EnviroPolitics Blog

What do you want from NJ's LSRP program?

One of the environmental priorities of NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s administration is to get thousands of contaminated sites across the state restored to productive uses (not to mention to the tax rolls).

DEP Commissioner Bob Martin says the best vehicle for this is the state’s new Licensed Site Remediation Professional program (LSRP) which shifts greater responsibility for the remediations from state regulators to licensed engineering consultants.

Although the program is still in its early implementation stage, more than 300 consultants already have been issued temporary LSRP licenses by the DEP and 400 more are in the queue.

Guest blogger, Nicholas De Rose, was an early advocate of the LSRP program. Nick offered legislators and staff with his practical perspective as the legislation that created the program went through numerous amendments on its way to adoption.

Nick is Senior Principal at Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, Inc. and serves as president of the
NJ Licensed Site Remediation Professionals Association.

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What do you want from New Jersey’s LSRP program?

One of the realities for anyone who is looking to takes sides, pro or con, regarding New Jersey’s Licensed Site Remediation Professionals (LSRP) program is that if they are honest in their analysis, they will find that the LSRP Program and the regulatory reforms of the Site Remediation Reform Act (SRRA) provides something for each stakeholder with an interest in New Jersey’s Remediation Program. Unfortunately, the outcome of this ‘King Solomon’ approach is that while the LSRP baby has been claimed by its rightful guardians, there are many who have not accepted this reality. Change can be frightening and from many conversations I have had with folks in Massachusetts, the transformation to their Licensed Site Professional (LSP) program was also characterized by an initial period of fear, uncertainty and politicizing. Since we are not inventing the wheel in New Jersey, we have been able to incorporate many lessons learned in Massachusetts to ensure that New Jersey’s LSRP Program will be a success. New Jersey’s LSRP program is also going to be successful because it offers bona fide improvements for every stakeholder. Which leads me back to my original question – “What do you want from New Jersey’s LSRP Program?”
Increased environmental protection? It’s here. Had anyone heard of regulatory or mandatory time frames in the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s (NJDEP) remediation program before the Site Remediation Reform Act (SRRA) of 2009? The answer has to be a resounding “No.” With the passage of the SRRA – all cleanups in the State must move ahead – there is no longer the option of moving along voluntarily. We also have new regulations that rightfully prioritize addressing Immediate Environmental Concerns (IEC). These two reforms alone under SRRA will result in more cleanups being done then ever before. Furthermore, resources are now being prioritized to address IEC conditions that pose unacceptable risk. (Note: in fact NJDEP has established IEC levels based on chronic risk exposure in many cases – rather than acute exposure. Something that one can argue should be corrected to ensure that the public is not misinformed regarding their actual risks.)
Changes to NJDEP’s overly prescriptive regulatory process? Yes, concerns in this key area from responsible parties representing New Jersey’s businesses and corporations as well as from environmental professionals were heard. Both groups recognize that spending available resources on long term studies can sometimes be wasteful with no added protection to New Jersey’s citizens and the state’s environment. While NJDEP initiated many remediation policies that led the United States in the early days of the field of remediation, an argument can be made that over the last 15 years, NJDEP has stopped progressing in the scientific field of remediation. As an example of this, there is very little discussion in New Jersey’s Technical Requirements for Site Remediation (N.J.A.C. 7:26 E) regarding the use of the Conceptual Site Model (CSM).

The CSM uses terms such as ‘source’, ‘exposure pathway’ and ‘receptor’ and the application of the CSM is one of the most effective ways to ensure that risks to human health and the environment are properly assessed and communicated. This approach supports identifying appropriate remedial goals for cleanup rather than prescribing detailed methodologies which should be left to the Professional Judgment of the LSRP. In order to support the new regulatory framework of the LSRP Program, SRRA mandates changes to NJDEP’s regulatory framework and establishes a stakeholder process for the development of technical guidance. With the formation of the LSRP Steering Committee initial steps toward these changes are underway.
An expedited cleanup process to support economic development? In addition to ensuring that cleanups would progress by establishing mandatory time frames, the establishment of LSRP Program brings to bear additional personnel to oversee remediation cases that have been otherwise stagnant due to overwhelmed NJDEP case managers and staff. For Brownfields developers, the ability to move cleanups along expeditiously is worth real dollars as “time is money”. And for the environment, moving quickly is an effective way to increase restoration of contaminated soil and ground water. Once these concepts were understood and properly conveyed in SRRA, the legislation was approved in both New Jersey’s Senate and Assembly with overwhelming bipartisan support. I congratulate our leaders in the legislature, NJDEP and the Christie Administration for supporting the LSRP program. To NJDEP Commissioner Martin I would like to emphasize the need to appoint the LSRP Licensing Board as the critical next step towards ensuring program success. I would also like to acknowledge those with informed moderate perspectives from all stakeholders including environmental professionals, attorneys, business organizations, community organizations and environmental organizations. And as a reminder, there were important reasons for the inclusion of a three year transition period in SRRA before the establishment of the final LSRP Program. This transition period presents the opportunity for constructive input and dialog to ensure success which appears to also be necessary to overcome unrestrained and often misinformed or blatantly self serving speculation. I look forward to continued dialog and for the opportunity to share my views on the LSRP Program as we move forward. Nicholas De Rose, L.S.R.P.
Senior Principal, Langan Engineering and Environmental Services
President, NJ Licensed Site Professionals Association
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Development trends show urban center rebound

