Power companies to PJM grid: Help, we’re in trouble

Companies have been lobbying to raise what they say are depressed prices that threaten the viability of their nuclear plants

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

The chief executive officers of three major energy companies are pressing the regional grid operator to move much faster on a slew of reforms that would boost revenues from their power plants, a move opponents say could increase prices to consumers.
In a letter to the PJM Board of Managers last week, the executives expressed concern about the slow pace of progress in deciding significant changes in how energy prices are established within the nation’s largest power grid.
The latest installment in the decade-old discussion is occurring as two of the companies — Public Service Enterprise Group and Exelon — are seeking approval for hundreds of millions of dollars in ratepayer subsidies to support three nuclear power plants from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in a separate proceeding.
The letter highlights the intense lobbying by the energy sector in seeking to raise what have been depressed power prices that the industry says have threatened the economic viability of coal and nuclear power plants.

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The issue led Gov. Phil Murphy last spring to sign a controversial new law creating potential ratepayer subsidies for PSEG and Exelon, which owns a share in two of the three nuclear units in South Jersey. Both companies are hoping to share $300 million in annual subsidies if the BPU approves the financial incentives, based on a finding that the plants will close without them.
Ralph Izzo, chairman, CEO, and president of PSEG, has long argued prices paid to the company’s nuclear plants do not adequately reflect the benefits they provide to the power grid, particularly in terms of fuel diversity, resiliency and a source of carbon-free electricity.

Execs: Grid need to act ‘swiftly and decisively’

PJM operates the power grid stretching from the Eastern Seaboard to Illinois. With a steep drop in energy prices, many coal and a half-dozen nuclear power plants have shut down, leading energy companies to pressure PJM to take steps to increase revenue to make sure there is enough electricity to meet power demands.
While praising some steps the PJM has taken to improve energy prices, the energy executives said they only “provide modest incremental change, but fall short of the fundamental changes that are needed to support baseload electric generator units over the long-term.’’ Besides Izzo, the letter was signed by Exelon’s CEO Christopher Crane and Charles Jones, the CEO of FirstEnergy, the parent company of Jersey Central Power & Light.
The executives said it is imperative the PJM board act “swiftly and decisively’’ on price formation reforms so that these fundamental issues can be addressed within the PJM markets. The PJM may act on a pending proposal to change its pricing regime at its next meeting on February 12.
That proposal, however, has met with opposition from various stakeholders, including the Organization of PJM States Inc. (OPSI), a group representing state utility commissioners, including New Jersey’s BPU.
In a separate letter to PJM late last month, the organization noted the proposed changes will increase costs to ratepayers. “PJM has not shown increases at these levels to be necessary or that they will be implemented in a manner that will maintain just and reasonable rates.’’
The issue of potential increases in energy prices as a result of actions taken by PJM were cited by the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel in opposing subsidies sought by PSEG and Exelon in the case before BPU. “It is clear that energy market revenues will increase for energy generators,’’ the Rate Counsel said in a filing it submitted to the New Jersey agency.
PJM’s proposal could result in an increase in energy revenue of approximately $1.92 billion, according to PJM’s projections.
Under the New Jersey law, any increase in revenue as a result of action taken by PJM or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, will decrease any subsidy given to the nuclear units, should the BPU determine the plants would close without the incentives.

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Court orders ban of top-selling pesticide, says EPA violated law, ignored scientific studies

Then EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in 2016.
(Andrew Harnik / AP)


Federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration endangered public health by keeping a widely used pesticide on the market despite extensive scientific evidence that even tiny levels of exposure can harm babies’ brains.

Michael Biesecker reports for the Associated Press:
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco Thursday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to remove chlorpyrifos from sale in the United States within 60 days.
A coalition of farmworkers and environmental groups sued last year after then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt reversed an Obama-era effort to ban chlorpyrifos, which is widely sprayed on citrus fruit, apples, and other crops. The attorneys general for several states joined the case against EPA, including California, New York, and Massachusetts.
In a split decision, the court said Thursday that Pruitt, a Republican forced to resign earlier this summer amid ethics scandals, violated federal law by ignoring the conclusions of agency scientists that chlorpyrifos is harmful.
“The panel held that there was no justification for the EPA’s decision in its 2017 order to maintain a tolerance for chlorpyrifos in the face of scientific evidence that its residue on food causes neurodevelopmental damage to children,” Judge Jed S. Rakoff wrote in the court’s opinion.
Michael Abboud, a spokesman for acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, said the agency was reviewing the decision, but it had been unable to “fully evaluate the pesticide using the best available, transparent science.”
EPA could potentially appeal to the Supreme Court since one member of the three-judge panel dissented from the majority ruling.
Environmental groups and public health advocates celebrated the court’s action as a major success.
“Some things are too sacred to play politics with, and our kids top the list,” said Erik Olson, senior director of health and food at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The court has made it clear that children’s health must come before powerful polluters. This is a victory for parents everywhere who want to feed their kids fruits and veggies without fear it’s harming their brains or poisoning communities.”

