EnviroPolitics Blog

New Jersey targets Monsanto in latest natural resource damage environmental lawsuit

*File photo: Men in protective clothing work at a Superfund site in Camden.*

By Jon Hurdle, NJ Spotlight

New Jersey filed its latest lawsuit seeking compensation for alleged damages to the environment, this time claiming that Monsanto and two former affiliates produced toxic PCBs that leaked into the state’s air and water over almost 50 years.

The lawsuit says the companies caused “significant, long-term damage” to the state’s waterways and groundwater, as well as to soil, air, and wildlife by allowing and encouraging disposal of the chemicals that they knew to be hazardous at Monsanto’s plant beside the Delaware River in Bridgeport, Gloucester County.

The companies advised their customers to dispose of PCB waste directly into sewers and to vent the chemical vapors into the atmosphere despite knowing that the actions would cause environmental contamination and expose residents to substances that are linked to health complaints, including liver damage, respiratory infections, and some cancers, the suit said.

“PCB contamination has harmed natural resources and threatened the health of humans and wildlife in every corner of New Jersey, from remote rural areas to suburban neighborhoods, to our cities,” said acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin, in a statement last week.

First of its kind

It’s the state’s first suit alleging that PCBs damaged the natural environment.

The Murphy administration has now filed 19 “natural resource damage” lawsuits against industrial polluters, alleging long-term damage to the environment and public health and seeking a court order for the companies to pay for the investigation and cleanup. None of the lawsuits has so far been resolved, according to the attorney general’s office.

In 2019, the state sued Sherwin-Williams claiming it discharged waste products from manufacturing paints, lacquers, and varnishes into a Camden County creek. Contamination at this location, along with lead and arsenic, also led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to designate it a Federal Superfund site in 2008. It became one of New Jersey’s 114 Superfund sites, the most of any state.

Also in 2019, the state sued Handy & Harman Electronic Materials Corp. for allegedly discharging hazardous materials including TCE (trichloroethylene), a degreasing chemical, into groundwater near its factory in Bergen County in the 1980s.

Tougher than Christie

Overall, the actions signal that the Murphy administration is taking a more aggressive stance against corporate polluters than its predecessor, the Christie administration, which filed no such suits.

Jeff Tittel, former director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, welcomed this latest lawsuit but said the state would have a better chance of winning such legal challenges if the state Department of Environmental Protection had a regulatory framework that addressed corporate responsibility for damage to natural resources.

“The DEP has never developed rules and standards for natural resource damages,” he said. “Not having clear standards in place hinders our ability to prosecute these cases to the extent that we need to.” The absence of such regulations also limits the amount of money that the state can seek in damages and makes settlements more likely, he said.

“The AG is taking the right approach by suing; the DEP has a lot of work to do to move these things along,” Tittel said.

That criticism was echoed by the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, which said the DEP has failed to comply with a 2004 agreement between the attorney general’s office and plaintiffs, including the council, to develop regulations on natural resource damages and to stop filing those cases until such regulations are published.

Read the full story here

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New Jersey targets Monsanto in latest natural resource damage environmental lawsuit Read More »

How we can afford to build protections against rising sea levels along the U.S. coast

Nearly one trillion dollars of US real estate is threatened by rising seas, and the risk is already affecting home values

By Frank Brill, EnviroPolitics Editor

It’s inescapable: Global warming is real. It is triggering unprecedented droughts and raging forest fires in the west, punishing floods in farm states, and rising ocean levels along our east coast.

*Taxi parking lot in Hoboken, NJ hit by Superstorm Sandy*

Global warming cannot be denied, except by political idealogues, conspiracy theory spreaders, and self-serving fossil-fuel corporations. It’s getting worse by the day and the projected costs to deal with it are staggering.

Mike Italiano helped create the U.S. Green Building Council and its LEED building standards that are rewarding forward-looking companies with higher building occupancy and lower operating costs

*Mike Italiano, CEO, Capital Markets Partnership*

We will sit down with Mike next week for a video interview to learn about his team’s funding plan–one, he says, that would not involve tax-payer contributions.

Too good to be true? We recommend that you watch the interview, take notes, and submit your follow-up questions for Mike’s response.

How we can afford to build protections against rising sea levels along the U.S. coast Read More »

It’s 101 in Trenton today but the political temps could rise even higher at this upcoming hearing

By Frank Brill, EnviroPolitics Editor

The Senate and Assembly environmental committees will meet jointly in Toms River next Thursday on bills to prohibit state pension fund investments in the nation’s largest 200 fossil fuel companies.

