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DEP and Rutgers team up to prevent pollution from underground gas tanks

Rutgers and the NJDEP Team Up to Train Over 2,000 on
Proper Underground Storage Tank (UST) Operations

By Casey Sky Noon
NJAES Office of Continuing Professional Education (OCPE)|
Rutgers University

Large metal tanks are buried in the ground in the production warehouse.

It sounds like science fiction, but according to the real-world New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), there are over 4,200 sites storing billions of gallons of flammable gasoline in giant tanks buried underground, right here within the borders of the Garden State.

This number includes hospitals and schools that use oil for heat, mechanic shops and factories that utilize waste oil tanks, and thousands of gas stations, each storing between ten and twenty thousand gallons of gasoline.

Out of sight and out of mind, it is easy to forget the potential dangers posed by the fuel we use daily. In addition to being highly flammable, liquid leaks and vapor emissions cause:

  • Groundwater contamination
  • Environmental pollution
  • Unsafe air quality

Standard refined gasoline contains about 150 different chemicals, many of which are toxic. If released into the environment, it can kill small species of animals and cause severe damage to the local ecosystem. In humans, it can cause cancer, respiratory distress, and other serious health problems.

To protect NJ from the health, safety, and environmental threats of petroleum pollution, the state updated its regulations to match federal standards. “The changes are primarily equipment updates, additional testing, and better forms of leak detection so that operators can more reliably find smaller leaks faster,” said NJDEP Inspector Jenna DiNuzzo.

The modification that has and continues to cause the most stir requires every tank system to have a trained and certified Class A/B Operator assigned to it. The purpose of this regulation is to ensure that those who own USTs understand how to operate and maintain those systems properly. “A lot of owners have no idea what is going on at their properties, so now they are being taught what their equipment does, how it works, and what to do if certain things happen,” explained Jenna.

With the passing of the new regulations, there came a pressing need for a training program that would give current UST operators the opportunity to earn their Class A/B certification and comply with the updated requirements. While the NJDEP developed the course curriculum and supplied subject matter experts to teach the training, they needed a partner to handle the logistics of scheduling classes and processing registrations.

To fulfill this huge educational undertaking, the NJDEP teamed up with Rutgers Office of Continuing Professional Education to provide focused training on preventing, quickly detecting, and correcting leaking USTs. Together, they hosted over 40 classes in half a dozen locations throughout the state. In just over one calendar year, over 2,200 operators attended the one-day training program, which is now available as an online course.

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Revised agenda for NJ Senate Environment and Energy Committee meeting on Thursday, June 6, 2019

The committee will meet at 10 a.m. in Room 6 on the first floor of the State House Annex.

Following is the revised agenda of bills to be considered:

S2288 (Smith / Bateman) – Directs DEP to classify neonicotinoid pesticides as restricted use pesticides.

S3670 (Smith / Singleton) – Requires land use plan element of the municipal master plan to include climate change-related hazard vulnerability assessment.

S3818 (Smith) – Modifies powers and duties of the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank. (pending intro and referral)

S3819 (Greenstein) – Authorizes NJ Infrastructure Bank to expend certain sums to make loans for environmental infrastructure projects for FY2020. (pending intro and referral)

S3820 (Codey) – Appropriates funds to DEP for environmental infrastructure projects for FY2020. (pending intro and referral)

SCR168 (Corrado) – Approves FY2020 Financial Plan of NJ Infrastructure Bank. (pending intro and referral)

FOR DISCUSSION ONLY:

S3682 (Smith / Bateman / Greenstein) – Makes various changes to laws governing remediation of contaminated sites.

See previous committee agenda here

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Rhode Island regulators approve 400-MW Revolution Wind power contract

By Michelle Froese reports for Windpower | May 29, 2019

Rhode Island regulators approved a 20-year power-purchase agreement with DWW Rev I, LLC – a joint venture of Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource – for the offshore wind energy that the Revolution Wind project will deliver to the state.

The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission has unanimously approved Ørsted and Eversource’s long-term power contract with National Grid for 400 MW of clean energy from Revolution Wind.

