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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Enviros fault Army Corps plan to protect NJ’s back bays from rising seas

Groups say nature-based measures should be a bigger part of massive plan to protect communities

Flooding Ocean City 

Jon Hurdle reports for NJ Spotlight

 

 

 

 

 

Environmental groups faulted some of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ latest ideas for defending New Jersey’s back bays from the devastation of sea-level rise and the bigger storms that are expected to come with climate change.

In March, the Corps proposed measures including sea walls and storm-surge barriers, as well as nature-based programs like building up coastal marshes, as ways of keeping ocean waters out of vulnerable back-bay communities.

The handily titled New Jersey Back Bays Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study Interim Report invited but did not publish reactions from stakeholders including municipalities, other government agencies, and environmental groups. New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection is cooperating in the project and sharing the cost with the Corps.

The comments, obtained from some of the groups individually, welcomed the investigation into ways of protecting the back bays from rising waters but said the plan missed the mark in some important respects.

Crucial role of coastal marshes

The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey, for example, said the proposals did not give enough weight to nature-based measures — called ‘NNBF’ — such as coastal marshes and living shorelines that play a crucial role in absorbing storm surge.

“We were disappointed that NNBF has not been fully integrated into the flood-risk management alternatives,” the conservancy wrote. “We strongly urge the USACE to more comprehensively utilize NNBF as a flood-risk management strategy along the NJ coastline.”

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It offered its own research into which coastal habitats are already helping to mitigate sea-level rise; said it was ready to identify which salt marshes in Ocean, Atlantic and Cape May counties would benefit from an increase in sediment, and proposed to share its ideas on building different kinds of living shorelines to defend different parts of the Jersey Shore.

Credit: USACE
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Flood barriers like sea walls “may provide a false sense of security” because they encourage new development and increasing population in low-lying areas, and may distract from the need to encourage people to move away from flood-prone areas, the conservancy said.

While some man-made infrastructure will likely be needed to protect the back bays, features like storm-surge barriers could hurt natural resources, and that isn’t fully recognized by the corps’ report, said Patty Doerr, director of the Conservancy’s coastal and marine program in New Jersey.

She said conservancy scientists have found that salt marshes, for example, play an important role in protecting the coast from storms, including Superstorm Sandy in 2012 when coastal marshes reduced property damage by $450 million, according to a study by the Conservancy and others.

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With more NJ towns banning plastic grocery bags, will state lawmakers join the parade?

With many New Jersey municipalities already having passed ordinances to reduce the use of plastic bags, straws, and Styrofoam containers, move is on for a statewide policy

Plastic bag resized

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight

New Jersey is inching toward another run at banning single-use plastic bags, and paper bags may get caught up in the prohibition this time around.

The ban is attracting increasing support among residents, businesses and even municipal governments since Gov. Phil Murphy last summer vetoed a bill banning plastic bags while imposing a nickel fee on paper bags. (The governor vetoed it because he said he wanted a stronger version.)

Since then, more than 50 New Jersey municipalities have passed ordinances toreduce the use of plastic bags, straws, balloons, and Styrofoam containers. Other states have followed suit. Maine banned polystyrene containers. New York prohibited single-use plastic bags in March.

Advocates are hoping the spread of locally-adopted bans will pressure New Jersey lawmakers to move forward with legislation (S-2776) that is bogged down in a Senate committee. With a patchwork of different, local bans, even those who oppose such ordinances would rather embrace a uniform statewide policy as the bill does.

Sen. Bob Smith, the chairman of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee and sponsor of the statewide ban, welcomed the action by local governments. “The towns have been the leaders on this,’’ he said. “Their effort has put us in a better position to pass this.’’

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Judge orders Jersey City to pay Kushner firm $96K after city loses records dispute

By Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal

JERSEY CITY — A Hudson County Superior Court judge last week ordered Jersey City to pay $95,850 to lawyers for Kushner Companies after the developers won a records dispute with the city in December.

The ruling is another setback for the city in its battle with Kushner Companies, the real estate firm run by the family of President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The two sides are clashing over the developers’ stalled One Journal Square project, a two-tower plan set for a long-vacant site near the Journal Square PATH station and transit hub.

Judge Francis B. Schultz said in his five-page order that the Kushner firm’s lawyers spent “a great deal of time” preparing for the case. The award represents 192 hours — 140 hours more than the city believed was reasonable — at $500 per hour.

“The court cannot find any item of time that is obviously excessive or unreasonable,” Schultz said in the April 29 order.

