WolfeNotes.com

Despite Media Reports, Serious Threats Remain Unaddressed

[Intro Note: Record Reporter Scott Fallon could have written an Obit about all the “good works” of PRC.  But he didn’t do that – instead he chose to print a lie: that there’s no more work to be done.

I am not willing to let that lie stand. ~~~  end intro]

The Bergen Record reported yesterday that the Pequannock River Coalition had called it quits – declared “Mission Accomplished!” -and was closing up shop:

Executive Director Ross Kushner announced the end of the organization in its April newsletter. He said the group had “worked its way out of a job” by accomplishing most, if not all, of its goals for a river that meanders through Passaic, Morris and Sussex counties. …

…. “There’s just not enough happening right now to keep an organization going.”

Not enough happening? Are you kidding me?

Not since George Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq has a more misleading statement been uttered.

Lest readers be deluded, let me list just a few big things that are “happening right now” that continue to threaten the Pequannock watershed.

1. Logging by NJ Audubon in Newark Watershed

NJ Audubon conducts commercial logging in Newark Watershed lands. (see one example). For the entire NJA program, see this audit document).

NJ Audubon conducted that in “partnership” with one of the most notorious “rampantly corrupt” institutions in NJ’s history, the Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corporation:

NWCDC is partnering with New Jersey Audubon to pursue Forest Stewardship Council certification of its proposed stewardship plans and management in the watershed. FSC certification is a voluntary, market-based tool that supports responsible forest management worldwide.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

A state comptroller’s report last year blasted the watershed corporation for an “egregious abuse of public funds” and criticized it for operating with little oversight from the city, then run by Mayor Cory Booker, now New Jersey’s junior U.S. senator.

Are we supposed to take it on faith that this “rampant corruption” had no impact on NJA logging “partnership” with NWCDC ?

Ross Kushner, Executive Director of the now defunct Pequannock River Coalition, may not have raised this concern publicly, but he raised strong objections to NJ Audubon’s logging project in the watershed.

Here is what Ross wrote:

We have two concerns: First, the wild trout of the Pequannock River and its tributaries are one of the most important and sensitive wildlife resources in the area covered by this plan. Yet, we find no mention of these fishery resources in the plan. This should be amended. The status of riparian forests is directly related to the health of these fish and other coldwater species, especially within the Pequannock system, where water temperature and flow problems are commonplace. Second, the passage of Hurricane Sandy had an immense impact on the forest cover in this area. We urge NJAS to review these changes in relation to the plan and adjust it accordingly. (emphasis mine)

(see NJA’s lame reply, including to my criticism).

I have no idea why Mr. Kushner seems to have pulled his punches and not raised this issue publicly.

[Update: I stand informed – my friend Scott Olson advises that Kushner supported logging on Sparta Mountain back in 2012, before anyone even knew it was happening, see:

• River coalition sees logging bill as crucial to the life of certain species ~~~ end update].

Highlands advocates are battling NJ Audubon logging plans in three forests: Sparta Mountain, Weldon Brook, and Mahlon Dickerson.

For some reason, the Newark watershed logging has stayed under the public radar.

Logging is occurring despite designation as a “State priority watershed” under the DEP’s 2007 Stewardship spatial analysis:

Chemicals Are Not Regulated, Even When Discharged Into Public Water Supplies 

Not just fish and wildlife are being poisoned

[See important End Note]

The Bergen Record has an important story today on a US Geological Survey (USGS) study that found dual sexed fish in the Wallkill River and Great Swamp. (read study here).

The USGS study builds on their national water quality assessment program and prior water quality sampling work in NJ that dates to 2008 and confirms prior research. That is something you don’t learn from the Record, which creates the opposite impression, i.e that most recent USGS study is very new research. Read the whole Record story:

• Sexual mutations in fish in protected waters raise alarm

Male fish in two of North Jersey’s most protected areas have developed female sexual characteristics, suggesting parts of the Wallkill River in Sussex County and the Great Swamp in Morris County are contaminated with chemicals that throw hormone systems radically off.

