Bill would protect NJ farmers with firewood-sale side gigs

TRENTON, N.J. – The Assembly Agriculture Committee approved legislation today sponsored by Assemblymen Parker Space and Hal Wirths protecting a farmers’ right to sell firewood.

“Farming has evolved through the years, and farmers have had to adapt to those changes by expanding their sources of income,” said Space (R-Sussex). “Penalizing farmers for selling firewood regardless of whether they grew the trees themselves is ludicrous. Now that enforcement officials are imposing lumberyard regulations on these family farms, we need to clarify that law.”

The measure (A157) amends the Right to Farm Act that regulates farm practices. It allows a farm or farm stand to sell firewood obtained from property other than the sellers without being considered a lumber yard under municipal zoning regulations.

“We should not be doing anything to make an already challenging job more difficult,” said Wirths (R-Sussex). “Farming is a vital industry for New Jersey which is why it’s known as the Garden State. It’s absurd that our hard-working farmers have to be concerned about receiving a citation for selling firewood on their farms.”

The bill was prompted by a Mount Olive farmer who received a zoning violation for selling wood obtained off-site. His family had been doing so for decades, but the town’s zoning officer determined it was a logging operation and lumberyard.

The Agriculture committee unanimously approved the legislation last session, but it never received a floor vote.


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This city of 15 million is sinking rapidly, maybe irreversibly



It’s the most populous city in Western Asia, and it’s sinking into the ground at an alarming rate.


Peter Dockrill reports for Science Alert:


Tehran, the capital of Iran and home to some 15 million people in total across its greater urban footprint, is a victim of dramatic subsidence, new research reveals, which is causing the region to sink by more than 25 centimeters (almost 10 inches) annually in some parts.

Using satellite data, researchers at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam analyzed the extent of subsidence in the Tehran region between 2003 and 2017.

Thanks to a technique called Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), which can detect extremely subtle changes in ground deformation over time, the team identified three distinct areas where the ground is sinking by more than 25 centimeters per year.

In areas of more moderate subsidence, like the land in the immediate vicinity of Tehran international airport, the sinking is still considerable, at about 5 centimeters annually.
What’s the cause of this widespread instability? A history of accelerated influx and the attendant overuse of natural resources.

“In recent decades, rapid population growth combined with urban and industrial development has increased the need for water supplies in the Tehran Plain,” the authors explain in their paper.

“As a result of extensive groundwater depletion, the plain has been undergoing rapid land subsidence.”

This subsidence in Tehran has been the focus of much prior research, but the latest data put the sinking in greater context.

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Regulators play ‘whack-a-mole’ with substitute chemicals

Manufacturers have responded to increasing regulation by introducing chemical alternatives that have not been fully vetted, scientists tell NJ Spotlight roundtable

Jon Hurdle reports for NJ Spotlight:

water quality test

New Jersey’s nation-leading efforts to protect the public from a class of toxic chemicals in drinking water are being threatened by the emergence of substitutes that may be just as hazardous to human health, experts argue.
At a public roundtable on PFAS chemicals, hosted by NJ Spotlight last Wednesday, scientists said chemical manufacturers have responded to increasing regulation of the chemicals by New Jersey and other states by introducing so-called short-chain alternatives, such as the chemical Gen-X, that serve the same purposes but have not been fully vetted by regulators.
Although the substitutes have not been subject to the same rigorous evaluation as the original chemicals, there are signs that they are equally toxic, according to the chairman of New Jersey’s Drinking Water Quality Institute, a scientific panel that advises the Department of Environmental Protection.
“Many times, these have not really been tested on rodents, they have not gone through a full toxicity screening,” said Dr. Keith Cooper, a Rutgers University toxicologist. “Some of the early studies that have been done on Gen-X, it seems to be extremely toxic as well,” Cooper told the meeting at Camden County Community College.

Keith Cooper

Rutgers University’s Dr. Keith Cooper
He said the short-chain compounds have similar mechanisms to long-chain PFAS chemicals such as PFOA and PFOS. “The toxicity may still be present even though they are only present for a shorter period of time,” Cooper said.


