EnviroPolitics Blog

Gateway railroad tunnel plan gets ‘medium-high’ FTA rating, one step closer to funding and construction

By Colleen Wilson NorthJersey.com

The project aimed at improving the decrepit, century-old tunnels that shuttle commuters back and forth under the Hudson River has been upgraded to a “medium-high” priority by the Federal Transit Administration.

This new ranking makes the $12.3 billion projects eligible for federal funding in the Capital Investment Grants program and is the first of many steps needed to get this long-awaited and mammoth project off the ground. It was previously ranked “medium-low” by former President Donald Trump’s administration.

Feds clear the way for the Gateway Tunnel project to get billions …

“Well-planned, large public transportation projects can transform lives and entire regions by reducing commute times, increasing safety, opening economic opportunities, reducing emissions, and making travel more affordable,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement announcing the change. “The Hudson Tunnel Project will enable a safe, comfortable commute for hundreds of thousands of Americans currently traveling through a tunnel that was built more than 110 years ago.”

The project partners, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, NJ Transit, Amtrak, New York and New Jersey, according to the FTA announcement, “must complete several CIG program requirements before the project is eligible to advance into the next phase of the CIG process, which is entry into Engineering.”

Five other projects received new or updated ratings along with the Hudson tunnel proposal.

“The day many commuters never thought they’d ever see is finally coming,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. “We are closer than ever to securing a fairly and fully funded Gateway Program and beginning the work of delivering the safe and modern infrastructure our people and economy deserve.”

A lengthy process

During former President Barack Obama’s administration, the Gateway project was developed to replace the ARC plan vetoed by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in 2010.

Gateway is a collection of more than $30 billion in projects to expand and improve rail capacity under the Hudson River and through New York Penn Station and to upgrade the most trafficked and troublesome portion of the Northeast Corridor. The first phase would rehabilitate the 112-year-old tunnels rapidly deteriorating from Superstorm Sandy and build two new tunnels to increase the number of trains that can enter and exit Penn Station. Amtrak and NJ Transit trains use the tunnels

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Scaramucci’s Car Stolen In Paramus, Recovered In Newark

FILE- In this July, 21, 2017, file photo, New White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci speaks to members of the media in the Brady Press Briefing room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

By Michelle Rotuno-Johnson, Patch Staff

PARAMUS, NJ — After an unknown thief took former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci’s car in Paramus, law enforcement in Newark were able to track it down.

The SUV had been unlocked, and the thief took it from a Ridgewood Avenue residence Sunday by using a key fob, police told NorthJersey.com.

Police located the Mercedes Benz with the New York license plate “MRSMOOCH” by tracking a GPS unit inside the vehicle, according to NJ.com.

Scaramucci indicated it was his wife’s car in a tweet he sent Saturday.

“Shout out to (Newark public safety director) Brian O’Hara and his team,” Scaramucci wrote. “You guys were incredible #grateful”

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Saving the manatees — rescue by rescue, rehab by rehab

Florida is scrambling to prevent another horrific year of starvation deaths among the beloved mammals

Maggie Mariolis chaperones Corleone as the manatee is transported to Florida’s Blue Spring State Park after being restored to health at the SeaWorld Rescue Center in Orlando. (Zack Wittman for The Washington Post)

By Lori Rozsa Washington Post

ORLANDO — On an unusually cold winter morning in central Florida, Corleone the manatee was awakened before dawn by wetsuited workers who slipped into his pool at SeaWorld and wrapped him in a long vinyl sling.

A crane slowly hoisted him out of the water and carefully lowered him to the rear door of an empty box truck, where other staff pushed, pulled, and slid their “manatee burrito” inside. Two hopped in to keep Corleone company on his latest journey.

“He’s very chill. He’s such a good traveler,” rescue specialist Maggie Mariolis said. “He should be because he’s done a lot of it lately.”