The story should trigger public outage and calls for stronger programs to monitor and install pollution controls to reduce the discharge of these chemicals to NJ streams and rivers.

[Theo Colborn’s 1995 book “Our Stolen Future” put the issues of endocrine disruptors on the public radar screen – interested readers should hit that link for more info.]

Public outrage will ensue, especially if the public fully understands the implications of the science and the DEP’s regulatory failure to act to protect the public, which the Record story not only failed to present, but gave DEP a pass on (see map above, and this post: Warning: This Map Can Make You Sick).

New DEP regulations also should require that public water supplies install granular activated carbon (GAC) treatment systems to remove them from drinking water.

GAC is readily available and relatively inexpensive treatment technology that is very effective in removing these chemicals.

The DEP and NJ Drinking Water Quality Institute regularly evaluate the performance of and recommend installation of GAC technology as available treatment.

In fact, DEP issued a white paper on a closely related topic – which we released publicly and urged action way back in 2010, see:

• FILTER THE CHEMICAL SOUP IN NEW JERSEY’S DRINKING WATER

Trenton — New Jersey should filter its drinking water to remove hundreds of chemicals, most of which are unregulated, from its drinking water supply, according to a rulemaking petition filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The plan to screen many chemicals out of tap water was actually developed by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) but has been in limbo for the last six years.

State testing has detected “approximately 600” chemical compounds “in 199 samples collected” including five brands of bottled water, according to a recent DEP white paper. The vast majority of these chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, hormones, and cleaning products, are not regulated by either the federal or state government. As a result, there is no regulatory effort to reduce or eliminate them from drinking water.

The April 2010 DEP white paper, entitled “Investigations Related to a ‘Treatment-Based’ Regulatory Approach to Address Unregulated Contaminants in Drinking Water,” advocates used granular activated carbon filtration and other techniques to remove most chemicals in drinking water, noting that carbon filtration alone removed more than half of identified chemicals.

Curiously, it was the DEP spokesman – not reporter Scott Fallon or his sources – who opened the door to discussion of these critical issues with this comment in the Record story:

“How to address the fact that wastewater treatment plants don’t capture all of these chemicals before discharging their effluent remains the subject of many studies that are looking at ecological impacts, relative health risks, and potential costs of various treatment technologies,” said Larry Hajna, a DEP spokesman. ….

“The most recent USGS study adds to our knowledge of this issue and impacts to ecological systems, but the scientific community overall still has more questions than answers on human health impacts,” Hajna said.

But Record reporter Scott Fallon ignored the public health risks and drinking water issues, which is stunning, given the example right under his nose in the Passaic River.

Let’s hope he investigates and reports on those concerns in followup coverage, if only in response to what should be public outrage.

We’ve researched and witten about unregulated and endocrine disrupting chemicals several times.

Last September (2015), during the drought, we warned about how low flow in the Passaic River, used for drinking water and pumped to the Wanaque reservoir, increased the concentration of these chemicals:

… the “highly regulated activity” does not include EPA and DEP pollution discharge permit limits on all chemicals known to be present in wastewater. These chemicals pass through sewage treatment plants and are discharged to the river. They wreak havoc on aquatic life – e.g. endocrine disrupting compounds cause things like dual sexed fish – and are threats to public health. The wastewater dominated flow of chemical laced water is then taken from the river for water supply. Unless it is highly advanced – and even advanced treatment is not 100% effective in removing all chemicals present – the treatment at the drinking water plant does not remove all these chemicals, many of which are not regulated or even monitored for, and they pass through treatment directly to your tap. These are the issues DEP glosses over and downplays the risks of in the above excerpts.)

In December (2015) we warned DEP about a dual sex fish study in the Delaware River when objecting to a new sewage treatment plant on the Crosswicks Creek in Plumtsed:

Second, the sewer plant will discharge new pollution loads … and organic chemicals, including things like household hazardous chemicals, contraceptive, prescription drugs, and endocrine disrupting compounds from the metabolism of pharmaceuticals.