Not enough research

But because of a shortage of research on the new chemicals, scientists and regulators know “very little” about the shorter-chain PFASs, he said.
New Jersey regulators are in the process of placing some of the nation’s strictest limits on three of the longer-chain chemicals — PFNA, PFOA and PFOS — because of their links with illnesses including cancer, immune-system and thyroid problems, low infant birth weight, and elevated cholesterol.
As a class, PFAS chemicals have been used in consumer products like nonstick cookware and flame-retardant fabrics since about the 1940s. Even though PFOA and PFOS are no longer made in the United States because of an agreement between manufacturers, they are widespread in the environment because they are designed not to break down; they have been found more commonly in New Jersey water sources than in many other states.

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A possible solution to the challenge of regulating the new short-chain chemicals could be to regulate the whole PFAS class, said Anthony Matarazzo, senior director of water quality and environmental management at New Jersey American Water, the state’s biggest water utility.

‘…a lot of the same health effects’

Anthony Matarazzo, senior director for Water Quality and Environmental Management, New Jersey American Water
“Recognizing that PFOA and PFOS are being targeted, industry quickly changed to a short-chain replacement,” based on the belief that it would be eliminated by the body faster, Matarazzo said. “But what they did find was that it has a lot of the same health effects as the legacy PFASs.”
Regulating the entire class rather than just individual chemicals would mean that scientists could avoid playing “whack-a-mole” to respond to new chemicals as they emerged, he argued.
In response to the new concerns, New Jersey American Water is cooperating with state officials to look at the substitute compounds at a couple of its locations, Matarazzo said.
Meanwhile, DEP officials are evaluating the DWQI’s recommendations on PFOA and PFOS but at a pace that clean-water advocates say is much too slow.
It took the DEP four years to adopt the DWQI’s recommendation for PFNA, which has set a national benchmark for regulating the chemical, said panelist Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the environmental group Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and a long-time advocate for tougher limits on the chemicals.

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Guess who won’t be the next U.S. Attorney General

Trump doesn’t plan to nominate Christie to be the country’s next attorney general. 

Matt Arco reports for NJ.com:

President Donald Trump selected a new U.S. attorney general Friday, and it’s not former Gov. Chris Christie, who has coveted the position and was a contender. 
Trump announced he plans to nominate William Barr, who served as U.S. attorney general under then-President George H.W. Bush’s administration.
Christie was one of a few people who remained on Trump’s shortlist, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to NJ Advance Media last week.
The list has whittled down in recent weeks, but Christie — a longtime friend and ally to Trump, a fellow Republican — was still “a top contender” and “checks all the boxes,” according to the source.
New Jersey’s 55th governor long has coveted the position. After Trump pushed former Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of as the country’s chief law enforcement officer Wednesday, Christie’s name emerged as a possible replacement.

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Trump Rule Would Limit EPA Control Over Water Pollution

CreditDon Bartletti/Los Angeles Times, via Getty Images
Image

Runoff water flowing into a pond in Irvine, Calif.Don Bartletti/LA Times, Getty Images

Coral Davenport reports for the New York Times
Dec. 6, 2018

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is expected to put forth a proposal on Tuesday that would significantly weaken a major Obama-era regulation on clean water, according to a talking points memo from the Environmental Protection Agency that was distributed to White House allies this week.

The Obama rule was designed to limit pollution in about 60 percent of the nation’s bodies of water, protecting sources of drinking water for about a third of the United States. It extended existing federal authority to limit pollution in large bodies of water, like the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound, to smaller bodies that drain into them, such as tributaries, streams, and wetlands.

But it became a target for rural landowners, an important part of President Trump’s political base since it could have restricted how much pollution from chemical fertilizers and pesticides could seep into the water on their property.

“The previous administration’s 2015 rule wasn’t about water quality,” the memo says. “It was about power — power in the hands of the federal government over farmers, developers and landowners.”

Like this? Click to receive free updatesThe memo, which did not include full details of the proposal, described a less stringent, more industry-friendly version of the rule, known as Waters of the United States. The revised rule would exclude from regulation streams and tributaries that do not run year round. It would also exclude wetlands that are not directly connected to larger bodies of water.

Mr. Trump won cheers from rural audiences on the presidential campaign trail when he vowed to roll back the Obama rule. One of his first actions in office was to sign an executive order directing his E.P.A. chief to repeal and replace the rule.

