A former councilman in Hunterdon County who allegedly stole money from a local Democratic club has been indicted by a grand jury.
Malik D. Johnston, 47, of Flemington, was indicted on a charge of theft by unlawful taking, a third-degree crime, the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office said on Thursday. He was charged with the offense on in October of last year.
Johnston, also known as Pippin J. Folk, is a former member of the Flemington Township Council and former officer of the Flemington Democratic Club.
He is accused of going to a bank in Bridgewater on June 2, 2023, and withdrawing $1,000 from an account belonging to the Flemington Democratic Club. At the time of the withdrawal, he was no longer a part of the political group, prosecutors said.
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By ANYA LITVAK, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 11, 2024
The well was one of 10 used to inject and withdraw gas stored in Equitrans’ Rager Mountain storage facility — an underground reservoir in Jackson Township, Cambria County.
On Nov. 6, the well began to vent high volumes of natural gas and it took the company and its contractors nearly two weeks to finally bring it under control. During that time, more than a billion cubic feet of gas escaped into the air.
The agreements that Equitrans negotiated with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection spell out the environmental and climate damage of the well’s malfunction. The blowout released 106 tons of volatile organic compounds, a category of chemicals that includes some hazardous air pollutants. VOCs also include compounds that cause the formation of ozone.
At 106 tons, the storage well made it into the top 25 emitters of VOCs in the state in 2022, according to DEP data. It was also the highest-emitting facility in the oil and gas sector that year.
For perspective, the VOC emissions from the storage well during those two weeks amount to about a fifth of what the Shell petrochemical complex in Beaver County is permitted to emit in a year.
The well incident also released 223 tons of carbon dioxide and a whopping 27,040 tons of methane, which the state calculated was about 10% of all methane emitted in the state in 2022.
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Over 80 locations along the Shore and beyond!New Jersey’s Largest Volunteer Environmental Event
WHO: Thousands of volunteers from the small to the tall and hundreds of groups, organizations, schools, scout troops, and businesses and municipalities
WHAT:Clean Ocean Action’s 39th Bi-Annual Spring Beach Sweeps event at 80+ New Jersey locations, where people remove litter from beaches and collect valuable data about the debris in a coordinated cleanup event up and down the New Jersey Shore and beyond. Volunteer hours are awarded to participating volunteers upon request.
WHY:Beach Sweeps provides people with an opportunity to give back to the ocean by helping to remove litter pollution on land before it becomes harmful and even lethal to aquatic life. The data from the Beach Sweeps turns a one-day event into a legacy of information to increase public awareness and change wasteful habits, enforce litter and waste production laws, and improve policies to reduce sources of marine debris.
ISpecial thanks to Beach Sweeps Sponsors:
Statewide Sponsors:Bank of America, Hackensack Meridian Health, Wakefern/ShopRite, Vantage Apparel
County-Wide Sponsors: KearnyBank Foundation (Monmouth County), Bayshore Recycling Corporation (Montecalvo & Bayshore Family of Companies) (Monmouth County), Target (Monmouth County)
Site Sponsors:Baine Contracting (Pt. Pleasant: Maryland Ave), Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (Seaside Park: Grant Ave.), Crum & Forster (Long Branch: Brighton Ave), Enterprise Mobility Foundation (Keyport: Cedar Street Park), Jenkinson’s Aquarium (Pt. Pleasant: Jenkinson’s), Manasquan Bank (Manasquan: Main St Beach), Memorial Sloan Kettering (Middletown: Bayshore Waterfront Park), Monmouth Ocean Regional Realtors (Asbury Park: Convention Hall), Republic Services (Asbury Park: 1st Ave Beach), ServPro of Aberdeen/Holmdel (Aberdeen: Cliffwood Beach), Stratus Tech (Asbury Park: Convention Hall)
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On April 10, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the first federal regulation limiting the amount of certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, found in drinking water. The final National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR) establishes drinking water standards for six PFAS, with compliance phased in over the next several years.
