EnviroPolitics Blog

Daughter of Immigrants to Be 1st Black Woman on N.J. Supreme Court

Fabiana Pierre-Louis, 39, will also be the only Black judge currently seated on the state’s highest court

Fabiana Pierre-Louis and her sons at a June event announcing her nomination to the New Jersey Supreme Court.Credit…Pool photo by Chris Pedota

By Tracey Tully, New York Times

Fabiana Pierre-Louis, a daughter of Haitian immigrants, is on track to become the first Black woman to sit on New Jersey’s highest court, serving at a time when the state and the country remain deeply divided over racial and economic injustice.

Ms. Pierre-Louis, 39, will also be the only Black judge currently seated on the New Jersey Supreme Court and, as its youngest member, could serve for as many as three decades.

A former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Ms. Pierre-Louis was nominated by Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, to the post in June, as protesters across the nation, outraged by the death of George Floyd while in police custody, were demanding criminal justice reform.

The State Senate’s Democrat-led Judiciary Committee confirmed Ms. Pierre-Louis’s nomination on Monday at a hearing where lawmakers noted the groundbreaking nature of her appointment, as well as her potential to shape the court’s decisions for the next 30 years.

“I am very proud to vote for a new generation, a new balance on the Supreme Court,” said Senator Loretta Weinberg, the majority leader. The Senate is expected to approve the committee’s recommendation on Thursday.

Ms. Pierre-Louis, who grew up in working-class Irvington, N.J., said in an interview soon after her nomination that she was aware her background would play a role in the way she approached cases.

“Having a perspective and understanding of what it is like to live in Irvington, or other places,” she added, “it just informs how you experience many things in life.”

Ms. Pierre-Louis, a partner at a private law firm who lives with her husband and their two young sons in Mount Laurel, N.J., spoke Creole before she learned English.

She moved as a child from Brooklyn to Irvington, a northern New Jersey township just west of Newark, where her family bought a house. Her father owned and drove a cab, she said, and her mother transported patients at a New York City hospital.

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PFAS test at incinerator in Rahway, NJ scrapped following public outcry

Photo illustration by Brian Tucker/Waste Dive/Waste Dive

The New Jersey DEP expressed disappointment, while the U.S. EPA said it will continue partnering with states and local governments as it seeks ways to destroy the toxic chemicals.

By E.A. Crunden @eacrunden, WasteDive

A planned New Jersey study on how certain chemicals behave when incinerated has been scrapped following outcry from local community members. The study, focused on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), was set to take place this month in Rahway at the Union County Resource Recovery Facility operated by Covanta and would not have involved the actual incineration of PFAS.

The company had agreed to the test in collaboration with the U.S. EPA and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) as part of an effort to learn more about PFAS in the waste stream. But local groups were alerted about the test by Judith Enck, a former administrator for EPA’s Region 2 under the Obama administration. Enck said she had concerns about the plan, which would have seen the test take place near low-income, largely Black residents.

“Burning PFAS chemicals at municipal incinerators does not make sense,” she said. “[EPA] should be rapidly investigating non-incineration disposal technologies that will not put the public health or the environment at risk.”

Nicolle Robles, a spokesperson for Covanta, said the company was approached by EPA to partner on the study but the facility owner, Union County Utilities Authority, had not authorized it to go forward.

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Novelis, Nespresso launch recycled-content coffee capsule

The new coffee capsule features 80 percent recycled aluminum.

By Megan Smalley Recycling Today

Novelis Inc., a large aluminum rolling and recycling company based in Atlanta, has announced that it has partnered with Nespresso, Switzerland, to launch a coffee capsule made of 80 percent recycled aluminum. According to a news release from Nespresso, Novelis’ alloy has “deep-drawing properties” to meet the coffee capsule market’s need for demanding product specifications, and the alloy supports Nespresso’s continued circularity journey by minimizing waste and maximizing the reuse of product materials.

“This achievement is an important step in helping Nespresso reach its sustainability goals,” says Stephen Boney, vice president of Specialties at Novelis Europe. “We have a long-standing partnership with Nespresso that is focused on implementing more sustainable manufacturing processes throughout the supply chain. As such, we have increased the amount of recycled aluminum content in coffee capsules and developing additional end-of-life recycling solutions for greater circularity.”

Comprised of a thinner aluminum foil, the new capsules contain 9.2 percent less aluminum and are 8 percent lighter. The foil protects freshness and aromas of high-quality coffee and provides a strong barrier against oxygen, light and humidity. Nespresso reports that the foil is infinitely recyclable and requires less energy to produce than virgin aluminum.

Jérôme Pérez, Nespresso’s head of sustainability, says, “We are constantly challenging ourselves to improve the sustainability and circularity of our operations, including the way we source, use and recycle material. Reaching 80 percent recycled aluminum in our capsules is a significant milestone and something we have worked hard to achieve with Novelis and other partners along the value chain.”