Mariolis was part of the team that in mid-November brought Corleone some 310 miles from Hilton Head, S.C., where he’d gotten stuck in a canal near a golf course, far from his winter feeding grounds in Florida and at risk of succumbing to cold stress. Ensuring his survival was part of an increasingly urgent effort to save the manatee population, which has been dying off at alarming speeds in the past 14 months, especially along Florida’s Atlantic coast.

Last year alone, 1,110 manatees died — about 15 percent of the total population in a state where they are beloved. Most perished from starvation because the seagrass beds on which they feed have been destroyed by pollutants and toxic algae bloom worsened by climate change.

*A crew places Corleone in a vinyl sling so he can be lifted out of the pool at the SeaWorld Rescue Center, his home since mid-November. (Zack Wittman for The Washington Post)*

The wildlife officials and biologists trying to minimize further losses recently took the unprecedented step of setting out fresh heads of romaine and Bibb lettuce daily for hungry manatees gathering in the warmer outflow waters of a power plant near Cape Canaveral. The experiment made little progress initially, with many people fearing the animals could be in for another brutal winter. “Carcass removal” is now a state priority, one official acknowledged.

But within the past week, some three dozen sea cows were observed munching on the lettuce. Wildlife officials said the animals ate 450 pounds of produce in a day.

“It looks like that’s starting to have some success now,” said Patrick Rose, executive director of the Save the Manatee Club, who visited the site Thursday. “I’m very optimistic.”

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Wildfire Burning Near Big Sur Prompts Evacuations

By Kat Schuster, Patch staff

The Colorado Fire burns along Highway 1 near Big Sur, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. (Nic Coury/AP Photo)
BIG SUR, CA — A wildfire fire that ignited Friday evening in the Big Sur area was still raging on Saturday morning, scorching 1,500 acres, Cal Fire reported.

The blaze was dubbed the Colorado Fire and was just 5 percent contained as of Saturday morning, fire officials said.

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Residents of the north coast of Big Sur were told to evacuate on Friday as the fire in the Palo Colorado canyon quickly swelled to more than 250 acres just a few hours after the fire started.

Officials shut down Highway 1 in both directions from Andrew Molera State Park to Carmel-By-The-Sea, according to local reports. The American Red Cross was setting up a shelter at a middle school.

A wind advisory had been issued in the Bay Area for Friday night through Saturday morning, though meteorologists said strong winds were most likely in higher elevations, according to the National Weather Service.

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The Philly Pols’ Hall of Shame

Add City Councilperson Bobby Henon to the inglorious list

By John Duchneskie Philadelphia Inquirer

There’s a newly vacant seat in City Council — specifically one in Northeast Philly, where the disgraced Bobby Henon sat for three terms.

Henon, who alongside former labor leader John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty was convicted on federal bribery charges in November, resigned yesterday, a month before his sentencing. Henon joins a long list of Philly politicos who were involved in corruption cases and were convicted or pleaded guilty or no contest.

Remember former District Attorney Seth Williams?
What about former State Sen. Vince Fumo?
And if you’re looking for a history lesson in Philly corruption, a personal favorite is the one and only James “Jimmy” Tayoun.

Check out more tales of Philly corruption.

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FERC’s admission of error comes too late for this Environmental Justice community

The Weymouth compressor station as seen from the Fore River Bridge on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020.

By Jessica Trufant The Patriot Ledger

WEYMOUTH, MA – While several members said regulators shouldn’t have approved the project to begin with, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says it won’t revoke authorization for the natural gas compressor station in Weymouth.

After reexamining operations and safety at the station following several accidental releases of natural gas, Richard Glick, the commission’s chairman, said regulators “should never have approved” the compressor on the banks of the Fore River, a “heavily populated area with two environmental justice communities and a higher-than-normal level of cancer and asthma due to heavy industrial activity.”

But Glick said the review and findings don’t justify revoking approval for the station, which the commission initially granted in January 2017. The compressor station is owned by Algonquin Gas Transmission, a subsidiary of Spectra Energy, which was later acquired by Enbridge.

“Going forward, the commission needs to pay attention to the impacts of its (decision) and I will push for the those changes,” he said. “I recognize that is cold comfort to the folks who live near the Weymouth compressor station.”

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