NJ proposes nation’s toughest standard for two PFAS chemicals in drinking water

Laura McCrystal and Justine McDaniel report for Philly.com

New Jersey unveiled a proposal Monday for a drinking water standard for two PFAS chemicals, moving to establish limits that would be among the most stringent in the country and could force at least 40 public systems to clean up their water.

The proposed standards, released in the state register, are much tougher than current federal advisories for the chemicals. New Jersey is among the states moving most quickly to address the problem, which has affected drinking water systems nationwide.

The Department of Environmental Protection proposed drinking water limits of 14 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and 13 ppt for PFOS, two types of per- and polyfluouralkyl substances known as PFAS. Such standards, known as maximum contaminant levels, set a legally binding limit for the amount of a substance that is permitted in drinking water systems.

Some states have moved to make their own levels for PFAS as they criticize the Environmental Protection Agency for moving too slowly. The EPA’s current health advisory is 70 ppt for PFOS and PFOA combined, and it is not enforceable.

For New Jersey residents, Monday’s proposal is a long-awaited response to a contamination crisis that has affected areas surrounding manufacturing facilities and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

The regulation would put 39 public water systems over the limit for PFOA and 19 for PFOS, according to the state’s proposal, increasing the number of public wells considered contaminated and requiring new cleanup projects. Of those, 11 systems are already addressing PFOA contamination and four are working on PFOS.

“New Jersey is leading the way in addressing an issue of national importance by setting the first drinking water standards in the nation to protect the public from the health risks of these chemicals,” said DEP Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe. “We will continue to take strong actions to protect the health of our residents and the quality of our drinking water supplies.”

New Jersey’s is currently the lowest binding standard formally proposed, but whether the limits become the first or lowest in the nation depends on how quickly other states move. New York is “on target” to adopt limits of 10 ppt for each of the two chemicals, according to the state health department. Vermont has begun the formal process for limits at 20 ppt.

California already recommends drinking wells be shut off if above 14 ppt in PFOA or 13 ppt in PFOS, but the levels aren’t legally enforceable.

In Pennsylvania, towns in Bucks and Montgomery Counties have drinking water supplies tainted by PFAS, which are linked to health problems including cancer. Pennsylvania officials have said they will launch their own process for setting maximum contaminant levels for PFOS and PFOA, and will hire a toxicologist and other personnel to review research and conduct in-house testing, said Neil Shader, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

New Jersey’s standards were recommended by the state’s Drinking Water Quality Institute in 2017. The DEP accepted them, meaning it would move forward with creating the standards — but residents have waited for further action.

The process will still take months. The DEP will hold a public hearing next month and accept public comments until the end of May, and then must make a draft document before the new rules can be reviewed and adopted.

Thee rule, once enacted, would require public water systems to test quarterly for the contaminants. Private well testing would be required as part of real estate transactions and on rental properties.

New Jersey officials took action against companies last week for PFAS contamination, filing lawsuits over cleanup against DuPont, 3M, and Chemours, a DuPont spin-off company. The state also issued an order for those three companies as well as a fourth, Solvay, to pay for cleanup.

In September, New Jersey became the first state to create a binding standard for another type of perfluorinated compound, PFNA, setting a drinking water limit of 13 ppt. The state announced interim groundwater standards for PFOA and PFOS last month.

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NY blazes the trail with a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. Will NJ follow?

Scott Fallon reports for North Jersey News

New Jersey’s efforts to ban plastic bags, straws and foam food containers has remained in legislative limbo for six months, with no action in Trenton on a bill championed by supporters as the strongest set of plastic regulations in the nation. 

Now environmentalists hope New York’s adoption this week of a ban on thin supermarket bags will help reinvigorate efforts in New Jersey to do away with products that make up a sizeable portion of pollution found in every corner of the Garden State.  

New York’s ban “takes away the idea that New Jersey would be the guinea pig for plastic bans on the East Coast,” said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey. “We’re not California but there’s a lot of DNA we share with New York. If they can do, so can we.”

New York will become the third state after California and Hawaii to institute a ban of single-use plastic bags under an agreement made by lawmakers in the state budget approved Monday. The ban takes effect in March 2020.

And while the lack of progress in New Jersey has disappointed supporters, they say New York’s ban is still critical to help reduce pollution in New Jersey because plastic bags easily travel between the two via wind and shared waterways like the Hudson River and New York Harbor. 

Surrounded on three sides by water and sandwiched between New York and Philadelphia, New Jersey has been inundated with plastic pollution. 

Plastics have made up the vast majority of trash collected each year from New Jersey’s beaches by the advocacy group Clean Ocean Action. A 2016 report by NY/NJ Baykeeper estimated that about 165 million pieces of plastic float at any one time from Sandy Hook to the Tappan Zee Bridge along with several other waterways that make up the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary.

With more than a dozen New Jersey municipalities passing bans in recent years, the push for a statewide measure appeared to gain momentum last summer. 

First, Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed a bill that would require a 5-cent fee on grocery store bags, signaling that he supported stronger measures. A month later, a bill — S2776 — that would ban bags, straws and polystyrene containers was approved by a Senate environment committee.

Since then, there has been little movement in a legislature that has tackled large-scale issues like the minimum wage, recreational marijuana, medically-assisted suicide and now the state budget.

The plastic bill’s primary sponsor, Senator Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, said last summer that he expected the full legislature to take up the measure before the end of 2018. That did not happen.

The bill was sent in September to the Senate Appropriations Committee but no hearing has been held. An identical bill was introduced in the Assembly in July, but there has been no movement.