In recent years, Novelis says it has developed many new alloys that are easily recyclable and invested in technologically advanced recycling facilities that have increased recycled product content from 33 percent to 60 percent across its global operations.

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Evacuations during California wildfires complicate troubled virtual asbestos trial

By John O’Brien, Legal Newsline

ALAMEDA, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Things aren’t smoothing out in the nation’s first attempt at virtual asbestos trials in Alameda County, Calif.

The county is attempting to run two trials on Zoom but has run into technical problems, juror inattention and even one plaintiff being left alone with jurors to have a friendly chat.

The latest problem? Fire. Last week, one of plaintiff Ronald Wilgenbusch’s lawyers, Will Ruiz of Maune Raichle, took a day off from the trial to evacuate his home because of the current California wildfires.

And this week, one juror told the court she had been evacuated from her home and couldn’t be present for the trial.

This comes after two other jurors were excused from the trial, which has survived three motions for mistrial already.

One excused juror said she was having coronavirus symptoms while the other had connection problems, even after the court sent an iPad to his home. Only two alternate jurors remain, and there will possibly be only one if the woman who had to evacuate her home can’t find a way to attend.

The Wilgenbusch trial started with online jury selection during which members of Fryer-Knowles’ defense team complained they were put on mute and unable to object. It also claimed one prospective juror was working out and another was possibly asleep.

When a jury was selected, the court then attempted in-person proceedings. However, a juror reported a fever, moving the trial online and prompting the second mistrial motion, this one from defendant Metalclad.

“(T)he Court has indicated that unless it receives some outside information from a higher authority compelling it to stop, the Court intends to compound the prejudice and move to a fully remote trial proceeding post haste… The Court’s plan to proceed with this trial is – and always has been – unfair and untenable,” Metalclad wrote.

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N.J. reports 346 new COVID-19 cases, pushing total above 190K. Rate of transmission falls for 4th day.

By Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

New Jersey health officials reported 346 new coronavirus cases Tuesday and five additional deaths as the rate of transmission dropped for the fourth consecutive day and remains below the key benchmark of 1, which indicates whether the outbreak declining.

The latest update brings the Garden State death toll to 15,953 with 14,124 confirmed and 1,829 probable fatalities — second highest in the United States. The total number of positive coronavirus tests climbed to 190,021, eighth in the nation.

The latest figures were announced on Twitter by Gov. Phil Murphy, hours after he delivered his revised fiscal year 2021 budget address at SHI Stadium at Rutgers in Piscataway.

New Jersey’s rate of transmission now stands at 0.83 after pushing over the key benchmark of 1 last week. The Department of Health reported the rate of transmission was 0.85 Monday, down from 0.90 on Sunday and 0.99 on Saturday. It was 1.04 on Friday and 1.06 on Thursday.

Any number above 1 means each newly infected person is spreading the virus to at least one other person, on average.

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In Pittsburgh, steel mill of past becomes today’s solar array

The largest solar array of its kind in the U.S. now sits atop a former Pittsburgh steel mill

By Kiley Koscinski/WESA

A 133,000-square-foot solar array is now functional at Hazelwood Green’s Mill 19. It’s a project that marries the story of Pittsburgh’s past with its future: bridge workers applied 4,784 solar panels to the frame of a former steel mill now home to robotics nonprofits and one of the several autonomous vehicle developers which call the city home.

Tim Sippey, the site foreman, used to pick his father up from a late shift at Mill 19 when he was growing up.

“I remember what the inside of that mill looked like when I was a little kid,” he said. Sippey’s father worked at the former LTV Coke Works site for 32 years.

He said the memories came flooding back when arrived for his first day at the job site.

“There’s a certain smell to the mill,” he said. “Even when they were digging down there, the dirt still smelled that way.” Sippey said he wore his father’s hard hat to work when crews began fitting and clamping panels into place in September.

Solar array in Illinois becomes a place honeybees can call home

The $5 million project was completed by Scalo Solar Solutions, which is also installing solar panels in the parking lots at Hazelwood Green. Mike Carnahan, the company’s vice president and general manager, said panels were preassembled and tested on the ground before a crane lifted them 85 feet in the air to the frame of the old mill.

Crew members then clamped the panels onto the frame of the 1943 building while standing on netting between the beams. Carnahan said the site looked like a giant jungle gym.

The roof is sloped at 20 degrees to capture as much sunlight as possible.

“It’s providing shade for the building and it’s producing all the energy that this facility is going to need,” said Carnahan.

Crews placed the final section of panels at the end of July. Wiring and testing have been completed, making the solar array fully functional. It’s the largest single sloped solar array in the United States.

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