Residential development trends in New Jersey, Philadelphia and elsewhere demonstrate a notable rebound for urban centers.

In its latest Future Facts, New Jersey Future reports that:

Between 1990 and 1995, New York City accounted for 15 percent of the residential building permits issued in its larger metropolitan area. Between 2003 and 2008, however, it averaged 48 percent of the metro total.
Philadelphia’s share of its metropolitan area’s building permit activity jumped from a mere 3 percent to 13 percent between the same two time periods. In 2008 alone, Philadelphia accounted for 16 percent of total metropolitan building permits, retaining its improved stature even in the face of the real estate downturn.
The eight "urban centers" identified by New Jersey’s State Development and Redevelopment Plan (Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Trenton, Camden, New Brunswick and Atlantic City) accounted for only 3 percent of residential building permits issued statewide between 1990 and 1995-but jumped to 14 percent of those issued between 2003 and 2008.

New Jersey Future analyzed municipal building permits and found that the resurgence of construction in already-developed places:

”… was most dramatic in what can be thought of as the North Jersey "urban core": Hudson, Essex, Union and Bergen counties, plus the lower neck of Passaic County (everything from Wayne east) and Middlesex County north of the Raritan River. This group of counties and county segments more than doubled its share of statewide building permits, from 16 percent in the 1990-1995 period to 34 percent in 2003-2008.

“Not coincidentally, Hudson, Union, Passaic and Middlesex were four of the six fastest-growing counties between 2008 and 2009, a position in which these counties had not found themselves in years-or, in some cases, decades.”

The smart-growth organization says the trend makes it clear that it’s time for “ New Jersey state agencies and municipal governments to realign their growth policies to make redevelopment the default development pattern for the future.”

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Confused about battery recycling? Read this

The ‘battery life’ of your aging laptop is on life support. So, whenever you try to work outside the office, you’re forced to hunt for one of the precious, few electric wall sockets available at your favorite Starbucks, Panera Bread or hotel lobby.

After much coffee-drinking, while you wait for that guy parked by the sole available outlet to finish editing his doctoral dissertation on the evils of modern technology, frustration drives you to concede that it’s time to buy a new battery.

But what do you do with the old battery?

You remember reading somewhere that it’s no longer environmentally necessary to recycle consumer batteries. So it’s OK to throw yours in the trash, right?

Wrong!

A number of New Jersey county and municipal recycling programs decided in January, 2010 to eliminate the recycling of alkaline batteries. They are the relatively cheap batteries that power many toys and some cameras and other consumer products.

But the state still requires the recycling the more expensive rechargeable batteries–the ones that power your laptop, cellphone, cordless phone, digital camera, two-way radio, camcorder, remote control toys and portable power tools.

Why the change?

Modifications to federal regulations, combined with less hazardous battery components, mean the typical, “single-use’ household AAA, AA, C, D and 9-volt batteries now fall below federal and state hazardous waste standards and should be tossed out in the trash, explains Larry Gindoff, solid waste coordinator for the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority.

But the use of materials (like nickel, cadmium and mercury) in the much more productive rechargeable batteries led New Jersey in the early 1990s to ban their disposal in normal trash collections to keep them out of landfills and waste incinerators. The same law required battery manufacturers to find a way to recycle them. This led to the establishment of a take-back program involving a network of participating retailers.

What types of rechargeable battery types can be recycled?

Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd), Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), Lithium Ion (Li-ion), Nickel Zinc (Ni-Zn), and Small Sealed Lead Acid (Pb) weighing up to 11 lbs/5 kg per battery.

