NJ committee schedules a dozen environmental bills

Members of the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee are scheduled to consider a dozen environmental bills when they meet on Monday, May 16, in Trenton.

On the committee’s agenda are:
A-3633  Jasey, M.M. (D-27); McKeon, J.F. (D-27)

Requires plans, specifications, and bid proposal documents for certain local public contracts to address soil contamination.

   

A-3724  Quijano, A. (D-20)

Prohibits developer from diverting storm water runoff to adjacent or nearby private property.

Related Bill: S-2601

    

A-3806  Stender, L. (D-22); McKeon, J.F. (D-27)

Includes energy produced by certain geothermal heat pumps as class I renewable energy.

 

A-4050  McKeon, J.F. (D-27); Burzichelli, J.J. (D-3); Moriarty, P.D. (D-4)

Appropriates $45 million from “2009 Green Acres Fund” and $12 million from “2009 Blue Acres Fund” for State acquisition of lands for recreation and conservation purposes, including Blue Acres projects.

Related Bill: S-2859

   

A-4051  Benson, D.R. (D-14); Riley, C.M. (D-3); Milam, M.W. (D-1)

Appropriates $14,818,787 from “2009 Green Acres Fund” and “Garden State Green Acres Preservation Trust Fund” for grants to certain nonprofit entities to acquire or develop lands for recreation and conservation purposes.  Related Bill: S-2858

    

A-4052  DeAngelo, W.P. (D-14); Wagner, C. (D-38); Conaway, H. (D-7)

Appropriates $84,495,199 from “2009 Green Acres Fund” and “Garden State Green Acres Preservation Trust Fund” for local government open space acquisition and park development projects.

Related Bill: S-2857

    

A-4055  Benson, D.R. (D-14); DeAngelo, W.P. (D-14); Johnson, G.M. (D-37)

Appropriates funds to DEP for environmental infrastructure projects for FY2012.

 

A-4056  Mainor, C. (D-31); Wagner, C. (D-38); Lampitt, P.R. (D-6)

Makes certain changes to NJ Environmental Infrastructure Trust Financing Program.

Related Bill: S-2004

    

A-4057  Albano, N.T. (D-1); Milam, M.W. (D-1); Stender, L. (D-22); Green, J. (D-22)

Authorizes New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust to expend certain sums to make loans for environmental infrastructure projects for FY2012.

    

ACR-193  McKeon, J.F. (D-27); Quijano, A. (D-20); Conaway, H. (D-7)

Approves FY 2012 Financial Plan of New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust.

    

AR-146  Lampitt, P.R. (D-6)

Memorializes Congress to modernize Toxic Substances Control Act.  Related Bill: SR-110

    

AR-158  McKeon, J.F. (D-27); Mainor, C. (D-31); Benson, D.R. (D-14)

Urges Governor to immediately authorize Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission to hire staff, and to continue to uphold mission of commission and authorizing law.

    
Planning to attend? 
The committee will meet at 2 p.m. in Room 9 in the State House Annex in Trenton.  

Or you can listen live online.  Or after the hearing is adjourned. 

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Duke study finds elevated methane near fracking wells

Duke doctoral student samples Pennsylvania well water.

A study by Duke University researchers has found high levels of leaked methane in well water collected near shale-gas drilling and hydrofracking sites.  The scientists collected and analyzed water samples from 68 private groundwater wells across five counties in northeastern Pennsylvania and New York. 

The news of the study was published yesterday in the university’s Duke Today.

“At least some of the homeowners who claim that their wells were contaminated by shale-gas extraction appear to be right,” says Robert B. Jackson, Nicholas Professor of Global Environmental Change and director of Duke’s Center on Global Change.

Hydraulic fracturing, also called hydrofracking or fracking, involves pumping water, sand and chemicals deep underground into horizontal gas wells at high pressure to crack open hydrocarbon-rich shale and extract natural gas.

The study found no evidence of contamination from chemical-laden fracking fluids, which are injected into gas wells to help break up shale deposits, or from “produced water,” wastewater that is extracted back out of the wells after the shale has been fractured.

The peer-reviewed study of well-water contamination from shale-gas drilling and hydrofracking appears this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We found measurable amounts of methane in 85 percent of the samples, but levels were 17 times higher on average in wells located within a kilometer of active hydrofracking sites,” says Stephen Osborn, postdoctoral research associate at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. 

The contamination was observed primarily in Bradford and Susquehanna counties in Pennsylvania.Water wells farther from the gas wells contained lower levels of methane and had a different isotopic fingerprint

See the full story here.


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Enviro-engineers aid life-saving water drilling in Kenya

Nick DeRose has drilled scores of wells during his career as an environmental engineer but not any as valuable as those that his firm and others in the environmental consulting business are supporting for the Maasai people of Kenya. 

