This environmental group started in a swamp

Back in 1959, the Port Authority announced plans to create a new regional airport to serve northern New Jersey, southern New York and eastern Pennsylvania.

It chose a large, flat, wetland area in then rural northern Somerset and southern Morris counties where little political opposition was anticipated.

How wrong they were.

A small group of housewives and other residents began to pull together an opposition movement. Having the good fortune of attracting well heeled backers like Geraldine R. Dodge, they also started buying up properties in the Great Swamp area.

By 1960, they had 1,000 acres. By 1964, they had more than 3,000, which met federal requirements to create a wildlife refuge. On May 29, 1964, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge became the first federally designated wilderness area east of the Mississippi.

Since the 1960s, the little Great Swamp Committee morphed into the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and went on to claim big wins in other conservation causes, most notably in the South Jersey Pinelands and Northwest Jersey Highlands.

Now celebrating its 50th year, the NJCF says it has preserved 100,000 acres of farm and forest, urban and suburban parks.

Mark Di Ionno tells the Foundation’s story in The Great Swamp, which appeared in the Star-Ledger‘s monthly magazine Inside New Jersey.

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Charmin’s worse for the environment than SUVs

WANTED: Mr. Whipple
For Environmental Crimes


The following dispatch from the environmental war front appeared yesterday in Green Daily…

“Wow, we knew that America’s obsession with soft and fluffy toilet paper was a problem, but how bad is it really? According to Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist from the Natural Resources Defense Council, America’s toilet paper problem is actually worse for the planet than it’s love of fuel-hogging SUVs. That’s on account of the chemicals used in the manufacture of pulp and, of course, the fact that we’re leveling old-growth forests to wipe our butts with.

“The outcry over America’s bathroom habits is being promoting in part by recent data showing that 98% of the toilet paper consumed in the US in 2008 came from virgin fibers (compare that to 60% in Europe and Latin America). According to the NYT, a significant portion of the quilted, super fluffy, triple-ply TP that comes from the nation’s leading brands comes from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Sadly, the super comfy paper that is enjoyed for only a couple of unsavory seconds takes decades, if not centuries, to grow. Of course, there are plenty of alternatives out there like recycled TP or — for hardcore conservationists — the cloth toilet wipe.”

Reading the above, we had a thought that also might have occurred to you.

With the economy playing havoc with new vehicle sales, wouldn’t this be a great time to pick up on a Hummer at at huge discount. Then you can drive it over to your local grocery wholesaler and fill its cavernous interior with crates of Greenpeace-recommended toilet paper made of high post-consumer and recycled content.
On your next trip to the bathroom, relieve yourself of guilt, knowing your purchases created a net value to the environment.

Maybe not, huh?

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Renewable energy looking for a jolt in New Jersey

Some 200 solar energy companies facing increased funding challenges in dismal economic times–and a smaller number of businesses offering energy efficiency services–could be in for a big boost thanks to the federal stimulus package.

NJBIZ reports today that about $90 million of federal stimulus money will go toward the State Energy Program for energy saving projects in renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels, according to the state Board of Public Utilities.

An additional $121.9 million will be provided through the Weatherization Assistance Program to improve energy efficiency in low-income housing units — an investment that could help to create more than 9,000 jobs in the state, according to some estimates.

“For a company like ours, it could more than double the work that we can do, and more than double the revenues we would otherwise be anticipating,” said S. Lynne Sutcliffe, chief executive of The EnergySolve, an energy services company based in Somerset, NJ. The company plans additional hiring, as well; it employs 50 at present.

For several years, New Jersey’s solar-installation market was red hot due to extremely generous subsidies offered by the BPU for commercial and residential projects. When the money ran out, business fell off. The drying up of bank credit in the nation’s current economic crisis has only made matters worse.

The stimulus funds, channeled through the BPU’s NJGreen program (currently undergoing changes) could help to stabilize, if not revive, the state’s alternative-energy industry.

Ed Seliga, vice president of Advanced Solar Products of Hopewell, NJ, the largest installer of solar power systems in the Mid-Atlantic region, said the proposed program could allow businesses to receive federal funds within a few months, shortening the payback period — the time between making an investment and realizing financial benefits — by a year. As a result, businesses “would borrow far less,” he said.

For New Jersey’s young alternative energy businesses, that’s not only a promising development, it may be an essential one.

Are you involved in an alternative energy business? Give us your thoughts on the current situation and what can/should be done. Use the comment box below. If you don’t see one, click on the tiny ‘comments’ line below and it will appear.