EPA’s Efforts to Address Forever Chemicals
As discussed in greater detail in prior articles, PFAS are a large category of organic chemicals that have been used since the 1940s to repel oil and water and resist heat. While they are a key component in certain products, such as nonstick cookware, stain-resistant clothing, and firefighting foam, there is significant evidence that exposure to certain PFAS over an extended period can cause cancer and other illnesses. Studies have also shown that PFAS exposure during critical life stages, such as pregnancy or early childhood, can lead to adverse health impacts.
While many U.S. manufacturers have stopped using PFAS in favor of safer alternatives, prior discharges have resulted in very high levels of PFAS in many public and private water systems. According to EWG, more than 320 military sites across the U.S. have PFAS contamination, and more than 200 million Americans may be drinking contaminated water.
Over the past several years, the Biden Administration has taken several steps to address PFAS contamination, including the creation of a PFAS Strategic Roadmap. As part of this initiative, the EPA has established methods to better measure PFAS; added seven PFAS to the list of chemicals covered by the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI); enacted a final rule under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to require manufacturers of PFAS and PFAS-containing articles to report information to EPA on PFAS uses, production volumes, disposal, exposures, and hazards; named PFAS as a National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative for 2024-2027; and proposed designating certain PFAS as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
PFAS Water Drinking Standards
Establishing PFAS water drinking standards was a central goal of the EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA has the authority to set enforceable National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWRs) for drinking water contaminants and require monitoring of public water systems.
The new National Primary Drinking Water Regulation establishes legally enforceable levels, known as Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs), for five individual PFAS in drinking water – PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA – and for PFAS mixtures containing at least two or more of PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA, and PFBS, the new rule uses a Hazard Index MCL to account for the combined and co-occurring levels of these PFAS in drinking water (a PFAS mixture Hazard Index greater than 1 indicates an exceedance of the health-protective level). Below is a summary:
Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) MCL = 4.0 parts per trillion (ppt)
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Summary of Important Dates Upcoming EJ Law Hearings
Announcements EPA Announces New Federal Drinking Water Standards on PFAS On April 10th, the Biden-Harris Administration issued the first-ever national, legally enforceable drinking water standard to protect communities from exposure to harmful per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as ‘forever chemicals.’ Exposure to PFAS has been linked to deadly cancers, impacts to the liver and heart, and immune and developmental damage to infants and children, disproportionately affecting public health in overburdened communities.
Murphy Administration Awards $16 Million in Grants to Advance Recycling and Waste Reduction Goals Over $16 Million in grants have been awarded to communities to NJ counties to fund recycling initiatives. The award amounts for each municipality are based on recycling performance in recent years, incentivizing more sustainable waste management for all municipalities and furthering existing projects. Some municipal project ideas include sponsoring household hazardous waste collection events, providing recycling receptacles in public places, and maintaining leaf composting operations.
Overburdened Communities across the state were able to take advantage of this opportunity including Newark, Camden, Perth Amboy, and Paterson.
Updates on Resilient NJ’s Municipal Assistance Program Resilient NJ’s Municipal Assistance Program (MAP) provides municipalities with climate change-related hazard vulnerability assessments and resilience action plans, used by municipal governments to advance resilience efforts. The recently completed inaugural round of MAP projects include Ocean Township, Stafford Township, and Upper Township. A second round of projects, expected to launch in 2024, include the Town of Harrison, the City of Lambertville, and Montclair Township.
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With their roaring diesel engines, tugboats push, pull, and guide much larger vessels into port and out to sea. They are small but mighty — and incredibly dirty, spewing huge amounts of toxic exhaust and planet-warming emissions every year.
Now, however, the humble harbor craft is going electric.
America’s first fully battery-powered tugboat recently docked at the Port of San Diego, where officials are working to decarbonize tugs, diesel cranes, and trucks. The electric tug was built over three years at an Alabama shipyard and then moved through the Panama Canal before arriving in Southern California earlier this spring.
“We’re ecstatic,” Frank Urtasun, the port’s chairman, told Canary Media. “This electric tugboat is a real game-changer that I think will have ramifications across the country.”
The 82-foot-long vessel is set to begin operating within the coming weeks, as soon as the shoreside charging infrastructure is completed, said Crowley. The Florida-based company owns and operates the electric boat — named “eWolf” in honor of Crowley’s first tug, the 1965 Seawolf — and everything that’s needed to keep it running.
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