DeRose’s firm, Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, hosted a reception at their Doylestown, Pa offices on May 3 for the nonprofit MCEP (Maasai Cultural Exchange Project) which has funded the drilling of five, life-sustaining water wells for tribal villages of the Maasai people of Kenya in East Africa. 

DeRose was introduced to the organization by Rosemarie Williams, Langan’s Director of Business Development, who is a friend of MCEP’s co-founder, Phyllis Eckelmeyer.

Eckelmeyer knew nothing about the Maasai, their traditions, or their dependence on water (video) prior to a chance encounter she had several years ago after spotting several men, dressed in tribal garb, waiting for a train in Doylestown to take them to a meeting at the United Nations. 

Since she had a daughter who was about to take a teaching assignment at a school in Africa, she struck up a conversation. That led to a dinner invitation and eventually to the founding of MCEP. In its six-year history, the nonprofit has had notable success, not only in providing desperately needed water for the Maasai, but also in supporting educational and business initiatives for Maasai children and women.

Want to learn more? Check out the video below that we shot at the Langan event with DeRose, Eckelmeyer and Maasai tribesman John Sakuda.   

Here’s how you can help with a donation to MCEP.

As always, your opinions are welcomed.  Use the comment box below.  If one isn’t visible, click on the tiny ‘comments’ link to activate it.
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Environmental & Energy bills in Trenton on Monday

Two bills that would restrict the authority of municipal governments to adopt ordinances that discourage the installation of solar panels or wind turbines on residential properties are one vote away from final passage in the New Jersey Legislature.
On Monday, the Assembly will consider A-3125  (Quijano) and S-2006 (Smith), two identical bills that would amend the state’s Municipal Land Use Law to prohibit municipalities from adopting excessively restrictive conditions on solar panel installations on a residential properties.
The bills clarify that a municipal ordinance would not be authorized to regulate the installation of photovoltaic solar energy systems when: 
  1. In the case of a roof mounted system, the panels, and all accessory equipment, extend 12 inches or less beyond the edge of the roofline or above the highest point of the roof surface or structure; or,
  2. In the case of a surface level or ground mounted system,  the system consists of 10 or less photovoltaic panels and is situated more than 50 feet from the nearest property boundary line.    

The bills also provide that a municipal ordinance regulating the installation on residential property of photovoltaic solar energy systems or small wind energy systems shall not require payment of any fee that exceeds the municipality’s processing costs for an application pertaining to the approval, installation, or operation of a system.

Also up for votes in the Assembly on Monday are:

A-861  Milam, M.W.

Requires license suspension of certain health care professionals and medical waste facilities, generators, and transporters for willful illegal or improper medical waste disposal.
A-3699  Watson Coleman, B. (D-15); Gusciora, R. (D-15); Tucker, C.G. (D-28)

Prohibits burial of Petty’s Run archaeological excavation site.
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‘Time of Application’ law effective today in New Jersey

“The long-awaited ‘time of application law,’ which locks in zoning under New Jersey’s Municipal Land Use Law at the time an application for development is filed, takes effect today.”

So advises Gibbons attorney Howard D. Geneslaw today in an alert to the firm’s clients and friends.

According to Mr. Geneslaw:

The law was intended to undo the “time of decision” rule under which the New Jersey Supreme Court, in Manalapan Realty v. Township Committee, 140 N.J. 366 (1995), decided that a municipality could change its zoning to negatively affect or even prohibit a project which was already under review by the municipal planning board. As a result, developers often were at peril if community opposition developed during the review and approval process and a change in regulations followed.

As of today, the development regulations which apply to a project will be those in effect on the date the application is filed with the municipal land use board. The new law, S-82, approved as P.L. 2010, Chapter 9 and codified at N.J.S.A. 40:55D-10.5, allowed municipalities a year to revise and update their development regulations. That year has elapsed, and municipalities are now presumed to have gotten their zoning house in order.

Beginning today, developers will be accorded the ability to rely on the development regulations which are in effect at the time they file their application, without fear of an unexpected zoning amendment if opposition develops to their proposal. The law which takes effect today follows a number of unsuccessful efforts in recent legislative sessions to enact a “time of application” rule. Finally, its time has come.

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NJDEP chief before Assembly Budget Committee today

The New Jersey State House in Trenton is the s...

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin will appear at 10 am. today before the Assembly Budget Committee to outline his department’s FY2012 budget request.

The committee will meet in Room 11 on the Fourth Floor of the State House Annex on West State Street in Trenton.  

    You can follow the hearing live online or listen to a rebroadcast following the meeting,

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