Toxics News
Activists press Corzine to address "toxic schools". Say 1,500 schools, day-cares built on, near polluted sites, by Tom Baldwin, 06/25/08. Published by the Gannett State Bureau.
TRENTON -- An environmental alliance asked Gov. Jon S. Corzine for help today in dealing with what it calls a "toxic-school crisis," where school houses have been built on or are planned for polluted sites.
"Separate and unequal schools dates back to slavery," said Roy Jones, co-chairman of the South Jersey Environmental Alliance, who said many of the schools serve minorities.
"The issue of toxic schools is New Jersey's largest unaddressed health and educational crisis," said Jane Nogaki, of the New Jersey Environmental Federation.
Saying some 100 schools have been built on or near contaminated sites, and 1,400 day-care centers are located 400 feet or closer to such soiled areas, the group asked Corzine for an executive order to address the problem.
N.J. contemplates pollution cleanup program, by Tom Baldwin, 05/20/08. Published by the Gannett State Bureau.
TRENTON — With New Jersey thinking about enacting a similar program, the Senate Environment Committee Monday heard from people involved in Massachusetts' experience of farming out to private contractors the oversight of cleanup of polluted sites.
"New Jersey is not Massachusetts," said David Pringle of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "We have a very real concern that translating Massachusetts to New Jersey is letting the fox watch the henhouse."
Last-minute bills pass; no goodbyes to senators , By Derek Harper, 1/8/2008. Originally published in the Press of Atlantic City
TRENTON - Lawmakers hustled to pass a raft of legislation Monday, in dual Senate and Assembly sessions that started in the early afternoon and crawled into the night.
New Jersey joins join California, Washington, Maryland and Maine with a program, funded by electronics manufacturers, which would set up the state's first electronic recycling program. The Electronic Waste Recycling Act would make it illegal to throw out most computers and televisions with the regular trash starting Jan. 1, 2009. Instead, the funds would help counties set up their own recycling programs.
Lawmakers passed a $3 per ton tax would raise $34 million annually for municipal and county recycling programs. The last recycling tax expired in 1997, and the New Jersey Environmental Federation said statewide residential recycling rates have shrunk from 60 percent to less than 30 percent.
Testimony slams Ringwood cleanup, By Herb Jackson, 10/18/2007.
Originally published in the The Record (Bergen County)
Federal environmental regulators won't admit it, but they are siding with polluters and delaying cleanups because they don't have the money to do their jobs, New Jersey's former environmental commissioner told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday.
Bradley Campbell criticized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's handling of several cleanup sites in New Jersey, including the Ford site in Ringwood, which was recently put back on the national priority list for cleanup after being deemed clean in the 1990s.
A report by the EPA's inspector general last month found the EPA took Ford's word during the first cleanup about the extent of pollution at the site, so the automaker was not ordered to remove tons of paint waste dumped in the former mining community in the 1960s and 1970s.
More than 24,000 tons of waste and contaminated soil have been removed in the current cleanup.
Not all environmentalists were so pleased, however.
"Brad Campbell as DEP commissioner did more to weaken New Jersey's toxic cleanup program than virtually any other commissioner," said Jeff Tittel, state director of the Sierra Club.
Tittel and David Pringle, campaign director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, issued a news release that included an array of criticisms of Campbell's tenure in Trenton that included allowing contaminated sites to be deemed clean when they were not.
Wednesday's hearing was called to build a case for reinstating the "polluter pays" tax on oil and chemical companies to fund Superfund cleanups when the company responsible for pollution cannot be found or afford the work.
Video: Community Members Protest N.J. Dredge Dumping, CBS News, 08/15/2007
Protesters gathered at Palmyra Cove Nature Park in Burlington County as a major dredging project in the Delaware River began Tuesday.
Outraged residents and environmentalists attended a public meeting with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Monday to express their fears about dumping sediment from the Delaware River at the nature park.
“Take a step back, do the environmental review, do a true public review and listen to the all of the good ideas in this room and all the good ideas in the agencies,” one frustrated resident said...
Dredge plan for nature park draws a protest, By Samuel Dangremond, Inquirer Staff Writer, 08/15/2007
Don Eyre was ready to be arrested.
Eyre, of Medford, was among about 10 people who showed up at Palmyra Cove Nature Park yesterday to protest the planned use of 20 acres for dumping dredge material from the Delaware River.
When Eyre sat down to block a path that Army Corps of Engineers workers needed to transport lumber, police threatened to arrest him.
"I've never been arrested before. What the heck?" said Eyre, a board member of Medford's Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge.
But the police also told him that they would close the park to visitors and others. So Eyre stood and rejoined the other protesters.
With that as the backdrop, site preparation began yesterday morning for what the corps has called an emergency dredging project.
Protester Jane Nogaki, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Environmental Federation, said she and others feared the state would continue to use the nature park for dredge disposal.
