EPA maps out $5 billion worth of pollution






In a 2009 Compliance Summary released today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that its enforcement actions resulted in polluters investing more than $5 billion on pollution controls, cleanup, and environmental projects.

“Civil and criminal defendants committed to install controls and take other measures to reduce pollution by approximately 580 million pounds annually once all required controls are fully implemented,” the agency said.


The agency also unveiled a new Web-based interactive map which, it says, “allows the public to get detailed information by location about the enforcement actions taken at approximately 4,600 facilities.”

The maps show facilities where civil enforcement actions were taken for environmental laws for air, water, and land pollution, and a separate map shows criminal enforcement actions.

Viewers can click on specific facilities to find historical information about specific enforcement actions, such as violations and monetary penalties. In addition, viewers can use the zoom function to find out which facilities are located near water bodies that are listed as “impaired” because they do not meet federal water quality standards.

Not included in the map are the locations of drinking water treatment plants “due to potential security concerns.”

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Week’s top environmental news in NJ, PA & NY: Dec. 14-18, 2009


Below are just a few of the environmental and political news stories for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and beyond that appeared in EnviroPolitics during the week
of Dec 14-18, 2009.

NJ Environmental

Christie may kill offshore LNG terminal

Plans to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on a 60-acre man-made island off the New Jersey/New York coast have run aground, with published reports saying that New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie will veto the project Queens Courier

Audubon lobbyist declines Pinelands Commission post New Jersey Audubon’s top state lobbyist says she will decline an appointment to the state Pinelands Commission, a move by the Corzine administration that has stirred the ire of farmers and conservation groups AP Press

NJ vows more cancer reviews for Pompton Lakes Less than 24 hours after hearing impassioned pleas for help from cancer victims and their relatives in the so-called “plume” neighborhood of about 450 homes, the state Health Department on Wednesday said it will expand a recent analysis of cancer rates in the community The Record story and video

Camden water oversight slammed A scathing state audit, which compares Camden’s water system to that of a developing country, says millions have been lost due to city mismanagement and a private water firm’s poor performance Courier-Post

Federal takeover sought in DuPont pollution One by one, residents of a pollution-threatened Pompton Lakes neighborhood told state health officials about the cancers they were being treated for, or a relative was suffering from, or the tumor that killed their neighbor The Record

Pine snake, builders battle continues The New Jersey Builders Association asks that the Pinelands dweller be removed from the state endangered species list Bulco Times

Senator: Oyster Creek must change cooling method The operators of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station must look to alternative cooling methods — whether cooling towers, geothermal exchange or even an ocean outfall line — to lessen its ecological impact on Barnegat Bay, says the chairman of the NJ Senate Environment Committee at the start of a contentious hearing on his cooling tower bill AP Press EnviroPolitics Blog

NJ Politics

Christie’s transition team gets up to speed Leaders shift from monitoring election to remaking Trenton Statehouse
> Full listing of all transition team members Star-Ledger Is this what they meant by a smooth transition? Incoming Gov. Chris Christie says waning-hours appointment of more than 200 to boards and commissions “creates an extension of the Corzine Administration after the time the people have already said they want the Corzine administration to end” AP Press S-L

Can anyone here fix a pothole? New Jersey can’t afford to inspect bridges, repair drainage systems or even fill potholes so it’s pushing off nearly $70 million in routine repairs onto a trust fund that is nearly bankrupt Statehouse Bureau

Report: Democratic leader paid for work he didn’t do In a scathing report, the state inspector general said a Democratic county chairman from South Jersey, who took the stand in defense of former Sen. Wayne Bryant during his federal corruption trial, received a salary and pension credits for legal work he did not perform Star-Ledger PolitickerNJ

Chris Christie chooses Paula Dow as attorney general Gov.-elect Chris Christie is to begin introducing his cabinet today by announcing Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow as the state’s next attorney general Statehouse Bureau

Gay marriage vote unlikely until after New Year The Assembly sponsor of gay marriage legislation said Friday he believes that after a volatile week in Trenton, further action on the bill could wait until after the holidays Statehouse Bureau
> Same-sex marriage proponent’s fervor backfires Inquirer
> Opinion: How Dems distort same-sex debate P. Mulshine