… most of these pollutants are toxic to plants, fish and aquatic organisms and some of the organic chemicals are causing profound ecological damage, including recentstudies that have shown “dual sexed” fish in the Delaware River.

DEP simply ignored those comment and issued the permit to the facility with no monitoring and pollution control requirements for these chemicals. There was no press coverage or outrage by environmental groups over this permit.

Prior to that, in October of 2014, we wrote to question whether DEP was serious about protecting public healh and water quality, based on a prior USGS study:

The USGS and NJ DEP have documented hundreds of unregulated chemicals in NJ rivers and over 500 in NJ drinking water supplies. These chemicals include carcinogens and human endocrine disruptors that cause serious health effects, including reproductive and behavioral problems. These chemicals impact ecosystems as well. Ecologically, the majority (>50%) of fish sampled in a recent study on the Delaware river were found to be dual sexed – male and female in the same fish.

But bowing to NJ’s powerful pharmaceutical and chemical industries who profit from these toxic chemicals, the Christie DEP is covering that up. The DEP (Governor’s Office?) even appointed and allowed a Dupont corporate official to drive the science policy question of how to regulate them – see the most recent Report of the DEP Science Advisory Board for the details of that. We have written about that scandalous abuse and been totally ignored. Instead, the press writes Big Pharma cover stories about police drug enforcement oriented collection programs.

DEP simply ignored that – again – and so did NJ press corps and NJ environmental groups.

We warned about these issues again during the EPA cleanup of Dupont’s Pompton Lakes site, see:

• Two Headed Trout Outs A “Highly Contested” Toxic Debate (Feb. 2012)

Finally, we predicted that the Christie DEP would take no action on these issues, a prediction that we are sorry to say has proven correct:

• Christie’s Environmental Agenda Would Be A Disaster for New Jersey (October 2009)

The new USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program data are just demonstrating the need for additional regulation of a wide variety of currently unregulated contaminants, including endocrine disruptors and pharmaceuticals widely found in rivers and drinking water – so it looks like Christie seeks to derail that effort via stealth.

[End Note: I correctly predicted that the Christie DEP would do nothing to regulate these chemicals. That prediction was not based on tarot cards, Astrology, or reading tea leaves.

That prediction was based on first hand knowledge and experience at DEP, specifically including my work on a 2002 regulatory proposal of what are called “wildlife criteria” to regulate toxic chemicals based on adverse impact on wildlife and ecosystems.

Take a look at the scandalous power the chemical industry wields with impunity. In this letter, they openly THANK DEP for gutting a major regulation.

That DEP regulatory proposal was abandoned by then DEP Commissioner Brad Campbell in response to political pressure by the chemical and pharmaceutical industry – see this for the full story, including internal DEP and industry documents:

• NEW JERSEY DEP ABANDONS TOUGHER TOXIC STANDARDS

• NEW JERSEY WILL MISS WEDNESDAY’S WATER QUALITY DEADLINE

Campbell was pro-environment and pro-regulation, but he caved to incredible industry power and abandoned the proposed new regulations.

There was virtually no public awareness, media coverage, or criticism by NJ environmental groups for that collapse. There was no political price to pay, by public officials or corporate industry interests.

So, if the Campbell DEP collapsed, it was very obvious that the pro-business and anti-regulatory Christie administration would not do anything to protect public health or the environment.

Perhaps what disgusts me most is that after all this history and all my work to discloses and warn about these risks, at subsequent scientific studies documenting he problems, STILL the media and the public and the environmental groups don’t get it.

The USGS study safely targeted the Wallkill and Great Swamp National Wildlife refuges, places where there are few industrial and sewage dischargers to blame for the pollution.

They targeted ecological effects, which prompts no real concern from the public. For example, USGS could have sampled the Passaic or Ramapo or Delaware Rivers directly upstream of drinking water intakes and included a discussion of the human health implications of those chemicals detected.