Looking to boost recycling numbers

The Association of New Jersey Household Hazardous Waste Coordinators (ANJHHWC) has announced a new partnership with Call2Recycle that’s aimed at increasing rechargeable battery recycling by 15 percent in 2010.

ANJHHWC says that Call2Recycle is the only free rechargeable battery and cell phone collection program in North America. It collects them through a network of about 1700 retailers, businesses and public agencies in New Jersey alone.

You can learn where you can take your rechargeable batteries for free reclining by phoning Call2Recycle at 1-877-2-RECYCLE.

Or click on their Rechargeable Battery Recycling Locations web page. Here, you simply enter your zip code and up pops a number of the locations closest to you. I tried it and found outlets within several miles of my home and office, including Radio Shack, Sears Hardware, Best Buy, Staples and Lowe’s.

Have you tried the program? Let us know what do you think. Or tell us about your other recycling experiences or recommendations. Use the comment box below. If one isn’t visible, activate it by clicking on the tiny ‘comment’ link.

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PADEP ordered to pay enviro groups’ legal fees

The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board last Wednesday ordered the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to pay the $20,000 legal costs of Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture) and Friends of Dunkard Creek in the groups’ appeal and DEP’s resulting revocation of an amendment to the pollution discharge permit for the Shannopin Mine Dewatering Project.

According to a news release from the environmental organizations, the Shannopin Mine Dewatering Project was designed to prevent a catastrophic breakout of acid mine water from the abandoned Shannopin Mine into Dunkard Creek. The project originally was granted a permit allowing less stringent cleanup of the dangerous water.

The challenged permit amendment, for which no public notice was given, would have allowed the project to collect water from Consolidation Coal Company’s (Consol) permitted Humphrey No. 7 Mine, where no breakout risk exists, and to treat that water to the less than optimal cleanup allowed in the original emergency situation.

The permit amendment was granted by the DEP’s Mining Program despite a finding nine months before by a DEP biologist that the Shannopin Project’s discharge into Dunkard Creek contained high levels of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and other pollutants, which were causing harm to aquatic life in the creek.

“DEP did the right thing by acknowledging the errors raised in our appeal and revoking the permit revision for the proposed Calvin Run pumping operation,” said PennFuture Senior Attorney Kurt Weist. “That revocation is important because it prevents the pumping of additional high-TDS mine drainage out of Consol’s Humphrey Mine and into Dunkard Creek.”

“Equally important,” emphasized Jim O’Connell of the Friends of Dunkard Creek, “are the actions DEP still must take concerning the current operations of the Shannopin Mine Dewatering Project.

“DEP is more than eighteen months overdue in renewing the project’s water discharge permit,” said O’Connell, “and a full year ago, its water quality experts recommended that the permit contain more stringent contaminant limits. The purpose of those tougher limits is to prevent the discharge into Dunkard Creek from the project’s Steele Shaft Treatment Facility from continuing to harm fish and aquatic life in the creek, and from contributing to TDS pollution in the Monongahela River.”

O’Connell and Weist both questioned the continued pumping of high-TDS mine drainage into the Shannopin Mine from Consol’s Humphrey Mine.

“As its name indicates,” said Weist, the Shannopin Mine Dewatering Project was supposed to prevent an outbreak from the Shannopin Mine by removing water from the mine. DEP made that job a lot harder in 2005 by authorizing, without public notice, the transfer of nearly six million gallons of mine drainage per day into the Shannopin Mine from Consol’s Humphrey Mine at the Watkins Run borehole operation.”

“DEP documents state that the Shannopin Project’s Steele Shaft pumps could be shut off for about ten years before an outbreak of mine drainage would occur,” explained O’Connell, “and that the only reason the pumps are running at their current rate is to handle the water transferred into the Shannopin Mine from Consol’s Humphrey Mine. The sole purpose for that transfer is to allow the mining of coal reserves above the Humphrey Mine.”

“The only reason mine drainage from Consol’s Humphrey Mine makes its way into Dunkard Creek is that DEP allowed it to be transferred into the Shannopin Mine,” said O’Connell. “Until the Shannopin Project’s discharge meets the more stringent contaminant limits recommended a year ago,” he continued, “DEP should minimize the damage by shutting down the transfer of water from Humphrey to Shannopin and reducing the amount of water pumped from the Shannopin Mine into Dunkard Creek.”

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NJ recyclers get bad & good news from DEP

A bad economy and political uncertainty probably deserve some of the credit for the record crowd that attended Association of New Jersey Recyclers (ANJR) annual meeting yesterday at the Rutgers EcoComplex in Burlington County.