Real estate developers and golf course owners — businesses in which Mr. Trump worked for decades — were also among the chief opponents of the earlier rule, since it could have limited how they used their land. “The opponents of Waters of the United States are going to be pleased with this new rule,” said Myron Ebell, who led Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. transition team and who viewed the memo. “It looks like it’s going to significantly reduce the federal jurisdictional footprint on these waters, to significantly below what it was before the rule.”

Environmentalists have denounced the proposed change as a threat to public health that will lead to more pollution in American waters, even as Mr. Trump has repeatedly vowed his commitment to “crystal-clean water.”

The new rule would “gut water protections nationwide,” the environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement. It would “limit the scope of the Clean Water Act, exempting many oil companies, industrial facilities, and developers from programs that aim to protect our rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands from degradation,” the group said.

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NJ suing to get justice for polluted, low-income towns

Director of Multimedia

This property, 323 N. Olden Ave. in Trenton, is the site of historic illegal dumping and is the focus of a new lawsuit from the state attorney general. (Tim Larsen | Office of the AG)

Michael Sol Warren reports for NJ.com


State officials gathered in Camden on Thursday to announce new action aimed at getting justice for low-income and minority communities that have been plagued by dangerously polluted environments.


And, thanks to some restructuring in the state bureaucracy, more future action for environmental justice could be on the way.
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Speaking at the headquarters of the community nonprofit Camden Lutheran Housing, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Catherine McCabe detailed the filing of eight new lawsuits.
The lawsuits focus on situations where companies, ranging from small businesses to publicly traded corporations, have been found responsible for polluting sites years ago and taking no responsibility for the clean-ups. Communities from Newark and Camden to Flemington and Phillipsburg are encompassed in the new lawsuits.
“Environmental justice means that everyone, no matter race, ethnicity, color, national origin, or income, deserves to live and work in a healthy and clean environment,” Grewal said. “But too often, the same communities suffer the worst environmental problems over and over again but don’t get the support that they need.”
NJ files suit to force cleanup of Palmyra site
David Levinsky reports for the Burlington County Times:

Among the eight complaints filed by the office and the DEP, was one targeting the owners and operators of the Fillit Corp. property on Route 73 in Palmyra.
The 104-acre property is located along the Pennsauken Creek next to the Palmyra Cove Nature Center and the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge. It was formerly a municipal landfill before being converted to a sand and gravel business in the 1990s and then a leaf and yard waste recycling business, the Attorney General’s Office said.
In the lawsuit, the Attorney General’s Office alleges Fillit’s operations resulted in the destruction of wetlands along the creek, along with the importation of unauthorized solid waste. In 2012 the property was leased to Jersey Recycling Services, whose owners are accused of bringing in “thousands of tons” of illegal solid waste, including concrete, asphalt and contaminated soils.
The Attorney General’s Office said the DEP brought multiple enforcement actions against both Fillit and Jersey Recycling demanding that they clean up the site and pay penalties, but both companies failed to comply and in 2014 Jersey Recycling abandoned the property without completing remediation there.
The illegal dumping was described in a State Commission of Investigations report released in March 2017, which also revealed that Jersey Recycling was run by Bradley Sirkin, a convicted felon with ties to organized crime.
According to the SCI report, during Jersey Recycling’s 18 months of operations it accepted more than 380,000 cubic yards of material, much of it unauthorized construction debris such as crushed brick, concrete aggregate, asphalt and contaminated soil, which it then mixed with grass clippings, weeds and branches and sold as mulch and topsoil.
Sirkin, who resided in Boca Raton, Florida, last year, was among the defendants named in the environmental lawsuit. According to last year’s SCI report, he has ties through marriage to the Lucchese crime family, and he was convicted in 1992 for conspiracy, wire fraud and unlawful interstate transportation stemming from a so-called “bust out scheme” involving the resale of $500,000 worth of cosmetics.
Sirkin served two years in federal prison and later, when in a halfway house, became associated with former Philadelphia/South Jersey mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, according to the SCI report, which described Sirkin as Merlino’s “constant companion” and frequently his driver.

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