The polluters’ political power (Big Pharma and the Chemistry Council) is so strong that even US EPA has backed off their oversight of NJ DEP on these issues.

The press (Record) wrote the story in the least inflammatory and least controversial way possible and gave the Christie DEP a huge pass.

Specifically, the headline could have blared: “Study Shows That DEP Has Knows For Years That There are Unregulated Toxic Chemicals In Your Drinking Water.“

Instead, the Record swept all the prior work I’ve disclosed under the rug. They relied on lame sources who apparently know virtually nothing about the issue. They gave DEP sufficient time to provide a quote that makes it appear as if there is little prior scientific work or regulatory inaction or responsibility or failure on their part. (the DEP quote is obviously from a written statement drafted by DEP professionals, because the DEP press officers do not have the expertise to present the issues like that orally on their own. This means Fallon gave DEP plenty of time to respond to and spin the USGS study.)

It’s not the first time Scott Fallon and the Bergen Record have done this cap.

They do their readers a grave disservice in failing to write the real story and hold public officials, DEP, and corporate polluters accountable.

Finally, I must note that NJ environmental groups have largely abandoned this kind of traditional meat and potatoes work on clean water, DEP regulation, and facility permits, and public health risks from toxics.

The abandonment began long ago (see: Clean Water Anyone?) – no one showed up!

Environmental groups have been manipulated by Foundation grant money that has diverted them from these controversial issues and instead been funded to work on politically safe issues that don’ threaten powerful chemical and pharmaceutical industries and their friends in State government, like sustainability, the Delaware Watershed (Wm Penn and Dodge Foundations) and the Dodge Foundation funded “The Raritan Initiative”, which Rutgers has shamefully joined as well.

You simply do not see well informed and hard hitting critiques like this anymore – they have been defunded by the Foundations and abandoned by the environmental groups.

Port Authority Rollback a Major Assault And Environmental Injustice To Newark

Will Newark Mayor Baraka Sit Back and Take It?

“time for some pollution problems in Newark”

The Clean Air Strategy for the Port of NY and NJ was developed during 2008 and 2009, with input from a diverse set of stakeholders. The purpose of CASP is to define a commitment by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Port Authority) and its Strategy Group Partners to ensure that air emissions generated by mobile sources associated with marine terminal operations and activities decline even with anticipated future maritime transportation growth over the next ten years. The goal of the Clean Air Strategy for the Port of NY and NJ is to achieve a minimum 30% net reduction of criteria pollutants (including PM2.5) and 50% net reduction of greenhouse gases over 10 years, after accounting for emission increases resulting from increases in goods movement. On March 10, 2010 NJDEP, and other Strategy Group partners on the Clean Air Strategy Plan Steering Committee, signed a “Joint Statement of Intent to Support Port Sustainability for the New York- New Jersey Metropolitan Area.” The agreement memorializes the shared commitment to work collaboratively to reduce emissions from the maritime operations of the Port of NY and NJ.  ~~~ Source: Christie NJ DEP

I am appalled to just now read that the Port Authority abandoned  it’s commitment to reduce toxic air pollution emissions from diesel trucks serving the Port, see:

• Port Authority drops plan for cleaner trucks

But I can’t figure out why Scott Fallon of the Bergen Record, while mentioning US EPA, let the Christie Administration completely off the hook.

It is a sharp reversal from plans announced by the Port Authority and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency five years ago that would have denied entry to all trucks that didn’t meet 2007 federal emission standards beginning next year in a major effort to help improve the air quality in the state.

Bridegate left no doubt about how the Governor is able to assert this power at the PA.

This was a significant policy decision by the Port Authority (PA) that has major impacts on the health of the people of Newark and nearby NJ communities.

Accordingly,that move must have had a green light from Governor Christie.