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Fumo jury deliberates, PA Senate equivocates

Jurors in federal court in Philadelphia have begun their review of 1,550 exhibits and testimony from 107 witnesses and it may be weeks before they decide the fate former State Senator Vincent Fumo, one of the most powerful politicians over several decades in Pennsylvania.

The 65-year-old Fumo faces 137 counts, most of them centering on his use of legislative staff for personal and campaign duties and his alleged looting of some $3.5 million from a nonprofit organisation he set up to advance civic projects in the City of Brotherly Love.

Fumo, apparently, got most of the love.

What have Senate leaders done to tighten the rules and close the loopholes in the two years since Fumo’s high-profile indictment?

Not much, according to Philadelphia Inquirer writers Mario F. Cattabiani and Craig R. McCoy in yesterday’s story:
Fumo case has not changed much in the Senate – yet

“They have tinkered. They have beefed up oversight of outside contracts. They have hired a management consultant. And they are weighing a long list of recommendations,” the reporters noted of the Senate’s response.

Tim Potts, co-founder of Democracy Rising Pennsylvania, a Harrisburg-area public-interest group, put it this way:

“The Fumo case created a foundation for the Senate to build a better government. Each count against him was part of a new building, and so far they don’t even have a basement.”

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PA and NJ dredge up an environmental dispute

Pennsylvania Senators Arlen Specter and Bob Casey have ripped the bandage off an old, bistate wound with a request for some $4 million for the deepening of the 103-mile main shipping channel between the Philadelphia Harbor and the mouth of the Delaware Bay.

Environmentalists in New Jersey and Delaware are furious to learn that Pennsylvania is trying to breathe new life into a project they thought had been put on a back burner if not killed.

The enviros claim the project threatens aquatic life, drinking water and wetlands.

Specter’s press secretary said the project is necessary to help the Delaware Valley region compete with other deep-water ports.
The proposed project caused a rift between New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, both Democrats, early in Corzine’s administration. Corzine then opposed the project and the dispute grew so hot that, for a time, he held up funding to the bistate Delaware River Port Authority.
After months of wrangling, Corzine backed off after Rendell promised that all dredge spoils from the project would be disposed of in the Keystone State.
On June 23, 2008, Rendell today signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority to officially begin the five-year, $379 million dredging project.
But environmentalists have continued their opposition, noting that the project still requires environmental approvals from the state of Delaware and hoping that it ultimately would prove too expensive to fund.
For more, see the Courier-Post’s Pa. lawmakers earmark funds for deeper Delaware

Your opinions are welcome. Use the comment box below. If it’s not visible, click on the tiny ‘comments’ line. You may sign your comment or choose to remain anonymous.

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OMG, Chris Christie is Twittering!

Blame it all on Barack Obama, the Chicago-based politician who used the “social media” power of the Web to enlist millions of supporters in his campaign for the presidency.

But Chris Christie? The two-fisted, political-corruption-fighting former federal prosecutor?
We might have suspected that, as part of his Republican campaign to replace Democrat Jon Corzine as governor of New Jersey he’d open a website. And he has www.ChristieforNJ.com

Maybe he’d even go so far out on the social-media limb to try a blog. And he has www.ChristieforNJ.com/blog

Chris Christie surpassed our e-networking expectations when he opened a page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21913187145

But never did we suspect that he’d hitch his star the very latest and coolest web phenomenon. But he has.

Yes, Chris Christie is twittering. (Do I hear imprisoned felons snickering?)

If you’re a fellow twitter-er you’ll find Mr. Christie at: www.twitter.com/ChristieforNJ

His site went live this morning at around 11:30.

[Attention: All social networking has its perils. Mr. Law and Order’s welcome message today was proximate to a “tweet” from someone named DaveyBarrett who declared to the Twitter world: “Is in New Jersey. What the f__ck. Haha!”]

Remember, you read this momentous news here first at EnviroPolitics Blog.

In the interest of full disclosure, we must admit that this very message is probably already on its way, via the latest web app pipeline, to our (gulp) Twitter page. Yes, boys and girls, we, too, have been bitten by the twitter bug.

We don’t know yet if it’s fatal. You can find us at: http://twitter.com/frankbrill

Are you on Twitter? What do you think of it? And is this a good move on Mr. Christie’s part?
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Let us know what you think in the comment block below. If you don’t see one, click on the tiny “comments” line below and have at it. Don’t forget to leave your twitter address if you’ve got one. You just might pick up a “follower” or two.

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