PA Environmental

Susquehanna wary of gas-drilling plan From the center of Dimock, Pa. a natural gas drill rig lit up at night looks like a rocket launch pad. While it has stirred local anger, a Texas drilling firm has also given landowners hopes of making millions of dollars in gas royalties Inquirer

DEP chief: State must step up to protect bay The state’s top environmental official said Thursday that the state must make tough decisions that result in cleaner water flowing into the Chesapeake Bay or face unwanted dictates from the federal government or a judge Lancasteronline

PPL has to rebate $30 million to residential customers The electric utility must pay the refund to residential electric customers in 2010 because it overcharged them for infrastructure investments, rules the PUC The Morning Call Times-Tribune

Report: 2004-06 flooding would have happened regardless Lower water levels at the reservoirs that feed the Delaware River could have reduced but not stopped the devastating floods that ripped through the Lehigh Valley several years ago, according to the Delaware River Basin Commission Morning Call
> Flood model online Express-Times
> More steps needed Intelligencer

Commission set to begin water quality monitoring The Susquehanna River Basin Commission announced it will install 30 water quality monitoring stations in 2010. Stations will be placed in waters just north of Williamsport and spread beyond the NY state line Williamsport Sun-Gazette

Gas drilling in state forests top concern for conservation chief As Pennsylvania prepares for what could be a 50-year period of drilling for deep natural gas pockets in its state forests, the long-term health of these previously damaged forests is on the mind of this conservation official Times-Tribune

Politicians choose sides in Marcellus Shale drilling debate State Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton wants to slow it down. Sen. Thomas Libous is for speeding it up. Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo is torn between extremes Press & Sun-Bulletin

PA Politics

Prosecutors charge DeWeese, 2 others Prosecutors in Pennsylvania’s so-called Bonusgate investigation today announced theft and conspiracy charges against former House Speaker Bill DeWeese and former state Revenue Secretary Stephen Stetler – just hours after Stetler resigned Inquirer

Funds for Pennsylvania universities approved The prospect of unprecedented midterm tuition hikes at four state-related universities ended late last night when the House voted to approve funding after a months-long delay Inquirer

Local congressmen break with Dem. leaders on jobs bill Rep. Patrick Murphy, one of the fiscally conservative “blue dog” Democrats in the U.S. House, broke with his party’s leadership Wednesday night to vote against a plan to finance job-creating infrastructure projects in part with bank bailout money Inquirer

For some, Corbett not a friendly face State Attorney General Tom Corbett, the front-runner for the Republican nomination for governor, was probably the most whispered-about politician during the PA Society weekend in New York Daily News

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Offshore wind energy faces stiff challenges

In an informative article yesterday (US Offshore Wind Project Updates ) Renewable Energy World staff writer Graham Jesmer reports on the considerable obstacles faced by the intrepid companies that are seeking to convert offshore winds into the electricity that lights our homes and powers our workplaces.

While the proposed projects he reviews off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts and New York vary in size, distance from shore, and in their prospects for finding utilities to purchase their electrons, they all face similar challenges.

First and foremost, he says, is the lack of the vessels needed to construct the wind farms.

“There are currently no vessels in the U.S. equipped to install these turbines, and while a number of them exist in Europe they cannot simply be brought across the Atlantic Ocean and put to work,” he writes.

But within every challenge lies an opportunity. Bluewater Wind’s CEO Peter Mandelstam says building just three wind-specific vessels will create more than 7,000 green jobs for U.S. ports and ship builders.

Two other sizable hurdles? The projects also all need transmission lines and utilities willing to buy the electricity they carry, Jesmer says.

But possibly “the largest challenge facing U.S. offshore wind energy developers,” he writes, is the lack of a “stable (national) policy and incentive regime that would bring more players into the industry, from all sides.”

Despite that challenge, Mandelstam, for one, remains optimistic.

“The most important investor, the most important advocate and the most important public official for offshore wind is President Barack Obama,” he says.

“This industry was dead, but the restructuring of the tax credit, the loan guarantees, the various stimulus provisions and the new regulatory regime totally revived us. We can’t say enough good things about President Barack Obama.”

