EnviroPolitics Blog

NJ sues Dow and others over 1,4-dioxane, a widespread and possible cancer-causing chemical in drinking water

Delaware River Basin Commission staff collects a Delaware River sample to monitor
for 1,4-Dioxane. Photo by DRBC.

By Scott Fallon, NorthJersey.com

New Jersey sued chemical giant Dow and other companies Thursday, saying a potentially cancer-causing chemical they’ve manufactured, promoted, and sold for decades is so prevalent in New Jersey it can be found from the mountains of Ringwood to wells in Fair Lawn and drinking water pulled from the Delaware River.

Dow, along with Ferro Corporation and Vulcan Materials Company, made or sold 1,4-dioxane knowing that it would “significantly pollute drinking water supplies, render drinking water unusable and unsafe, threaten the public health and welfare, and harm other natural resources,” the lawsuit alleges.

Rachelle Schikorra, a Dow spokeswoman, said the company is aware of the lawsuit but could not comment at this time.

“The costs of cleaning up this forever chemical should be borne by the defendants in this lawsuit, not New Jersey taxpayers,” Matthew Platkin, the state attorney general, said in a statement.

Read the full story here

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“Walking the Wissahickon” by Brian Ames
(Photo by @vedabrown)

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Wildwood, NJ mayor pleads guilty to tax Fraud

By John Russo, Press of Atlantic City

Wildwood Mayor Peter Byron admitted Friday to helping others commit tax fraud, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.

Byron, 67, pleaded guilty to two counts of willfully aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of false and fraudulent tax returns to the IRS for 2017 and 2018.

On Friday, Byron said he would like to comment on the matter but could not.

Last year, he and City Commissioner Steven Mikulski, along with former Mayor Ernie Troiano, were charged with wrongfully taking state health benefits and falsifying public records.

Read the full story here

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Rate of solid waste facility fires prompts a renewed look at battery recycling efforts

The media reported 390 waste and recycling facility fires in the U.S. and Canada in 2022, the highest number since Fire Rover started tracking reports. EPR laws and federal funding aim to reduce risk.

Old battery packs for mobile phones — *Andrey Deryabin via Getty Images*

Fires at waste and recycling facilities continued to be a problem in 2022, with at least 390 incidents reported by the media in the United States and Canada, according to data from Fire Rover, a fire suppression system company.

During a recent webinar hosted by the National Waste & Recycling Association, Ryan Fogelman, a partner at Fire Rover, said that number is the highest since he started collecting fire incident data in 2016. That compares to 367 reported incidents in 2021 and 317 in 2020. In 2022, waste and recycling facility fires caused 56 reported injuries and 2 reported deaths, he said.

The industry has long suspected that lithium-ion batteries are a growing fire hazard because of their tendency to ignite when crushed or bent — and their increasing prevalence in everything from light-up shoes to birthday cards. Recent state and federal actions aim to curb fires by bolstering safe collection strategies.

Pinpointing the cause of these fires can be tough, Fogelman said, partly because media reports often don’t list a cause, but anecdotal reports show a significant portion of facility fires are related to batteries. Waste and recycling operations face other diverse fire hazards because of the nature of their facilities, he said, which often house large machinery, store combustible chemicals and perform hot work tasks that can emit sparks.

“We’re starting to see some really serious lithium-ion battery-specific fires,” he said.

In a recent example, operators of the Seminole County Central Transfer Station in Florida, which experienced a fire in December that caused almost $500,000 of damage, told local news station WESH that the fire was likely caused by lithium-ion batteries.

Batteries are also to blame for smaller fires. In February, a laptop caught fire inside a Rumpke Waste & Recycling truck in Columbus, Ohio, prompting the driver to pull into an empty parking lot to dump the load. Officials in both incidents urged residents not to put battery-containing items in the trash, instead asking them to take batteries to a nearby hazardous waste disposal facility or to a retailer that offers recycling options.

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Pennsylvania woman who broke into Pelosi’s office draws a three-year prison sentence

Riley June Williams was investigated in connection with the theft of Nancy Pelosi’s laptop, and its possible sale to Russia, for months.

Riley June Williams (Dauphin County Prison)

By Justin Heinze, Patch Staff

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The young Pennsylvania woman who helped break into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office on Jan. 6, and whose age and actions brought her notoriety and made her one of the iconic faces of the insurrection, has been sentenced to three years in prison, a judge ruled on Thursday.

Riley June Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, had been convicted in November of interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder and related counts. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C.

The charges she was convicted of held a maximum penalty of up to 25 years behind bars. Prosecutors had sought at least 7.

Williams was among the mob that broke into the Capitol through the Senate Wing door at about 2:15 p.m. on Jan. 6, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia said.

Authorities said Williams “directed” other rioters, pushed against officers and recorded videos of the incident. Once in Pelosi’s office, Williams filmed the theft of the laptop, authorities said. It was initially believed that Williams had stolen it herself, and she was investigated for months under possible suspicion of selling it to Russi

According to investigators, a tipster told the FBI that Williams intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell it to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the affidavit said.

Williams fled after Jan. 6, deleting all of her social media profiles and losing contact with friends and family, officials said. She was arrested on Jan. 18 in Harrisburg.

Read the full story here

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JCP&L to pay back customers after audit of its parent company, FirstEnergy of Akron

The utility spent ratepayer money on lobbying, other expenses

JCP&L crew installing automated devices to help reduce power outages

By TOM JOHNSON, ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT WRITER, NJ Spotlight News

Jersey Central Power & Light owes customers $9.6 million after improper costs were allocated to ratepayers, including funds possibly spent in a bribery scandal in Ohio, according to audits of its parent company, FirstEnergy of Akron, Ohio.

New Jersey’s second-largest utility mentioned paying out the refunds, which include interest, in a filing for a $185 million rate increase for its 1.1 million customers with the state Board of Public Utilities last week. If granted, the typical residential customer would see their monthly bill increase by $8.45, or 7.5%.

Chris Hoenig, a JCP&L spokesman denied that any of the money raised from ratepayers in New Jersey was spent in Ohio. “What we are refunding is money that was spent in New Jersey,’’ he said. It included, among other things, advertising, sponsorships, and lobbying. “The $9 million has nothing to do with Ohio,’’ he added.

Earlier this month, the former speaker of the Ohio House and former Republican state chairman were convicted in a $60 million bribery and lobbying scheme to pass a bailout bill for FirstEnergy, the utility’s parent, and its nuclear power plants.

‘There is going to be a lot of forensic digging in this rate case. We are going to make sure what happened in Ohio doesn’t impact New Jersey ratepayers.’ — Brian Lipman, New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel

An audit made public in February by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found FirstEnergy included costs for the Ohio bribery investigation in all rates for all 10 of its franchised public utilities, including JCP&L, according to Dave Anderson, policy and communications manager at the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog on clean energy and utility interests.

That audit spurred the agency to look into changes in accounting procedures governing utilities, Anderson said. Meanwhile, reports about the Ohio bribery investigation led the New Jersey BPU to launch an audit of JCP&L in May of 2021.

Read the full story here

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