It’s 101 in Trenton today but the political temps could rise even higher at this upcoming hearing Read More »

Unlikely pair oppose NJ gas pipeline expansion

But utilities say they need additional supply to meet growing customer demand

By Tom Johnson, NJ Spotlight

In a rare alliance, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and the state Division of Rate Counsel are jointly fighting the expansion of an interstate natural gas pipeline by arguing consumers should not have to pay for the unneeded gas capacity that would be provided by the project.

In a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the two state agencies contend that a study adopted by the BPU earlier this summer found that New Jersey is unlikely to experience shortages in natural gas through the end of this decade.

That conclusion is contested by the state’s four gas utilities, all of which have agreed to purchase additional gas capacity for the 2024 winter heating season. Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company (Transco) designed this project to increase the capacity of its existing pipeline system by 829,000 dekatherms per day in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland.

Feuding over fossil fuel

The dispute is meaningful because it comes at a time when climate advocates have been pressing the Murphy administration to impose a moratorium on new fossil-fuel projects, a stance so far rejected by officials.

“This is a historic moment for the BPU and Rate Counsel to acknowledge the obvious. We do not need more fracked gas in New Jersey,’’ said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey.

NJ natural-gas supply adequate through 2030, a new analysis indicates

“What’s significant is the BPU is taking a step toward looking at the broader issues and whether this project is needed,’’ said Tom Gilbert, an executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. “It is a huge change in their operating procedures.’’

In the past, Gilbert’s organization and the Rate Counsel had opposed a controversial 120-mile pipeline in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that would have crossed waterways and open spaces on this side of the Delaware River. The New Jersey portion of the so-called PennEast project was eventually dropped because of repeated delays.

Read the full story

If you liked this post you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.

Unlikely pair oppose NJ gas pipeline expansion Read More »

‘Corn sweat’ is making the air in the Midwest oppressively muggy

*Fog lingers on fields of corn and soybean in the community of Lyles Station in Princeton, Ind., in 2016. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)*

By Barb Mayes Bousteads, Washington Post

During summer, the Midwest can experience some of the most oppressive humidity in the country. Fields in Iowa can be muggier than beaches in Miami. The culprit? Billions of stalks of corn.

Akin to a person breathing, plants exhale water into the atmosphere through a process called evapotranspiration. Some call it “corn sweat.”

10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint

In the Midwest and northern Plains, corn and soybean crops draw moisture from the ground through their roots into their leaves, stems, and fruits. The water evaporates into the surrounding air through their leaves, joining forces with neighboring water molecules to humidify the air.

This extra humidity is making the heat wave centered over the middle of the Lower 48 states even more oppressive.

Densely planted across millions of acres, corn can bring a-maizing levels of humidity during the middle of summer. One acre of corn can release 4,000 gallons of water per day, enough to fill a residential swimming pool in less than a week.

Read the full story

‘Corn sweat’ is making the air in the Midwest oppressively muggy Read More »

Could Murphy nominee bypass senatorial roadblock to Supreme Court confirmation?

Eleven new state judges approved. Dozens more vacancies remain. Chief justice calls for swift action to fill judicial vacancies

By COLLEEN O’DEA, SENIOR WRITER AND PROJECTS EDITOR, NJ Spotlight

Jeralyn L. Lawrence, president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, says the number of judicial vacancies is “mind-boggling.”

The existence of three open seats on the New Jersey Supreme Court less than a month before it begins its new term is both “historic” and “catastrophic,” the president of the New Jersey State Bar Association said, urging Gov. Phil Murphy and senators to quickly confirm nominees for those seats and to fill another 63 openings on the state courts.

‘It’s mind-boggling. It’s catastrophic. It’s unheard of. It’s historic.’ — Jeralyn L. Lawrence, New Jersey State Bar Association.

“It’s mind-boggling. It’s catastrophic. It’s unheard of. It’s historic,” said Jeralyn L. Lawrence, the bar association president. “Here we sit, less than a month away from the next session, and we have a Supreme Court that’s forty-three percent vacant. Can you imagine any profession operating with a forty-three percent vacancy?”

Echoing comments by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, superior court judges, and the administrator of the state courts, Lawrence said that people are suffering.

“Access to justice is compromised,” Lawrence said. “Real people, families, children are being harmed. And we’ve been talking about this for months. Our judiciary is not functioning properly, and the governor and the Legislature are not acting swiftly enough to fix the problem.”

Criminal cases have been delayed, keeping some defendants in jail without bail for longer than the five-year-old criminal justice reform envisioned. Most personal injury cases are postponed indefinitely. Divorce trials are also on hold in most counties.