Revolution Wind, Rhode Island’s second offshore wind farm, will generate enough clean energy to power more than 270,000 average Ocean State homes each year, about a quarter of the total electricity used by Rhode Islanders annually.

The project will save Rhode Island electricity customers millions of dollars in energy costs over the life of the project.

Revolution Wind, located in federal waters roughly halfway between Montauk, N.Y., and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., is designed to serve as a regional energy center. Connecticut separately selected 300 MW from Revolution Wind to power that state.

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Graves beneath Schuylkill Yards? Developer meets with experts — and Quakers — to discuss what to do

Graves beneath Schuylkill Yards? Developer meets with experts — and Quakers — to discuss what to do
Tom Gralish / Phuilly.com staff photographer

Stephan Salisbury reports for Philly.com

In the wake of revelations that its massive Schuylkill Yards development around 30th Street Station might be rising in the midst of extensive historic burial grounds, Brandywine Realty Trust called an informal meeting last week to discuss what the situation might portend for the project.

Brandywine and its partner, Drexel University, owner of much of the land that will be used for the $3.5 billion development, learned in March that the site sits atop two burial grounds begun by Quakers around the time of the city’s founding in 1682.

Known as the Upper and Lower Burial Grounds, the cemeteries became heavily used potter’s fields through much of the 18th and 19th centuries, until the land was acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1850.

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After publication in The Inquirer this month of an account of the potential for disruption of historic gravesites, Brandywine contacted members of the city’s design, historic preservation, and archaeological communities, as well as state officials and representatives of the Society of Friends to discuss how best to proceed.

At a private meeting Thursday in the Brandywine offices on the 17th floor of the Cira South building south of the station, a historical report on the site was presented to attendees by George Thomas, a well-known architectural historian. Gerard H. Sweeney, Brandywine president, chief executive, and trustee was present, according to several attendees.

1864 watercolor painting by David J. Kennedy of coffins protruding from the ground at Lower burial ground near the present site of 30th St. station. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA1864 watercolor painting by David J. Kennedy of coffins protruding from the ground at Lower burial ground near the present site of 30th St. station. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Thomas said that, given the extensive building and railroad construction in the area, it was unlikely any human remains survive on the site.

“It can be safely concluded that the site has been scraped, graded, excavated, and otherwise completely altered so that the likelihood of human remains on the proposed building sites has been much reduced,” he said in the executive summary of his report, which Brandywine released to The Inquirer.

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JCPL’s scaled-back program to prevent storm outages wins approval in NJ

JCP&L to embark on two-year improvement of overhead distribution lines, with expanded vegetation management and more smart technology

JCP&L repairs
Credit: JCP&L












Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight

Without debate, the state approved yesterday a scaled-back infrastructure improvement program for Jersey Central Power & Light, the second biggest electric utility in New Jersey.

The Board of Public Utilities backed a settlement its staff and the Division of Rate Counsel reached with the utility, allowing it to invest $97 million over the next two years to address long-standing problems with tree damage causing widespread outages in its franchise territory.

The company originally had proposed a four-year, $387-million investment program last July, geared to curbing the number and duration of power outages its customers experience, a recurring sore point with regulators.

In recent years, spurred by extreme storm events like hurricanes Irene and Sandy, the BPU has pressured the state’s utilities to step up investment in projects that improve resiliency and reduce power outages which in the past have stretched for weeks for some customers.


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The two-year program includes more than 1,400 projects to enhance the reliability and resiliency of overhead distribution lines, replacing equipment with new smart-technology devices and expanding vegetation management to deal with tree-related outages.

JCP&L predicts that once the projects are complete, its customers will experience fewer sustained outages under normal conditions and a reduction in outage duration. The program could boost the average customer bill by about 50 cents a month, according to the utility.

The approval comes at a time when numerous utilities are seeking to boost rates for customers — either through programs to modernize the grid and to comply with new clean-energy mandates under a new law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy a year ago.