Corps project manager Charlie Myers and project engineer Harry Faulls spoke with the protestors and listened to their concerns.
"I hope we can work together," Faulls said.
Myers said he could arrange a trip to the dredging barge that will be docked on the riverbank for anyone who wanted to learn more about the process.
Eyre was pleased when Myers told him that the corps could leave water at the disposal site instead of pumping it back to the river if the nature center preferred that option.
"If we could get more wetlands here, we'd be way better off," Eyre said. "It would be way better for wildlife..."
DuPont shareholders reject accountability proposals, By Randall Chase, Associated Press, 04/25/07
WILMINGTON — DuPont shareholders today overwhelmingly defeated a host of proposals seeking more information from the company on issues including genetically modified food, global warming and PFOA, a controversial chemical used in the production of Teflon and other products.
Dissident shareholders assailed DuPont chairman and chief executive Chad Holliday Jr. for the company’s environmental record and treatment of pensioners and employees, but they failed to win approval of proposals aimed at holding the company more accountable.
But critics believe the company’s timetable for phasing out PFOA is unacceptable, given contamination of water supplies in several states, the chemical’s bio-persistence, and its widespread presence in humans.
“How much higher are blood levels in workers going to go?” asked Jane Nogaki of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, who chastised Holliday for refusing to meet with a coalition of environmental and labor groups to discuss their concerns.
DuPont has refused to meet with the coalition because it includes members of the United Steelworkers union, which it said is engaged in organizing activities at DuPont facilities and is involved in PFOA litigation.
For organization, change is in the air, Verona-Cedar Grove Times, 02/20/07
The New Jersey Environmental Federation is coming to Verona to clear the air about pollutants.The group plans to go door to door asking residents to urge local officials to establish pesticide-free zones, reduced diesel emissions and green cleaning products in schools during its “Healthy Schools, Healthy Towns” campaign.
“New Jersey cancer rates are high,” NJEF Communications Coordinator Jenny Vickers said. “So anything to reduce pollution where children play, where children go to school, where people are working in the building through the entire day would help decrease the pollution burden on our bodies.”
Canvassing Director Eric Benson said federation employees are scheduled to visit Verona beginning this week, seeking petition signatures, letters to elected officials and donations.
“Schools already use pesticides as a last resort,” he said. “We found some towns don’t use chemicals in their parks, which is great, but it’s also helping to build more public awareness, (such as) putting up signs in the park or a flier in the library, here’s tips for your own garden.”
Vickers said a NJEF report stated that truck traffic helps to give Essex County one of the highest rates of diesel pollution in the state.
“A statewide study showed that Essex and Bergen counties were No. 1 and No. 2 for asthma-related mortality rates,” she said. “So there’s a big problem in the cities.”
Legislators differ on how to pay for electronics recycling, Star-Ledger, 02/09/07
Saying the materials in old computers or televisions pose environmental and health hazards, state lawmakers yesterday pressed for a measure to ensure the obsolete products are recycled rather than junked in a landfill.The question was: Who should pay to make sure it happens?
Gusciora's bill, A-3572, is modeled after Maine's law and would charge computer and television manufacturers a $5,000 registration fee and hold them responsible for the collection, transportation and recycling of e-waste. The roughly 150 manufacturers the bill targets could either set up their own recycling program or pay a share of what it costs to run a publicly run program.
It has the support of environmental groups and electronic retailers, as well as manufacturer Hewlett Packard, and has cleared the Assembly environment and solid waste committee.
"Ultimately, the folks that are profiting from selling these products should be the ones who shoulder the cost," said David Pringle, campaign director for the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "It's the polluters that need to pay."
Bills aim to recycle computer gear, TVs, Asbury Park Press, 02/09/07
TRENTON — State lawmakers Thursday explored how to deal with so-called "e-waste" — which is all the lead, mercury, arsenic and other unwanted substances stewing in old electronics."Veritable compendiums of the periodic table," is how Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer, described the hazardous materials that he says his bill will capture before they slide into the earth, water or air.
A similar measure written by Sen. Robert Smith, D-Middlesex, aims to accomplish the same goal, though the funding sources are different.
"This is ultimately about polluters paying," said David Pringle of the umbrella group, the New Jersey Environmental Federation.
Groups Sue Army To Keep Nerve Agent Waste out of NJ, Associated Press, 12/21/06
Environmental and other watchdog groups in four states have filed a federal lawsuit to try to stop the U.S. Army from trucking the byproduct of a deadly chemical weapon from Indiana to New Jersey, where it would be treated and dumped into the Delaware River.Environmentalists and officials in Delaware and New Jersey oppose the plan and have said they will fight it through legislation and in court, if necessary. Meanwhile, a federal review of the plan is continuing.
Co-plaintiffs in the suit are the American Littoral Society; the Chemical Weapons Working Group, based in Kentucky; Pennsylvania Clean Water Action; the Delaware and New Jersey Audubon societies; and the New Jersey Environmental Federation.
