Kiddie Kollege — Part 2

On Wednesday, we reported that a New Jersey Assembly Environment Committee had released a bill that would provide grants to child care centers to help pay for environmental assessments that now are required when centers apply for state licenses or license renewals.

The assessments are designed to determine whether the location poses any environmental health risks to children or staff.

We noted that the Legislature would need to fast-track the legislation, since the first batch of license renewals are scheduled to arrive at the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on June 1 and the Legislature will leave for its summer recess at the end of June.

Yesterday, the Senate Environment Committee released a companion bill, which means that the legislation, which provides grants of up to $1500 each, is now in place for floor votes in both chambers.

The Legislature appears to be on track to do its part. How long it will take the short-handed DEP to handle its reviews is a separate question.

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Environmental/Political news – May 24 07

New Jersey Politics — GOP presses for Corzine-Katz e-mail The state Republican chairman says he will go to court to force Gov. Jon Corzine to make public Corzine’s e-mail exchanges with union leader Carla Katz, his former girlfriend, during negotiations over a state workers contract. Tom Wilson accuses the governor of putting himself above the law Star-Ledger New Jersey Environment — Global warming may kill state flower NJ’s state flower could disappear by the end of the century, a victim of global warming, the National Wildlife Federation warns Herald News Pennsylvania Environment — Appeal for new nuclear plants The U.S. power industry needs to build 20 to 30 new nuclear plants by 2030 to meet the nation’s demand for electricity, according to Exelon Corp’s CEO John Rowe Inquirer Pennsylvania Politics —Rendell expects hold on health care plan Governor acknowledges that his proposal to expand state-subsidized health coverage to roughly 800,000 uninsured adults probably won’t be put to a vote in General Assembly before fall Daily Times New York/Nation/World — Bloomberg poll show support for gubernatorial bid Mayor would have more support from New York City voters in a bid to become governor than to become president NY Sun Indian Point pays fine, pledges new sirens Journal News
New advisory on fish caught in NY waters Journal News More of today’s news available on our website.

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In New Jersey, the fishermen are biting

The weather’s warming up and so are the tempers of the state’s recreational fishermen. They claim that the state’s commercial fishermen are stringing so many pots (fish traps) around the state’s artificial reefs that the recreational fishermen can’t gain access to these fish-rich areas.

The DEP and Marine Fisheries Council are trying to negotiate a settlement but the issue has Monmouth County’s hook-and-line fishermen so upset that they convinced Assemblyman Sean Kean to introduce a bill, A-3986, which would prohibit the use of fishing pots around the man-made reefs.

Both sides argued it out on Monday before the Assembly Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee and it quickly became a watery “turf” battle. The recreational side said they had spent many years and money to support the creation of the artificial turf and now were effectively being excluded from using them. They claimed that there are many thousands of New Jersey recreational fishermen but only 40 commercial vessels.

The commercial side, in response, said they had been fishing the contested areas for years before the artificial reefs were created and, although their numbers might be small, their efforts benefit restaurant patrons and other fish eaters across the country. The NJ Restaurant Association and Garden State Seafood Association joined them in opposing the bill.

At the end of the meeting, the bill was released for a floor vote but obviously the fight is far from over.

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In the aftermath of the Kiddie Kollege fiasco…

There were plenty of red faces at both the state and local level last August when elevated levels of mercury were found at Kiddie Kollege, a child care center in Gloucester County, NJ that had been allowed to be built on the site of a polluted former thermometer factory.

The discovery led to the closing of the facility and testing of children and staff. Legislation was enacted to prevent a repeat of such an oversight and the DEP double-checked its records of environmentally troubled properties to make sure no other child care centers were sitting on equally dangerous properties.

As an additional precaution, all of the state’s 4,000 child-care centers are now required to obtain DEP approval as a condition of license renewal. The Department faces some 100 applications a month and facility operators say they expect to pay between $1200 and $4,000 each for engineering certifications that DEP will accept. The deadline for the first batch of license renewal applications to hit the Department is June 1.

Yesterday, the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee took quick action on a brand new bill, A-4285, sponsored by committee chairman John McKeon (D-Esssex). It would provide grants to facility operators funded by the state’s Hazardous Discharge Site Remediation Fund.

With the Legislature scheduled to recess for the summer by July 4, the bill will need to move with unusual speed to provide help in time for many facing license renewals in upcoming months.

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