In addition to Gov. Christie’s policy role on the Port Authority Board, NJ DEP was a partner in developing the PA’s “Clean Air Strategy”

In creating this Strategy, the Port Authority worked closely with the following partners (Partners) who have endorsed this Strategy: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), The City of New York (including the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability and the Department of Transportation), New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), New York Shipping Association (NYSA), United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Region 2, City of Bayonne, City of Elizabeth, City of Jersey City, and City of Newark. This group, along with the Port Authority, comprised the Strategy Group, which oversaw the development of this Strategy.

The Christie DEP’s dirty diesel “Stop The Soot” program touts and is directly involved in the PA’s efforts:

Ports of Newark and Elizabeth

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, along with its partners, has undertaken a comprehensive effort to inventory sources of diesel emissions and identify strategies to reduce them:

A Clean Air Strategy for the Port of New York & New Jersey

NJDEP has completed its Phase 1 “Estimated Air Quality Impacts on Surrounding Communities of PM2.5 and SO2 Emissions Resulting From Maritime Operations at Elizabeth Port Authority Marine Terminal and Port Newark”. This study uses a computer model to estimate the air quality and health impacts from a variety of diesel emission sources at the Port, using the Port’s inventory of diesel emissions. The Phase 2 report, “Estimated Air Quality Impacts on Surrounding Communities of PM2.5 and SO2 Emissions Resulting From Maritime Operations at the Elizabeth Port Authority Marine Terminal and Port Newark: Phase 2 Future Impacts (2015)” is complete. Phase 3 will estimate the air quality impacts from diesel truck traffic upon several residential areas in the Newark and Elizabeth area.

The Christie DEP’s Air Quality Analysis found significant cancer and other air pollution health risks:

• Diesel exhaust cancer risk: The predicted cancer risk in surrounding residences decreases between the Phase 1 baseline and Phase 2 future years by an average of nearly 40 in a million but is still between 10 and 100 in a million which is high enough to justify long term efforts to further reduce cancer risk.
• Emissions from marine terminal activities were above New Jersey’s significant impact levels (SIL’s) for 24-hour PM2.5 in some surrounding communities in the Phase 1 baseline but not in the Phase 2 future case.

Maybe Fallon let Christie and NJ DEP off the hook because of his primary source for the story:

“They completely gutted the entire program with no promise to come back,” said Amy Goldsmith, chairwoman of the Coalition for Healthy Ports, a national organization pushing for the ban.

Surely Fallon knows that Ms. Goldsmith also is the head of the NJ Environmental Federation (now renamed “Clean Water Action”) who endorsed candidate Christie for Governor in 2009 in part, specifically based on his promise to ratchet down on diesel emissions and implement environmental justice programs.

The NJEF endorsement press release cheered that Christie would:

• Requiring retrofits of diesel engines used under state contracts – this will save lives, reduce health care costs and avoid days lost at school and work but it has been rejected by Governor Corzine;

Since that time, I’ve seen very little press coverage – or efforts by environmental groups – to hold Christie, NJ DEP or the Pot Authorty accountable for their commitments.

This political, advocacy, and accountability failure needs to be a part of this story.

And I don’t recall a public apology from Goldsmith and the NJEF Board for the Christie endorsement.

Privatization of Planning for Public Parks

NJ Future Conducts Covert Privatization Planning With Christie DEP

Now it’s getting interesting.

[*Full disclosure: I was consulted by and provided assistance to plaintiff’s counsel.]

In the latest development in the controversy over the Christie Administration’s scheme to privatize and commercialize Liberty State Park, on Friday, a Jersey City resident filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) lawsuit to compel DEP to release public records on Park development plans.

Scott Fallon of the Bergen Record first reported that the Christie DEP paid NJ Future, a private planning group, $120,000 to develop plans for privatizing the park.

On July 14, 2015, NJDEP denied an OPRA request for the NJ Future report to DEP made by plaintiff, William P. Bednarz, of Jersey City.

What could the Christie DEP and NJ Future have to hide?