Last month, the BPU also approved a controversial $300-million a year subsidy to keep three nuclear power plants operated by PSEG Power open. The subsidy will increase residential customer bills by at least $31 per year, depending upon the utility they are served by.

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Major development planned for 100 acres around Philadelphia Union Stadium

The Riverfront Alliance of Delaware County is reviewing proposals to develop the land around Talen Energy Stadium in Chester, Pa.
The Riverfront Alliance of Delaware County is reviewing proposals to develop the land around Talen Energy Stadium in Chester, Pa. JOHN GEORGE

John George and Natalie Kostelni Philadelphia Business Journal
May 2, 2019

A renewed effort to liven up the area around Talen Energy Stadium in Chester is underway.

The Riverfront Alliance of Delaware County, working with the Philadelphia Union soccer club that calls the stadium home, sent out a request for proposals to about two dozen qualified consultants asking them to prepare a master plan for more than 100 acres of the Delaware River’s Chester waterfront. 

Tom Shoemaker, president of the Riverfront Alliance and market president for TD Bank, said it received proposals from 10. Shoemaker said those proposals are now being reviewed, and a smaller group of finalists will be invited back to make more formal proposals.

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“These are national firms that have developed the areas around stadiums in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn and Wilmington,” he said. “We’re very excited. This time is right for something like this, for creating a 365-day-a-year destination along the waterfront. It can be done. It’s been done all over the country. The assets we have are as good or better than most of the other places where a project like this has been done.… By the end of the summer we hope to have our proposals in hand from the finalists.”

About half of the 100 acres to be developed are owned or controlled by Keystone Sports and Entertainment, the parent company for the Philadelphia Union, which has spent the past few years acquiring about a mile of waterfront property around its stadium.

“No other sports team in the Philadelphia area has that,” said Tim McDermott, the Philadelphia Union’s chief business officer. “It gives us the opportunity to do something really unique to transform Chester.”

McDermott said the Union’s vision is create a sports and entertainment complex around the soccer stadium that could include a multi-sports facility with indoor and outdoor fields, an amphitheater, a rock climbing wall and possibly a venue for esports. That, he said, could lead to new commercial and residential development in the area.

The goal of the Union and the Riverfront Alliance is to make the area, which includes the 18,500-seat soccer stadium and 400,000-square-foot Wharf office building recently acquired by Keystone Sports, more than just a place to watch a soccer match or go to work.

Talen Energy Stadium, previously known as PPL Park when its opened in June 2010, cost $122 million to build. Part of the stadium’s development was covered by public funds with $87 million allocated by the state, county, city of Chester, and the Delaware River Port Authority to support what was envisioned as a major economic revitalization effort for Chester.

In addition to the soccer stadium, the original plans also called for 180 townhouses, 225 apartments, 42,000 square feet of retail space, a 200,000-square-foot convention center, 435,000 square feet of new office space and structured parking for 1,350 vehicles. With the exception of the soccer stadium, none of the other components of the plan ever materialized as a result of the prolonged recession and economic downturn that began in late 2007.

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Cyclone Fani Set to Strike India as Hundreds of Thousands Evacuate

A satellite image of Cyclone Fani in the Bay of Bengal on Wednesday.CreditCreditNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

By Austin Ramzy for the New York Times

Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated parts of India’s eastern coast Thursday as a powerful cyclone moved north, bringing fears of widespread destruction in the coming hours.

Cyclone Fani was expected to hit the coast Friday with heavy rain, powerful winds and storm surge in some low-lying areas. More than 100 million people are potentially in the path of the storm, AccuWeather reported.

The India Meteorological Department classified Fani as an “extremely severe cyclonic storm,” the equivalent of a Category 3 or 4 hurricane, and said it would land with sustained winds of more than 100 miles per hour and gusts of up to 120 m.p.h.

As much as eight inches of rain is forecast to fall on northern parts of the state of Andhra Pradesh and on the state of Odisha. The storm is expected to continue north, hitting the neighboring countries of Bangladesh and Bhutan, as well as parts of the Indian states of West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya.

