Christie Administration redefining ‘Smart Growth’ in NJ

“If
New Jersey is ever going to embrace smart growth, advocates and
stakeholders are first going to have to agree as to what it is — and
isn’t.” 

That’s NJ Spotlight‘s setup line for its roundtable discussion on Friday in Trenton dubbed
The Growing Conflict Over Smart Growth.

Over a free lunch, you can learn how the Republican administration of Gov. Chris Christie is overhauling the State Plan
and crafting a new strategy aimed at spurring
economic growth while preserving New Jersey’s few remaining open spaces
and farmland.
Previous administrations have taken their own approaches to channeling growth with generally disappointing results. Will the Christie administration’s vision prove more effective?

That’s just one of the questions to
be explored by a panel of planning experts including:
Dan
Kennedy, Deputy Director, Office for Planning Advocacy, Business Action
Center, Department of State; Eileen Swan, former Executive Director,
Highlands Council; Peter Kasabach,  Executive Director, New Jersey
Future;  Robert Antonicello, Executive Director, Jersey City
Redevelopment Agency, and John Weingart, Associate Director, Eagleton
Institute of Politics, Rutgers University.  Tom Johnson, environment editor and co-founder of NJ Spotlight, will be the moderator.

Sounds like an interesting discussion. Did we mention that lunch is free?  

For a link you can use to register, visit our Enviro-Events Calendar where you’ll find dozens more upcoming events. 

Suggestion 1:  While you’re on the site, use the form in the upper-right corner to sign up for free email alerts when new events are added. 
Suggestion 2:  Get free publicity for your upcoming event by submitting details to:
Editor@EnviroPolitics. To guarantee speedy listing, please follow our style.

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Top 2 environmental news stories for PA & NJ – 4/10/12

Business, government and environmental leaders who subscribe
to EnviroPolitics accessed full versions of the news
stories below
on April 10, 2012–-and dozens more!


In Pennsylvania

Coal
plants’ permits draw challenge Conservation and
clean air groups filed an appeal late last week with the state in an attempt to
force the DEP to review outdated air-quality permit renewals for coal plants
across the state, most of which are in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Tribune
Review

Bass
blotches, intersexing could be linked Vicki Blazer, a U.S. Geological Survey fish biologist with the U.S.
Geological Survey, who was honored as the Protector of the Potomac for her
groundbreaking work investigating intersexed fish on that river, said there may
be a link between the intersexing in Susquehanna River small mouth bass and the
blotches reported by anglers Daily
Item


In New Jersey


GAO report
disputes Christie’s Hudson River rail fears A federal report released
this morning has sparked a fight over whether Governor Christie inflated the
cost of a Hudson River rail tunnel project to justify his decision in October
2010 to shut the project down
The Record  Statehouse Bureau 
NY Times

Firefighters gaining control of large
NJ wildfire Firefighters
have contained about 75 percent of a wildfire that has consumed about 1,000
acres in southern New Jersey AP
> Wind-fueled fires burning homes and land Star-Ledger
> Wildfire
burns 1,000 acres in Burlington County Inquirer

 

Top 2 environmental news stories for PA & NJ – 4/10/12 Read More »

No green light on fracking in NY, but gearing up for jobs

Associated Press photo

While New York State still has not announced when it will allow drilling for natural gas to begin in its part of the Marcellus Shale, industry is already lining up prospects for the jobs that fracking will bring.

The New York Times‘ Green blog reports today that:

Broome County Community College, a business group and a coalition of landowners are holding a “career and education expo” on Wednesday ( April 11) for residents interested in learning about jobs in the gas industry.

Susan Oliver, a spokeswoman for the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York,
a group representing those who plan to lease their lands to gas
companies for drilling, said the event would highlight the economic
opportunities that natural gas development opens up, including jobs for
engineers, land surveyors, mechanics, welders, and wildlife and wetlands
specialists. It is to be held from 3 to 7 p.m. at the college, in
Binghamton, N.Y., and there is no admission charge.