The firm and its partner, KABR Group, have a separate action pending in federal court, where they claim the city is blocking One Journal Square because of Fulop’s animus toward Trump, a claim Fulop, a Democrat, has denied. Fulop said last year he will not support a long-term tax abatement for the project, a decision that would deny the developers millions in city subsidies. The city has also said the developers are in breach of their redevelopment agreement with the city because construction on the project has not started yet.

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A man faked his death. His ex-wife faked his funeral. Then their son found him alive.

Editor’s Note: We admit this story is neither environmental nor political, but it’s such a good read we wanted to share it.

By Meagan Flynn inThe Washington Post

The body was found in the bushes along a dirt road in a rural town in Moldova on the morning of Oct. 1, 2011, and within a matter of hours, Irina Vorotinov’s phone was ringing halfway across the world.

From her home in Maple Grove, Minnesota, she shared the dreadful news with her two grown sons: The body belonged to their father, Igor Vorotinov.

The circumstances were strange. The well-dressed dead man didn’t appear to be beaten or shot, at least as far as the one investigating police officer could tell, but his body was already decomposing. Enlisting the help of his son, the police officer promptly brought the body to a state morgue, an old dilapidated building without refrigeration or air conditioning, whose single green door was reachable only by a dirt path. There, the medical examiner determined that the man found in the bushes had died of a heart attack. He was carrying Igor Vorotinov’s passport, among other identifying documents.

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Irina Vorotinov hopped on a plane. She arrived in the village of Cojusna and, accompanied by a U.S. Embassy representative, traveled to the morgue to confirm that the dead man really was Igor Vorotinov, her ex-husband. She told authorities it was, electing to cremate his remains in Ukraine before returning home with the ashes in an urn.

On Nov. 4, 2011, she arranged his funeral at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, attended “widely” by the local Russian community who knew Igor well, according to federal prosecutors.

But before long, Igor’s oldest son, Alkon, was about to discover a $2 million secret.

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Top N.J. powerbroker accuses Murphy of ‘political retribution’ with his probe into corporate tax breaks

George E. Norcross III, whose business interests have come under fire by a task force investigating the state Economic Development Authority. Attorneys for several entities tied to Norcross struck back on Monday. (file photo)
George E. Norcross III, whose business interests have come under fire by a task force investigating the state Economic Development Authority. Attorneys for several entities tied to Norcross struck back on Monday. (file photo)

By Matt Arco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com and Ted Sherman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The state’s ongoing probe into the New Jersey Economic Development Authority is a “one-sided investigation” that “smacks of political retribution.”

Attorneys for several entities tied to Camden power broker George E. Norcross III are charging that Gov. Phil Murphy overstepped his legal power when he created a task force to investigate companies that benefitted from the state’s controversial tax incentives.

In a letter Monday to the task force, attorneys representing Connor, Strong & Buckelew; Cooper University Health Care; Parker McCay, and Brown & Connery objected “to the unlawful process you are conducting,” and also said the task force had imposed arbitrary restrictions on their rights to respond to false accusations.

In addition, they asserted that the task force lacked statutory authority over the Economic Development Authority, which they said was not subject to the governor’s oversight powers.

They also demanded an opportunity to submit a public presentation to the task force at its next scheduled hearing. The letter was signed by four of the state’s top criminal defense attorneys on behalf of the companies, which were all associated with Norcross.

“We reserve all rights to seek full remedies to the extent any of these false and defamatory accusations were directed at our clients,” their letter said.

In a statement, Ronald Chen, chairman of the task force, responded, “The governor has full constitutional and statutory authority to investigate any entity within the executive branch, including the EDA, either by himself or through a delegate. If anyone wishes to challenge that authority, they should bring an appropriate action in court and we are ready to defend it vigorously.”

The letter marked the latest salvo in a growing political battle between Murphy and those allied with Norcross over the EDA, since the governor created a task force to investigate the besieged agency.

The task force was formed by Murphy earlier this year came after a highly critical audit by the state comptroller in January, which criticized the EDA’s management of a program that has given out tax credit incentivesworth $11 billion since its inception.

The comptroller concluded that the state agency, which is responsible for spearheading New Jersey’s economic development efforts, may have “improperly awarded, miscalculated, overstate and overpaid” tax credits to a number of companies that it could not verify had created the jobs that were promised. It also said the EDA could not evaluate whether its inventive programs generated any economic benefits to the state, and had certified projects and released tax credits even when projects did not meet the requirements, in violation of the law.

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