Officials have reached a tentative deal that will halt the first faculty strike in Rutgers University history, at least temporarily, and allow classes to resume after five days of picketing, lengthy negotiations, disrupted schedules, and uncertainty about exams and graduation.
The school and faculty unions that have been striking since Monday agreed to a “framework” of new contracts that would provide better pay, benefits, and job security for full- and part-time faculty, Gov. Phil Murphy announced just before 1 a.m. Saturday.
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That, officials said, means all classes at Rutgers’ three main campuses will resume Monday, two weeks before the end of the spring semester for the 67,000 students at New Jersey’s largest university.
Union leaders, however, characterized this not as a formal end to the strike — one of the largest in the history of higher education — but a suspension of it. They stressed there is still work to be done to finalize the contracts, including “core” issues involving medical faculty at the state university, and members must then vote on the agreement.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration has taken an aggressive approach to environmental litigation since taking office in 2018, filing 20 lawsuits claiming compensation from corporations for damage to natural resources. It filed another 52 complaints seeking the cleanup of sites that have polluted overburdened “environmental justice” communities.
The administration has used legal means to compel corporate polluters to clean up New Jersey’s many contaminated sites, officials say, and to compensate the state and the public for the loss of environmental assets to contamination with industrial waste and chemicals.
It’s a mixed record so far. All but one of the so-called natural resource damage (NRD) suits remain unresolved, including the most recent one against Dow Chemical and other companies. The state is demanding compensation for their alleged pollution with the chemical 1,4-dioxane, a suspected carcinogen, knowing that it would pollute drinking water. Meanwhile, more than 20 of the environmental justice complaints have been settled or subjected to court orders that impose fines or demand cleanup.
The environmental justice complaints require defendants to fix environmental problems such as unsafe drinking water or leaks of toxic materials in marginalized communities that bear a disproportionate environmental burden. In 2020, Murphy signed a first-in-the-nation environmental justice law, which requires state officials to evaluate the environmental and public health impacts of permit applications and to deny permits if an environmental justice analysis determines that a project will have a disproportionately negative impact on overburdened communities.
The administration’s activist litigation strategy reflects New Jersey’s long history of damage from industry — as shown by its highest-in-the-nation number of Superfund sites that have been designated by the federal government. It also comes out of an expectation that the courts are proving the most effective means of ensuring that polluters pay.
‘Very aggressive’
“There are these huge old factories all over New Jersey and a lot of waterways, so there’s a lot of opportunity to have NRDs,” said Miano, referring to natural resource damage cases. Miano, who is not involved in any of the cases, added, “And the state has been going after them pretty aggressively.”
“New Jersey is being very aggressive with these things,” said Steve Miano, an environmental lawyer with Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller in Philadelphia. “Among the states in the Northeast, they are leading the charge on actually filing cases.
By contrast, the Christie administration didn’t file a single natural resource damage suit, according to the state attorney general’s office.
March 23, 2023: New Jersey announced a lawsuit against the Dow Chemical Company and other companies for widespread contamination of drinking water by a potentially cancer-causing chemical.
The latest natural resource damage suit was filed on March 23 when the state sued the chemical giant Dow Chemical, saying the company made or used 1,4-dioxane, a toxic chemical classed by the Environmental Protection Agency as a likely carcinogen, knowing that it would pollute drinking water across the state.
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WASHINGTON (April 14, 2023) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that the National Wildlife Federation has been selected to serve as an Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (EJ TCTACs) that will receive at least $10 million to help communities across the EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region access funds from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. This includes historic investments to advance environmental justice.
EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region includes Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Several organizations in the Mid-Atlantic will be joining the National Wildlife Federation in administering the program including:
University of Maryland’s (UMD) Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health (CEEJH) and Environmental Finance Center (EFC)
Morgan State University (Maryland)
West Virginia State University
Centro De Apoyo Familiar (Arlington, Va.)
South Baltimore Community Land Trust
Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative
Overbrook Education Center (Philadelphia)
Sussex Health & Environmental Network/Sentinels of Eastern Shore Health. (Delaware)
From day one of his administration, President Biden made achieving environmental justice a top priority. Through the Investing in America agenda, the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to support and strengthen communities that for too long were left out and left behind. Administrator Regan announced the technical assistance centers on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America tour.
“We know that so many communities across the nation have the solutions to the environmental challenges they face. Unfortunately, many have lacked access or faced barriers when it comes to the crucial federal resources needed to deliver these solutions,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “Today we’re taking another step to break down these barriers. Establishing these Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers across the nation will ensure all communities can access benefits from the President’s historic agenda, which includes groundbreaking investments in clean air, clean water, and our clean energy future.”
“For far too long, overburdened, underserved, and rural communities have lacked the resources and technical assistance they need from the federal government to overcome barriers critical to their energy needs and create new, long-lasting economic opportunities,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, DOE now has historic levels of new funding to pull from to help revitalize disadvantaged communities across the nation and ensure they’re not left behind in our transition to a clean energy future.”