Related environmental news:
Maine identifies 3 offshore wind-power test sites
Deepwater Wind Signs PPA for First Offshore Wind Farm
China the new challenger for world wind leadership
How offshore wind energy won in Delaware
Delaware: First to sign and the first to spin?
Will NRG save Bluewater’s wind projects?
Offshore Rhode Island wind power at a dead calm
Wind energy out to hook fishing industry support

Our most recent posts:
Lame-duck bill out to kill a NJ nuclear plant?
How offshore wind won in Delaware
Delaware River dredging plot line murkier still
New Jersey’s 2009 environmental achievers
Attend this green conference without leaving the office

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Lame-duck bill out to kill a NJ nuclear plant?

A new environmental bill, S-3041, has New Jersey’s Oyster Creek nuclear power plant clearly in its crosshairs.

Branded as “anti-nuclear” by an industry blogger, the measure was introduced recently in the waning weeks of the current legislative session. Bills introduced this late generally have little chance of getting through the process before the session ends.

However, this piece of legislation has:

– an influential sponsor in Senator Bob Smith – a hearing scheduled at 1 p.m. today (12/15) in the Senate Environment Committee, and- an Assembly companion, A-4260, sponsored by Reed Gusciora
Is the bill designed to close down the nation’s oldest nuclear-generating facility in Lacey Township–a facility that in April won federal approval to operate for an additional 20 years?

Consider this:

– The legislation would prohibit New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection from awarding any permit to an energy generation facility that takes up more than 170,000 gallons of water per day from a shallow lagoon, and

– The Oyster Creek plant draws in more than 1.4 billion gallons of water per day That means the facility’s owner, Exelon Nuclear, would have to come up with a way–within the legislation’s two-year compliance period–to reduce the plant’s cooling water use by some 88 percent.

Critics of the facility want Exelon to build cooling towers but the company says the expense of doing so would make the plant uneconomical.

One industry blogger has no doubt about the bill’s intent.

John Wheeler writes in This Week in Nuclear that activists who were unsuccessful in challenging the plant’s license extension:

“have been unable to show any safety or environmental basis for their cause, so they are taking another approach – trying to force the owners to make enormous plant modifications they hope will make the plant too expensive to operate.”

On the flip side of the debate, The Asbury Park Press argues that the “too expensive to operate” defense is bogus. In an editorial appearing in yesterday’s issue, the paper says:

“Exelon, which has been the most profitable U.S. utility over the past two years and bought Oyster Creek for a song — $10 million — 10 years ago, has returned an estimated $1 billion in profits since then, according to an Environment New Jersey analysis of financial statements. Three years ago, when the state DEP seemed poised to require cooling towers at Oyster Creek, Exelon claimed it would cost $700 million to $800 million to construct them, effectively forcing it to close the plant.

Independent estimates of the cost range from $50 million to $300 million. Amortized over 10 years, a cooling tower would not make a substantial dent in Exelon’s handsome profits.”

Today’s committee hearing is expected to draw a large crowd of fishermen, environmental activists and Oyster Creek plant employees. The arguments should be interesting. You can listen to the proceedings via the Legislature’s online service.

Related:
Crowd expected for hearing on Oyster Creek cooling tower bill
Editorial: Don’t back off on cooling tower

Our most recent posts:
How offshore wind won in Delaware
Delaware River dredging plot line murkier still
New Jersey’s 2009 environmental achievers
Attend this green conference without leaving the office
New Jersey’s late season crop of green legislation

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How offshore wind won in Delaware

Two developers hoping to build off-shore, wind-energy projects.
Both seeking public acceptance and local government approval.
In two different states–Massachusetts and Delaware.

Today, Delaware’s project is moving toward construction.
Massachusetts’ project–dead in the water for years–is only now inching forward.

The difference between the two?

Willett Kempton, an associate professor at the University of Delaware, says Bluewater Wind was successful in getting public opinion on its side because of the argument it used to illustrate the value of its energy-generating technology.

Kempton told an audience last week at an American Wind Energy Association conference that the Massachusetts project got bogged down by the argument that offshore turbines would ruin the view of Cape Cod residents and vacationers.

In Delaware, he said, Bluewater Wind summed up its approach to energy production as “wind versus coal.”