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Utilities waking up to the potential profits in EV charging stations

BY JAMES BRUGGERS reports for Today’s Climate

Electric vehicle, charging. Credit: Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images
Electric vehicle sales are growing, and so is demand for charging infrastructure. Automakers, cities and businesses have started providing it. Now electric utilities are getting in on the revenue opportunity. Credit: Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images

With electric vehicle sales climbing, utilities are investing in thousands of new EV charging stations, recognizing that if they don’t move now, they could lose out on a growing and increasingly competitive market.

The latest example is Duke Energy, which this week proposed a $76 million program in North Carolina that it described as the largest investment in electric vehicle infrastructure among utilities in the Southeast.

“This is definitely part of a broader movement in the electricity sector to electric transportation,” said Noah Garcia, a transportation energy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “They are seeing the opportunity is ripe now as the technology has matured.”

Utilities also see selling power to motorists “as a way to shield or insulate them from other shifts in power sectors,” Garcia said. It could help them make up for some sales losses as increases in energy efficiency and private rooftop solar, for example, cut into growth in traditional electricity demand.

A lack of charging stations has been an impediment to electric vehicle sales in many parts of the country, but that landscape is starting to change.

States have started requiring power companies to add charging stations. Some utilities are moving on their own to fill the gap. And a variety of companies, as well as local governments and communities, are putting in their own charging stations.

Tesla, which is currently selling the most electric vehicles in the United States, has chargers at hundreds of locations in the United States and 1,400 globally, and other automakers are also getting in the game.

Automakers like Telsa began installing charging stations as their electric vehicle sales rose. Lack of charging infrastructure was an early impediment to sales in many areas, but that landscape is changing. Credit: Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Automakers like Telsa began installing charging stations as their electric vehicle sales rose. Lack of charging infrastructure was an early impediment to sales in many areas, but that landscape is changing. Credit: Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Electrify America, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, has expansive plans stemming from the legal settlement over its diesel emissions cheating scandal. It’s investing $2 billion over 10 years in electric vehicle infrastructure and education, including putting in fast-charging stations that can add 20 miles per minute in 39 states, and chargers in 17 major metro areas. Volkswagen is separately funding charging stations in dozens of states through an environmental mitigation trust set up under the settlement.

California, Oregon and, most recently, New Mexico, have passed legislation requiring utilities to submit investment proposals to their regulators to accelerate transportation electrification, Garcia said. New Jersey and Illinois are actively pursuing similar legislation, he said.

There is a clear incentive for the utilities to start providing charging infrastructure sooner rather than later, said Brett Smith, an auto industry researcher at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“If the independent companies are in all the prime spots,” he said, “what is left for the utilities?”

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Fail to hold an advertised public meeting? This could result


Howard D. Geneslaw, an attorney with the Gibbons law firm, sent this notice today.

A recent decision by New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department, serves as a reminder of the importance of promptly filing administrative determinations, holding required duly noticed public hearings, and the consequences of failing to do so.

In Corrales v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the Village of Dobbs Ferry, Livingston Development Group in November 2012 submitted an application for the development of twelve condominiums. The Building Department forwarded the application to the Planning Board, which conducted a public hearing after which it recommended approval subject to certain conditions. The Village Board of Trustees, which retained site plan approval authority, granted site plan approval conditioned on, among other things, the applicant obtaining approval from the Architectural and Historic Review Board (the “AHRB”).

Thereafter, the applicant applied to the AHRB, which denied its application. The applicant appealed the denial to the Zoning Board of Appeals (“ZBA”). While that appeal was pending, neighbors – one of whom did not receive notice of the Planning Board’s earlier public hearing – asserted that the proposed condominium use was not permitted in the zoning district. The neighbors’ attorney also raised this issue at a subsequent meeting of the AHRB, during which the assistant building inspector gave the opinion that the proposed use complied with applicable zoning regulations.

The neighbors, viewing the assistant building inspector’s oral opinion as an official “determination,” filed an appeal with the ZBA. It ruled that in forwarding to the Planning Board…Click Here to View Full Blog Post

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Who’s next to ban single-use plastic bags? Maybe Massachusetts or Vermont

Cody Ellis reports for WasteDive

  • As legislative sessions across the U.S. continue, several states are making moves toward banning single-use plastic bags and charging for replacement options. In Washington, for example, SB 5323 passed the state Senate and is in committee in the House of Representatives. An environmental committee already evaluated the bill favorably and recommended its passage.
  • Last week, the Vermont Senate advanced a bill (S.113) that would prohibit single-use plastic bags and expanded polystyrene foam, mandate a fee for paper bags and require vendors to only give out single-use plastic straws on request. Gov. Phil Scott is “not opposed” to the plastic bag ban, according to VT Digger.
  • In Massachusetts, a bill (H.771) that would ban single-use carryout bags and charge for replacement options was the subject of an April 2 hearing. At least 90 communities in Massachusetts, including Boston, already have some sort of restrictions on bags.

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Shell quits trade group over climate position

But the oil giant stayed in the American Petroleum Institute despite “some misalignment.”

By Steven Mufson

Steven Mufson reports on climate change for the Washington Post

Citing differences over climate change, Royal Dutch Shell has pulled out of an industry trade group called the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

Shell said that it was at odds with the refining and petrochemical group on the Paris climate agreement, carbon pricing, fuel mandates and the reduction of methane emissions.

But Shell decided to keep its membership in the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and seven other trade associations, despite what Shell called “some misalignment” between its views on climate policy and theirs. The company said it would try to change the positions of those groups.

Shell’s decision to break with one influential trade association while justifying its decision to stick with others comes as shareholders and activists have ramped up pressure on major energy companies to lay out their approach to tackling climate change.

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