“This is a huge step in the right direction to finally provide much-needed resources to marginalized communities that have faced environmental and health injustices for decades,” said Adam Ortiz, EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator. “This partnership with the National Wildlife Federation, community-based organizations, and two HBCUs will help give voice to our most vulnerable communities and have them gain access to this historic funding for a stronger, brighter future.”
The National Wildlife Federation is among 17 Environmental Justice TCTACs the EPA announced to receive a total of more than $177 million to remove barriers and improve accessibility for communities with environmental justice concerns. With this critical investment, these centers will provide training and other assistance to build capacity for navigating federal grant application systems, writing strong grant proposals, and effectively managing grant funding. In addition, these centers will provide guidance on community engagement, meeting facilitation, and translation and interpretation services for limited English-speaking participants, thus removing barriers and improving accessibility for communities with environmental justice concerns. Each of the technical assistance centers will also create and manage communication channels to ensure all communities have direct access to resources and information.
EPA will deliver these resources in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, whose funding allows the EJ TCTACs to provide support for identifying community opportunities for clean energy transition and financing options, including public-private partnerships supporting clean energy demonstration, deployment, workforce development, and outreach opportunities that advance energy justice objectives.
The formation of TCTACs is in direct response to feedback from communities and environmental justice leaders who have long called for technical assistance and capacity-building support for communities and their partners as they work to access critical federal resources. The 17 centers will provide comprehensive coverage for the entire United States through a network of more than 160 partners including community-based organizations, additional academic institutions, and Environmental Finance Centers so that more communities can access federal funding opportunities like those made available through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
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PHILADELPHIA (April 13, 2023) – The Delaware Inland Bays Program will receive $1.8 million in restoration funds as part of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) funding to estuaries of national significance, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today.
“This funding is a valuable investment in equity, clean water, and resilience for Delaware’s sensitive coastal shoreline,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz. “Thanks to the support of the President’s BIL, we can accelerate efforts to preserve and improve the health of the Inland Bays.”
The Delaware Inland Bays Program is one of 28 estuary organizations under the National Estuaries Program (NEP) receiving this funding. The funding supports projects that address climate resilience, prioritize equity, and manage other key water quality and habitat challenges.
Among other things, this funding will help the Delaware Inland Bays Program seek expertise to assess the center’s internal and external operations as they relate to the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Environmental Justice, and Accessibility (DEIJA) initiative. This assessment will identify gaps and recommend policies, best practices, programs, milestones, and organizational behaviors that would foster authentic and meaningful DEIJA engagements across the organization’s functions.
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal water body where freshwater from coastal lagoons mixes with salt water from the ocean. Estuaries, and their surrounding lands, are places of transition from land to sea. Estuaries are an irreplaceable natural resource that must be managed carefully for the mutual benefit of all who enjoy and depend on them.
Along with being home to thousands of species of birds, mammals, fish, and other wildlife, estuaries have important commercial value, and their resources provide economic benefits for tourism, fisheries, and recreational activities.
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Fire officials on the scene of a wildfire in the area of Route 23 and Echo Lake Road in West Milford on Thursday, April 13, 2023, Brianna Kudisch/NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
The Passaic County fire is “contained,” Mayor Michele Dale said in a statement on social media Wednesday.
“West Milford OEM just confirmed that the fire is contained, however, it is still not out,” Dale said shortly after 9:30 p.m. “You may continue to smell and see smoke and fire. The state Fire Service will be on-site for at least the next few days monitoring.”
About two hours before the mayor’s statement, the state forest fire service said the fire had burned 140 acres and was zero percent contained.
By 11 a.m. Thursday morning, the fire service said “The fire has reached 250 acres in size and is 30% contained.” Smoke was still visible in the area Thursday morning, according to photos from the scene.
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Lehigh University has begun construction on a 20-acre solar farm that will bring 7,400 solar panels to the school’s Murray H. Goodman campus in Bethlehem.
According to Emily Collins, a Lehigh University spokesperson, the project will supply 100% of the electricity needs of the Goodman campus, which is home to the university’s athletic facilities.
The site for the solar array, just south of Legacy Park and opposite the Lewis Indoor Tennis Center, was chosen relative to existing power infrastructure. Landscaping will be planted between the field and the nearest residential community to help block the view of the array. The project will supply 100% of the electricity for the Goodman Campus, and offset 8% of Lehigh’s grid electricity consumption. The array also will provide research and learning opportunities for students.
The solar farm, which the Bethlehem Planning Commission approved in a 3-1 vote last year, was opposed by several residents of Saucon Fields Condominiums, which overlooks the solar farm’s location on 124 Goodman Drive. Residents said the solar panels would cause glare to reflect into their homes and diminish their property values.
Representatives for the university said that a “glare analysis” found that glare would not be a significant hazard, and the school is constructing a berm, or raised barrier of land, with trees on the border between the two properties.
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