And, therein, lies a valuable lesson for developers, lobbyists and public relations practitioners. To win: Frame your argument carefully.

Aaron Nathans provides the interesting details in a report today in the (Wilmington) News-Journal.

Related:
Utility bets on offshore turbines
Plan Advances to Build Wind Farm Off New York
Maryland picks NRG Bluewater to supply wind power
NRG of Princeton to supply energy to Maryland
Delaware: First to sign and the first to spin?
Will NRG save Bluewater’s wind projects?
Offshore Rhode Island wind power at a dead calm

Our most recent posts:
Delaware River dredging plot line murkier still
New Jersey’s 2009 environmental achievers
Attend this green conference without leaving the office
New Jersey’s late season crop of green legislation
New Jersey enviro-on-the-lam jailed in China

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Delaware River dredging plot line murkier still

[Updated Dec 9 2009 to add related news stories]
Today, the latest and most astounding plot twist of all in the now multi-seasoned, New Jersey vs. Pennsylvania Delaware Dredging mini series.

But first, a quick recap.

You’ll remember that, in the opening episode of Season 1, the media informed us that evil corporate and labor forces, joined by powerful Pennsylvania politicians, were out to destroy the fragile, interlinking ecosystems of the Delaware River and Delaware Bay by lowering the river by five feet so that modern supertankers could call on the Port of Philadelphia.

In subsequent episodes, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers emerges as the mercenary organization entrusted with the job of cooking the enviro-studies to justify the mission and seeing that the gook scraped from the bottom all got dumped (hell, why not) in New Jersey.

By the end of the first season, a motley mob of South Jersey residents, fired up by the usual cast of enviro-doomsayers are howling. Spare us, they cry.

Season Two: South Jersey congressional leaders make angry noises and threaten to threaten and threaten and threaten again again until Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell withdraws his support for the project–or the newspapers stop running their press releases. Rendell smiles.

Then the enviros paint verbal pictures of sludge piles ruining New Jersey’s pristine river coast line. Rendell smiles.

Then the Army Corps starts issuing implementation schedules. South Jersey residents despair. We’ve been screwed again, they wail, and this time not by North Jersey.

Suddenly, on a white steed with a tiny G-S brand partially obscured by the saddle, a hero gallops into town. It’s New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. He draws a line in water with his lancet.

Not on my watch, Fast Eddie, he growls. The scene (and season) fade to black, as we imagine Rendell skulking away in the shadows of the Ben Franklin Bridge.

Time passes. Summer reruns and new show trials intervene. Then our soap returns, promising all new episodes.

Season Three. Rendell has dispatched envoys to explore peace talks. Secret negotiations take place. Details, are sketchy. Then a writers strike. Few new episodes follow. Reporters try to refresh the story but only tell us that something’s going on…but the details are sketchy.

Finally, in a triumphant season-closer, Corzine and Rendell emerge, arm in arm. It was all a misunderstanding, they say through clenched smiles. New Jersey won’t try to stop the project and Pennsylvania will truck all the muck to abandoned coal mine shafts which are already pretty screwed up anyway.

Ahem, the enviros say. What about the looming environmental catastrophe?

Ah, we’ll get back to you on that, say the reunited Democratic brothers. But take heart (wink, wink). This is Rendell-Corzine, not Bush-Cheney.

So that’s it, right? Time to close down the series or maybe morph it into a reality show? America’s Dirtiest River Jobs, perhaps? Not hardly.

Current Season. In the opening episode, the state of Delaware was going to court to block the project. Governor Corzine, then in the midst of his re-election campaign and getting hammered daily by a major enviro mouthpiece, tells his Attorney General: For god’s sake, join the suit. I’m getting killed here.

And then today, the absolute topper. The Philadelphia Inquirer discloses the latest and most dramatic Delaware dredging plot twist–one guaranteed to extend the series into another season.

It turns out, the gunk isn’t headed down a mine shaft after all. It’s apparently getting dumped in the Garden State.

Incredible? Amazing? Maybe, but we’ve had a sneaky suspicion about this one all along.

What’s the explanation? Well, the details continue to be, ah, sketchy. But Inquirer writer Jan Hefler does a good job today of exposing some of the behind-the-scenes machinations.


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