Mr. Bednarz is represented by attorneys Walter M. Luers and H Howard Moskowitz, who wrote: (boldface emphases mine)

As set forth in the June 2, 2014 $120,000 Grant Agreement, also attached, the NJF report was to “detail[] findings and recommendations for Liberty State Park” in pursuit of “NJDEP’s goal to have LSP increase revenue and become financially sustainable,” including, among other matters, “[r]evenue projections for any suggested” development, a “list of potential developers/contractors,” and a discussion of “[p]otential issues and risks of recommendations.” The contract provides that NJDEP “facilitate” meetings between NJF’s consultant and undefined “LSP stakeholders.” Attachment A, at 1, 2.

The report was necessary, according to the grant agreement, in light of NJDEP’s “realiz[ation] that the State lacks the entrepreneurial expertise to design and effect[uate] those changes.” Id. at 1.

In short, the New Jersey Future report is a manual on how to monetize and commercialize Liberty State Park in implementation of Governor Christie’s plan to “save” New Jersey’s state parks, announced in November 2011, entitled “Sustainable Funding Strategy for New Jersey State Parks.”

The report is a government record “subject to public access” under OPRA as a “document that has been received in the course of the State’s official business.”

I got a real kick out of this DEP “realization”:

“realiz[ation] that the State lacks the entrepreneurial expertise to design and effect[uate] those changes.” Id. at 1.

Of course DEP Parks lacks entrepreneurial expertise to privatize – their job is to manage parks in the public interest for the enjoyment of visitors, not to make profits!

Once again, Christie’s privatization policy and DEP Commissioner Bob Martin’s “transformation” initiative to radically change DEP’s mission to “promote economic development” are shown to be absurd.

Based on my own successful litigation experience with OPRA, they have a strong case and are very likely to win.

Public release of the NJ Future Report to DEP is critical, because NJ Future was obviously acting on behalf of the Christie DEP in privately planning for private park development. DEP used NJF to avoid public scrutiny.

Now DEP is compounding that abuse by trying to cover the whole thing up by denying access to public records.

NJ Future should be ashamed of themselves for conducting covert planning for NJ’s most popular State Park.

According to the DEP’s contract with NJ Future, NJF was required to submit a Report that:

So, what were NJ Future’s “recommended activities that can produce revenue”?

What aspects of the Park were “attractive” “to revenue producing developers, contractors and concessionaires”?

What “developers/contractors” did NJ Future identify?

What areas and buildings at LSP did NJ Future recommend developing?

What “revenue projections” did NJ Future generate?

What “stakeholders” did NJ Future interview and consult?

The public demands answers!

Shame on both NJ Future and the Christie DEP for a covert strategy to avoid public involvement in park planning and for their craven revenue driven privatization scheme.

Mr Moskowitz was kind enough to provide the contract documents – sorry I have no links, but they are available upon request.

[Update: 9/3/15 – Scott Fallon broke the NJ Future DEP project, so I would have thought he’s have been a lot stronger in his story on that and the Christie “Sustainable parks” privatization and commercialization scheme – Fallon puts that in the most favorable light possible:

Efforts to generate more money at Liberty State are part of Christie’s Sustainable Parks initiative, unveiled in 2011 to reduce the park system’s reliance on the state budget.

What a wuss.

But Senator Expands Attacks on DEP Category One Water Quality Program

Blames Bergen County Flooding on DEP Reservoir & Stream Buffer Protections

I must have gotten under Senator Cardinale’s skin with my post on Monday, which quoted him calling Bergen County streams “drainage ditches” and saying that the DEP’s Category One stream water quality protection program was “scientifically unjustifiable” in Bergen County.

I got a lengthy email reply from Cardinale, in which he walked back the “drainage ditch” remark.

But, in walking back that comment, Cardinale may have gone from the frying pan into the fire.

Cardinale went slightly off the deep end, and expanded his attack on the DEP C1 program, essentially claiming that it caused flooding problems in Bergen County.

Of course, I could not let that stand and fired back – enjoy Cardinale’s email and my reply below:

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