From the BBC

Clouds loom ahead of cyclone Fani in Visakhapatnam, India, May 1, 2019
IStorm clouds gather over the Indian city of Visakhapatnam

Thousands of people are being evacuated from villages along India’s eastern coastline ahead of a severe cyclone.

Cyclone Fani is heading towards the state of Orissa with wind speeds in excess of 200 km/h (127 mph), and is expected to make landfall on Friday.

Officials have now shut down operations at two major ports on the east coast, and thousands of rescuers are helping people evacuate from low-lying areas.

Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu states are also on high alert.

Which areas will be affected?

The cyclone is currently moving up the Bay of Bengal, east of Andhra Pradesh.

HR Biswas, director of the meteorological centre in Orissa’s state capital, Bhubaneshwar, said at least 11 districts would be hit – and that they have “suggested people stay indoors”.

India’s National Disaster Management Authority has also warned people along the rest of India’s east coast, especially fishermen, not to go out to sea because the conditions are “phenomenal”.

The agency said the “total destruction of thatched houses” was possible, as well as “extensive damage” to other structures.

Map of Cyclone Fani

Once the cyclone has made landfall in north-eastern India, it is expected to move towards Chittagong in Bangladesh in a weaker form on Saturday.

The port city of Cox’s Bazar, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees live in camps with minimal shelter, is also on alert.

In February the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) began distributing tarpaulins ahead of the region’s “cyclone season” – but warned that if a deadly storm rolls in, shelters made of battered bamboo and shredded plastic would offer little protection.

How has India prepared?

Indian officials say they have set up more than 850 shelters, which are thought to be able to hold almost one million people.

The navy, the coast guard and the National Disaster Response Force have all been prepared for deployment.

Fishermen return to shore in Konark
Image captionFishermen returning to shore in Konark after a yellow warning was issued for Orissa

Local media report that about 81 trains travelling to and from coastal cities have been cancelled.

India’s electoral commission has relaxed its rules about what the government can do during election periods so that the authorities can carry out relief work.

The country is in the middle of a multi-phased election which started last month.

Under normal circumstances the incumbent government has certain powers suspended, so that it can’t announce new schemes or take new decisions during the voting period.

Although the election will continue until the end of May, Orissa has already voted.

A satellite image via the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Tropical Cyclone Fani intensifying in the Bay of Bengal
Image captionA satellite image shows Cyclone Fani intensifying in the Bay of Bengal


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Murphy signs 9 bills to alleviate NJ foreclosure crisis

Daniel J. Munoz reports for NJBIZ

Gov. Phil Murphy signed a package of bills he and proponents said would alleviate the effects of foreclosures on homeowners facing the potentially daunting legal proceedings, and help the economic revitalization of towns with high foreclosure rates, or “blight.”

However, the governor held off on signing two additional foreclosure bills, saying the measures were being “worked through.”

One bill that Murphy did not sign was Assembly Bill 5000, which would have required the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to create an online and publicly accessible database, and accompanying map of foreclosed properties across the state.

“We made a decision that the nine that were ready to go on the runway, we didn’t want to let any more time pass, so we’re signing these nine today,” Murphy told reporters following the bill-signing ceremony Monday afternoon in Atlantic City.

Proponents of the measures signed Monday said the package will help reverse the trend of the exasperated foreclosure rate which came at the heels of the financial crisis and ensuing housing market crash a decade ago.

“Ten years after the housing crash decimated the dreams of thousands of families, and even as we keep working to restore our economy to pre-Recession levels of growth and incomes, New Jersey still bears a steady burden that is on the legacies of the Great Recession: our foreclosure crisis,” Murphy said.