Free email alerts for upcoming events
To keep up with energy and environmental seminars, workshops, lectures and expos, sign up for free email alerts at Enviro-Events Calendar. It’s also a great place to post information about your upcoming event.  Please follow our style, Send your info to: Editor@EnviroPolitics.com  We’ll take it from there.


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Excess energy: The Northeast would love such a problem

Photo credit: Jamie Francis, The Oregonian

If you live in an energy-deficit state like New Jersey or New York, where some folks are battling against new high-power energy lines, new gas-powered electricity plants and someday maybe even against the expansion of existing nuclear generating facilities,
reports of  “excess” energy might sound like a cruel April Fool’s joke.

But it’s a reality in the Pacific Northwest where spring rain, warmer temperatures, snow melt and blustery wind are combining to generate more hydro and wind electricity than anyone can use. That might be good for electricity customers but it’s bad for wind-farm owners who are being forced to curtail production and stand to lose millions of dollars in the process.

The Oregonian explains it all in:
BPA braces for strong spring runoff, excess power and wind power cuts 


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Top 2 environmental news stories for PA & NJ – 4/5/12

Business, government and environmental leaders who subscribe
to EnviroPolitics accessed full versions of the news
stories below
on April 5, 2012–-and dozens more!


In Pennsylvania

Energy
Firm a Romney stop Ryan
Andrews hopes to show GOP presidential front runner Mitt Romney how his
shale-gas related business in Tunkhannock fits with big themes in 2012 election Times
Leader

Municipalities get expedited hearing in suit against
state shale law The seven municipalities challenging the
state’s new law governing natural gas drilling activities get their day in court
next week Post-Gazette


In New Jersey


Greenwood Lake water level failing to recover The bi-state
Greenwood Lake Commission is praying for rain. Without significant rainfall
soon, Greenwood Lake may not entirely recover from this past winter’s five-foot
drawdown N.Jersey.com


NJ
touts plan to reduce pollution at Essex incinerator In late March, the
Christie administration trumpeted an agreement that would lead the Essex County
garbage incinerator to sharply reduce pollution from its facility in the
Ironbound section of Newark. It probably would not have happened if the
public and citizen groups, had not intervened NJ Spotlight 

 

Top 2 environmental news stories for PA & NJ – 4/5/12 Read More »

A NJ epic coming May 7 to a contaminated site near you

More than three years in the making…

Assembled by a vast cast of legislators, regulators, environmental attorneys, consultants, engineers and pissed-off environmentalists…

On May 7 the epic journey begins... 

New Jersey launches its daring plan to cleanup up tens of thousands of contaminated sites…

And places responsibility in the hands of  (gasp) private-sector experts!

Watch as a newly minted cadre of LSRPs (Licensed Site Remediation Professionals) attack the backlog…

…and the Sierra Club lies in wait, legal paratroopers sharpening their briefs, and foot soldiers chafing to storm the DEP at the first whiff of impropriety or confusion.

Yes, enviro-drama fans, the wait it nearly over… 

Coming to a contaminated site near you, it’s the…..

 2009 Site Remediation Reform Act (ta da)!

(OK, so the name needs a little work but the  background is all pretty legit)

For the details, we turn you over to the environmental legal department at Cole Schotz where Susan C. Karp authored an illuminating article for the New Jersey Law Journal.

Her article, Watershed Date for N.J. Site Remediation: May 7, 2012 summarizes what has already happened and what is about to take place.

And if you assume that attorneys are only about dry-bones facts, check out Susan’s observation that hundreds of former DEP remediation site case workers have quietly
been reassigned to the department’s enforcement section.

Is DEP about to launch “much more aggressive enforcement initiatives” she asks? 
Wow, talk about a cliffhanging subplot. 

We’d love to hear what you think about NJ’s Site Remediation Reform. Too much? Too little? Too complicated? Tell us what you think in the opinion box below. If one is not visible, activate it by clicking on the tiny ‘comments’ link.  Signed comments are appreciated. Anonymous submission  also accepted.
NJDEP wants to help. Really, they do. Stop snickering

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