After nine years of regulatory review, the Obama Administration today gave the green light to the nation’s first offshore wind farm, a sprawling project off the coast of Cape Cod that has split both the environmental and political communities in the region. The New York Times reports today that the approval “ gives a significant boost to the nascent offshore wind industry in the United States, which has lagged far behind Europe and China in harnessing the strong and steady power of ocean breezes to provide electricity to homes and businesses. “ The news will be welcomed in he states of New Jersey and Delaware. Both also hope to build wind farms off their coasts Related:
Cape Cod Project Is Crucial Step for U.S. Wind Industry
Pressure Is Building on Disputed Wind Farm 
Delaware breezes ahead of wind-energy pack 
Offshore wind energy faces stiff challenges 
How offshore wind won in Delaware 
Delaware: First to sign and the first to spin?

The NRDC takes a bow for a recent court victory that keeps alive its chances of forcing Pittsburgh-based PPG to meet hexavalent chromium cleanup standards at a site in Jersey City that exceed what the New Jersey DEP is requiring.

In the NRDC online publication, Switchboard, Senior Attorney Mark Izeman, yesterday writes:

“Last year, NRDC, together with two community groups, Interfaith Community Organization and GRACO, filed a federal lawsuit in New Jersey to compel PPG Industries Inc. – a Pittsburgh-based corporation responsible for toxic hexavalent chromium contamination of a densely populated area of Jersey City – to clean up the hazardous waste it created decades ago.  “Massive quantities of hexavalent chromium, a potent carcinogen and the villain in the film Erin Brokovich, continue to contaminate the former production site, groundwater beneath the site, and surrounding neighborhoods.  These dangerous levels of hexavalent chromium are a real threat to the health of community residents – and the toxin has been found in their homes, on their lawns, and in their basements.”

Izeman says that the state of New Jersey, for more than 35 years, failed to force PPG to clean up the site.

“But shortly after NRDC filed its lawsuit, the State, the City of Jersey City, and PPG announced that they had settled all outstanding claims in state court.  They then filed a motion in our federal case claiming on several legal grounds that our lawsuit should be dismissed because their agreement was sufficient.”

How do you read that?  To me it sounds like the state was doing nothing until the NRDC embarrassed it into action by virtue of
its lawsuit. That, however, overlooks the fact that, back in June, 2005,
New Jersey’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit against PPG and
two other companies whose predecessors processed chromium—Honeywell and Occidental Chemical Corp. That legal action eventually resulted in the settlement that the NRDC does not
want to let stand. It may be legitimate to ask why it took five years for the state to reach its settlement. But disputes over who did what when have more political and public relations value than the questions that likely will be addressed in the NRDC’s continuing federal lawsuit. Apparently at the crux of the continuing legal dispute is the familiar environmental question: How clean is clean?  As in, what cleanup standard for hexavalent chromium needs to be reached for a cleanup to be declared complete?  And, perhaps, the equally important question of who gets to decide what standards must be met.  Is that the state’s DEP’s call? The EPA’s?  The court’s?   Use the  comment box below to share your thoughts on the issue. 
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In Today’s Environmental News – April 26 2010
NJ Economic czar leaving for law firm 
Delaware breezes ahead of wind-energy pack 

Timing is everything department – When New Jersey’s new Republican Governor Chris Christie joined the state’s mostly Democratic Congressional delegation and environmental organizations in voicing strong opposition to President Obama’s decision to open up sections of the Atlantic coast to exploratory oil drilling, the decision may have appeared puzzling to some in Congress’s ‘drill baby drill’ population. Today, it looks absolutely prescient as 42,000 gallons of oil leak daily
into the Gulf of Mexico from a collapsed drilling rig.    Oh great, another study of flooding in northern New Jersey
No, wait, this one’s different, proponents promise
Delaware River dredging opponents suffer another dunking Federal judge rejects implied "judge shopping" attempt by foes of Delaware River deepening project
Editorial: New York’s natural-gas drilling decision “King Solomon-like”

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Jerold L. Zaro, chief of the New Jersey Office of Economic Growth under former Governor Jon Corzine, will join the law firm of Sills Cummis & Gross effective May 1 and work out of the firm’s New York and New Jersey offices.
Zaro, who continued in his state position for several months under the administration of present Governor Chris Christie, said:

“Working in the public sector truly has been one of the highlights of my career. I am fortunate to have had the rare privilege of serving under outstanding governors from both parties. I look forward to returning to practicing law and am extremely proud to join Sills Cummis & Gross, one of the premier firms in the New York metropolitan area.”
In a news release, the law firm credited Zaro with playing a “pivotal role in the decision of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTTC) to move to Jersey City, bringing 1600 jobs to the State.”  It also  said that he was “instrumental in laying the groundwork for the New Jersey Nets eventual decision to move from the Izod Arena to the Prudential Center Arena in Newark.”

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Big changes ahead for regulations in New Jersey
A new role for the NJDEP: Economic Growth
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