this post is old and the primary subject mater is no longer accurate):

I just learned that NJ League of Conservation Voters, NJ Audubon, and NJ Conservation Foundation (they are pathetic cheerleaders, along with their $100 million Wm. Penn Foundation created faux grassroots fundraising focused front group The Coalition for the Delaware Watershed) are doing a public event with the DRBC.