EnviroPolitics Blog

Do look up. See five planets traverse the Western sky

The alignment — led by the star cluster Messier 35 from the left, followed by Mars, the moon, Uranus, Venus, Jupiter and Mars — starts about 20 minutes after sunset. (Shutterstock / Vadim Sadovski)

By Michelle Rotuno-Johnson, Patch Staff

NEW JERSEY — Grab a pair of binoculars and make it a point to be outside around sunset Monday and for a few days after. With a favorable weather forecast in New Jersey, we’ll see a rare celestial parade of five planets, a crescent moon, and a star cluster in the western sky.

The alignment — led by the star cluster Messier 35 from the left, followed by Mars, the moon, Uranus, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars — starts about 20 minutes after sunset. Monday and Tuesday are the best nights to see it.

Sunset is about 7:15 p.m. Monday and 7:16 p.m. Tuesday in the far eastern NJ towns, and 7:18 and 7:19 p.m. closer to Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Right now, the forecast is “tricky” in New Jersey in terms of cloud cover or rain on Monday and Tuesday nights, according to the National Weather Service in Mount Holly. A series of storms could move through the region both Monday and Tuesday night, and AccuWeather is watching a “potential Northeast snowstorm” next week.

Timing is everything. Venus doesn’t set until about 10:15 p.m. local time, but the views of Jupiter and Mercury are fleeting. “It will be important to catch them as soon as possible before they disappear over the western horizon,” the Farmers’ Almanac wrote, adding the plants appear “to chase after the Sun.”

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Older men all hail Mr. Pickles

From The Morning Brew Review

Jackelin Reyna/Houston Zoo

This munchkin is one of the three hatchlings fathered by a radiated tortoise named Mr. Pickles, who, at 90 years old, became a dad for the first time this week in Houston.

That Mr. Pickles and Mrs. Pickles (53) had little turtle babies at all surprised Houston Zoo officials because the radiated tortoise is a critically endangered species that rarely reproduces. Plus, did we mention that Mr. Pickles is 90?

The hatchlings are named Dill, Gherkin, and Jalapeño. It’s not clear which one is shown in this photo, but that sure looks like a Gherkin.

We’re always looking for stories that might interest our readers. If you come across something so interesting that it cries out to be shared, please send it to editor@enviropolitics.com If we agree, you’ll see it here soon.

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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.

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#BILLYPENNGRAM Mar. 24, 2023

#BILLYPENNGRAM OF THE DAY
“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.

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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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