ANJR’s members include the folks who plan and operate municipal and county recycling programs across New Jersey and the hundreds of private businesses that collect, process and market recyclable materials–from paper, glass and aluminum to metal, concrete and wood.

The association’s public-sector members have been worrying about New Jersey’s monumental budget problems. They’ve been wondering how funding reductions might effect their programs–and maybe even their jobs.

ANJR’s private-industry members, still reeling from the prolonged economic slowdown, also have been wondering how Governor Chris Christie’s budget cuts will affect the programs on which they rely to supply a portion of their raw materials.

And both sectors also have been waiting for signs of how the shift from the Democratic Corzine administration to the Republican Christie administration might impact policy and operations at the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) which oversees recycling in New Jersey.

Yesterday, they got some answers–bad and good–from DEP commissioner,
Bob Martin. He’s the retired business executive who has been at the helm of environmental agency for nine weeks.
In that time, he has assigned himself the ambitious task of reorienting the slow-moving and penalty-oriented bureaucracy into a streamlined, customer-friendly organization that makes quick decisions based on sound science, incorporates a simplified, common-sense permitting process and views a revitalized state economy as part of its mission.

The bad news for recyclers Martin told the crowd of more than 250 that the state’s financial crisis had led to a decision to transfer $7 million from the state Recycling Fund to the state’s General Fund to help balance the FY 2010-2011 budget. That transfer amounts to some 25-30 percent of the total funds that towns and counties rely upon to fund their recycling programs.

What’s the good news? Martin said that he and Governor Christie are committed to recycling as part of the growth of a “green economy” for New Jersey.
He pledged to fight to maintain full funding for the program in the 2012 state budget.

The commissioner went on to discuss his vision for the DEP. His priorities include: fixing a broken regulatory process, updating the department’s technology (which he called the ‘enemy of bureaucracy’), implementing a successful Licensed Site Remediation Professionals program, stimulating ‘green energy’ and protecting the state’s clean drinking water supplies and beaches.

ANJR President Dominick D’Altilio said he viewed Martin’s appearance at the meeting as “a sign that the Administration recognizes the role that recycling plays in creating jobs and economic activity in New Jersey.”
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Editor’s Note: ANJR is a government-relations client of our
sister company, Brill Public Affairs.

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NJBIA’s Dave Brogan on environmental red tape

Within days of his inauguration as Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie made good on a campaign promise by creating a Red Tape Group, headed by Lieutenant Gov. Kim Guadagno. Christie directed the group to review all pending and proposed regulations to determine “whether their costs and other burdens on businesses, workers and local governments outweigh their intended benefits.”

Today, we welcome our first Guest Blogger, Dave Brogan, the VP of Environmental Policy at the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. Dave testified before the Red Tape Review Group on Tuesday, March 23rd and accepted our invitation to share with our readers an excerpt of the testimony that Dave provided to his NJBIA members.

On March 23rd, the Red Tape Review Group held its final formal hearing before writing its final report. Individual members will still be having public meetings in their districts, such as Senator Oroho, but the main work of soliciting input through a public hearing process by the group as a whole is over. They will be issuing their report on April 19th.

I was asked to testify on three issues: 1) a rule that needs to be repealed, 2) an inherent problem with DEP rules in general and 3) how a “one-stop” shopping entity could help move projects through the regulatory process.

The rule I focused on was the Public Access rule. I went over the history of the rule beginning with its adoption in 2007. I highlighted the fact that the rule was not mandated by Legislature, that it had no formula on which to base the “fees” that were being charged by the DEP, that the DEP has unlimited and unchecked decision-making authority (basically putting the permit applicant over a barrel) and that as the rule was written, it could be triggered over and over again for the same applicant.

I went on to discuss the woefully inadequate Economic Impact Analysis the DEP performed on the rule. The analysis makes no mention of the impact to those entities that must pay for off-site access. I also gave the Red Tape Group copies of the DEP’s “Response to Comments,” citing two questions directly pertaining to the impact the rule would have on industry, energy facilities, ports, etc.

The DEP’s response cited the “positive externalities” associated with access being provided, such as increased patronage to souvenir shops, local gas stations, and restaurants in the vicinity. I respectfully made note of the fact that there weren’t too many souvenir shops at or near nuclear power plants or refineries.

I went on to say that the Transition team requested information from the former Acting Commissioner about the number of projects, how much money was collected and a list of projects funded. The response was 1) “120 projects triggered the rule,” 2) “we do not have a complete list but a handful of companies paid nearly $900,000 in off-site access fees” (an average of more than $100,000 per company) and 3) “the DEP does not have any data tracking the other projects that were funded.”