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Amish population grows by 1,000 a year, despite Lancaster County’s urban sprawl, development

Editor’s Note: While driving into Lancaster, Pa. on Saturday, where I was to attend a meeting of website users and developers, I marveled at the beauty of the individual farms bisected by Route 30 and I wondered how the Amish continue to live here with the chock a block proliferation of motels, hotels, furniture outlets, and fast-food restaurants. Later, during a break, I picked up a copy of the local newspaper and read the story below. While some Amish farmers have picked up and headed to more rural areas, the overall population of Amish families is far outpacing the population growth of the merchant class. If the Amish ever drop their aversion to politics, they likely could stop additional development in its tracks. At the voting booth. _____________________________________________________________________

JEFF HAWKES reports for LancasterOnline Apr 26, 2019

Amish farm family

Lancaster County’s fast-growing Amish population recently exceeded the 33,000 mark as the farming-oriented Plain sect continues to flourish despite the encroachment of urban sprawl.

The Amish, who typically have large families and drive horse-drawn vehicles and farm equipment, are growing so strongly that they accounted for an estimated 41% of the county’s overall population growth last year.

The U.S. Census Bureau says the county added 2,503 people in 2018. Scholars who track the local Plain community say about 1,020 of them were Amish.

Lancaster County’s ability to accommodate the burgeoning Amish population has become an issue in Manheim Township, where the commissioners will soon decide whether to allow the development of a 75-acre housing and commercial project, called Oregon Village, in the midst of a thriving, centuries-old Amish community.

Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies bases its estimates for the Lancaster County settlement on a church district directory and Amish newspapers. (Lancaster County Amish comprise 87% of the entire Lancaster County settlement, which includes parts of neighboring Chester and York counties.)

Since 2014, Lancaster County Amish have grown annually by over 1,000 a year, on average, and at a 3.9% rate. That compares to a much slower 0.5% rate for the county as a whole. Overall, the county is growing by about 2,500 people a year.

Although some Amish families do leave Lancaster County, their population here doubles about every 20 years. In 1970, the Lancaster County portion of the local Amish settlement numbered about 7,000. That climbed to about 12,400 by 1990 and 16,900 by 2000. It has just about doubled since then.

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NJ’s revised Energy Master Plan won’t go public before December

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight
APRIL 22, 2019

Murphy administration’s overhaul of New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan is put off while urgent energy issues are being dealt with

Offshore wind

The state is pushing back adoption of a presumably radically revamped Energy Master Plan until the end of year.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is notifying stakeholders the plan, touted as a road map to guide the Murphy administration’s goal of achieving 100 percent clean energy by 2050, will not come out in draft form until June and now, in a final version by December.

Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order last spring ordering a new plan from the agency, asking it to be finalized by this June as part of his clean-energy agenda. With the BPU wrestling with an array of more timely and urgent energy issues, that time frame has been dropped, although not surprisingly to some.


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It comes after the agency this week made a significant decision about the state’s energy mix for the future, approving a controversial $300 million a year ratepayer subsidy to keep PSEG Power’s three nuclear units open for at least the next three years, and possibly longer.

It also comes less than two weeks after BPU president Joseph Fiordaliso had told reporters the draft plan would be come out in “the next few weeks.’’ The plan is of intense interest because it is expected to dramatically shift the focus of the existing EMP, which concentrated on building out the state’s natural gas infrastructure.

Subject of many rumors

The extent of the shift has been a matter of wide-ranging speculation in and around Trenton. Rumors abounded that the administration was considering some type of moratorium on new natural gas projects, a priority of a coalition of environmentalists.

When asked earlier this month about the plan and whether natural gas would be phased out of the mix, Fiordaliso only would say that it, along with nuclear power, would be part of the state’s future energy mix.

At least nine natural gas pipeline projects are pending in New Jersey, as well as another four proposals to build natural gas power plants. Cheap natural gas has led to lower electricity prices for customers and huge drops in monthly bills for those who rely on the fuel to heat their homes during cold-weather months.

With 40 percent of the state’s electricity coming from natural gas and roughly 70 percent of homes and businesses heated by the fuel, it is unclear how the state can seamlessly phase out its use without huge impacts on consumers and the economy.

Peter Peretzman, a spokesman for the agency, said “we pushed backed the dates because we wanted to incorporate outstanding studies and additional stakeholder input to ensure a truly comprehensive and holistic plan.’’

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