I then highlighted the legislative process whereby one bill (signed into law in 2008) placed a two-year moratorium on the rule as it pertained to marinas and directed the DEP to create a task force to look into the impact the rule would have on the marina industry. I noted that the DEP had yet to create the task force and that the moratorium expires in September of this year.

Furthermore, I informed the Red Tape Group that the DEP was issuing permits with placeholder language stipulating (for example) that as a condition of a permit issued in 2008, the permit applicant would be required to provide either on-site access or payments for off-site access in 2010 when the moratorium ends.

I went on to discuss A-2954 of last session which provided an outright exemption for industrial, port, military, chemical and energy facilities from the rule. I explained how the Department of Transportation lobbied the Legislature to exempt themselves from the rule, and were successful at getting that amendment. “Think about it,” I said, “you have a rule where one State agency has to lobby the Legislature in order to get exempted from another State agency’s rule.” The bill passed the General Assembly by a vote of 76-1, but was stalled in the Senate.

Finally, in an effort to drive the point home that this rule is the poster child for “regulations gone wrong,” I explained that the DEP owns six marinas. They operate three and lease three. As part of the transition process, the transition team asked the DEP personnel in charge of those marinas if they could, in fact, comply with their own rule. They responded by saying that due to a lack of resources and personnel there would be no way the DEP operated marinas could provide 24 hour access to the public. In short, the DEP could not afford to comply with its own rule.

The Red Tape Review Group looked at each other as if to ask, “How can something like this happen?”

I then focused on the concept of “reasonableness” in rules and the one-stop shopping entity. Regarding the former, I said that the concept of “reasonable” from the DEP’s perspective needed to change. It was clear by looking at the economic impact analysis and the response to comments on the Public Access Rule that the DEP personnel that wrote that rule felt that they were being reasonable. Clearly, we have a different opinion.

I went on to give another example of the difference between what NJ feels is reasonable versus what EPA and other states consider reasonable. I explained that when EPA, for example, places a requirement on businesses to meet certain air quality standards, such as NOx, they do a cost-benefit analysis. For NOx, EPA feels that spending $3,000 to $5,000 per ton on equipment to meet the standard is reasonable. New Jersey, on the other hand, feels that it is reasonable for businesses to spend $25,000 – $30,000 per ton.

Taking this one step further, if a company is looking to relocate to New Jersey or Pennsylvania, and they see this type of disparity, it puts New Jersey at a steep competitive disadvantage. The ancillary negative impact from that decision is that we will still have those pollutants impacting our air quality as they drift from west to east. As such, it is a lose-lose situation for NJ.

Finally, as for the “One-Stop” shop, I explained that the group should consider two concepts. First, there needs to be an entity within the DEP to bring the program areas together in order to better coordinate. For example, a person who is remediating a site gets their Remedial Action Work Plan approved by the Site Remediation Program. The work plan says that they will remove “X” number of cubic yards of contaminated soil and bring in clean fill. The person then has to get the rest of the land use permits necessary to effectuate the plan.

The problem is, the Land Use Program says that the person can’t remove that soil because it is on or near a wetland. What happens next is unknown and sometimes stalls the project completely.

I also said that there needed to be an entity that could coordinate between departments. If a company needed DOT permits, DCA permits and DEP permits, there should be someone at the one-stop shop that can bring the necessary people together to get answers.

While these ideas are not new, it is great to see the level of importance this Administration and the bipartisan Red Tape Review Group are putting on regulatory reform. As it pertains to Public Access, NJBIA has been working on this issue for three years. And honestly, I think we have always been reasonable in our requests.

To those who would say that the NJBIA want to strip away the public’s right to access, I would say that is simply not true. What we want is a rule that creates a clear distinction between sandy bathing beaches and industrial, port, energy, chemical, manufacturing and marina facilities. Let the DEP write a rule that reinforces the State’s commitment to providing access to beaches, while at the same time, does not punish companies that have paid for the right to be located along tidal waters. It’s time for DEP to recognize the economic benefit those companies provide on both a local and State level.

There does seem to be hope. We will have to see.

David H. Brogan
Vice President, Environmental Policy
New Jersey Business & Industry Association
102 West State Street
Trenton, NJ 08608

OK, folks, now here’s your chance to comment on Dave’s post and/or the Red Tape Group and/or environmental regulations in general. Use the Comment Box below. If it’s not visible, activate it by clicking on the tiny ‘comments’ line below. You can respond anonymously, but be forewarned: personal attacks, vulgarities and plugs for your aluminum siding website won’t make it to this page.

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