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Trump taps Bernhardt to replace Zinke at Interior

David Bernhardt speaking at a podium. Photo credit: @DOIDepSec/Twitter

President Trump has tapped Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt for the agency’s top job. Bernhardt is shown speaking here last summer at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. @DOIDepSec/Twitter
Michael Doyle reports for E&E News:

President Trump today announced his plans to nominate acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for the department’s top job, elevating a savvy manager known for both his policy expertise and his background as a lawyer and lobbyist for oil, gas and Western water interests.

A 49-year-old Colorado native, Bernhardt has years of Interior Department experience in several administrations. He’s far more familiar with the department’s inner workings than was outgoing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke at the outset, though their policy preferences are similar.
“I can’t think of an instance in the past year where I’ve done something where I would not be very confident that he and I were 100 percent on the same page on,” Bernhardt told E&E News in an interview earlier this year.
“I am pleased to announce that David Bernhardt, Acting Secretary of the Interior, will be nominated as Secretary of the Interior,” Trump tweeted this afternoon. “David has done a fantastic job from the day he arrived, and we look forward to having his nomination officially confirmed!”
Stylistically, the often soft-spoken Bernhardt can strike a marked contrast to Zinke, the former Navy SEAL whose combativeness recently flared when he publicly proclaimed a top House Democrat to be a drunkard.
But Bernhardt’s alignment with Zinke on issues including endangered species protections, public lands and energy development also guarantees the policy clashes that dominated Zinke’s rocky 23-month tenure will continue. His selection shows the Trump administration is not backing down.

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Gottheimer to NJDEP: Dumping is not recycling

Eric Obernauer reports for the New Jersey Herald:

VERNON — Despite the suggestion by its chief enforcement officer that a Silver Spruce Drive dump site operator’s activities are permitted under New Jersey’s recycling laws, U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist., says the state Department of Environmental Protection is conveniently ignoring the fact that the site is not a licensed recycling facility.
The failure by DEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe to address this discrepancy, coupled with her continuing refusal to authorize soil testing of Joseph Wallace’s dirt pile on Silver Spruce Drive while appearing to shift blame to the Vernon Police Department for not halting the continued flow of dump trucks to the site, prompted renewed anger over the weekend by the congressman in which he accused the DEP of shirking its responsibilities.
Gottheimer, in a statement to the New Jersey Herald, slammed McCabe and the DEP for failing to address the December comment by Michael Hastry, the DEP’s director of waste enforcement, to the effect that the dumping of asphalt, rebar, brick, block, metal piping and other construction debris on Wallace’s site — which is situated in the Highlands Preservation Zone — is permitted because these are Class B recyclable materials, a shorthand classification that includes several categories of construction and demolition waste.
Hastry’s statement, which was made in the presence of a reporter on Dec. 3, came during his visit to the site with McCabe and Gottheimer, both Democrats, who were joined by state Sen. Steve Oroho and Assembly members Parker Space and Hal Wirths, all 24th District Republicans.
In a follow-up letter to McCabe dated Jan. 3, Gottheimer noted that the acceptance of Class B material requires permits from the municipality, county and DEP — none of which Wallace has ever received.
McCabe, in a reply letter to Gottheimer on Thursday, not only failed to address this point but went on to find fault with an independent laboratory’s recent testing of surface water at the base of Wallace’s waste pile that showed lead concentrations to be 15 times higher than the limit allowed by the DEP. She also asserted that the DEP had requested help from the Vernon Police Department in monitoring tandem truckloads of fill material being brought to the site and that the Vernon police had declined to assist.
Gottheimer responded by putting the onus back on McCabe and the DEP for allegedly not doing their job.
“(Her) letter was unresponsive to several questions and full of false information,” Gottheimer said. “The (DEP) is failing to meet (its) responsibility to protect the health and safety of the community. Children and families are potentially being exposed to lead and carcinogens.”
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Old manufactured-gas site in NY town added to Superfund


Jason Subik reports for the Daily Gazette:

GLOVERSVILLE (NY)— The state Department of Environmental Conservation will hold a public meeting Feb. 21 at Gloversville City Hall to discuss the proposed $18.2 million remediation plan for the former Niagara Mohawk Hill Street manufactured gas plant located at 20 Hill St.

The former gas plant site has been designated for remediation under the state’s Superfund program, which identifies inactive hazardous waste disposal sites that pose a significant threat to public health.

Acting Mayor Vince DeSantis said he encourages members of the public to attend the meeting and to provide questions and comments to state officials about the process. He said remediation of sites like 20 Hill St. is an important part of revitalizing the city.

“Every old industrial city has these sites, which were real job creators and wealth creators in the past, and now they need to be cleaned up, so it’s appropriate that the state and federal government is helping with that,” he said.

The 20 Hill St. site joins approximately 87 other Superfund sites in the state. The only other current Superfund site in Fulton County is the old Johnstown City Landfill.

DeSantis said Gloversville recently filed an application for a $300,000 federal grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help identify all of the potential Superfund sites in the city.

The proposed remediation plan for the site is available at the Gloversville Public Library at 58 East Fulton St.

Some of the highlights of the remediation plan include:

  • Excavating and disposing of off-site of approximately 21,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil associated with the past manufactured gas plant (MGP) operations at the site
  • Constructing a subsurface barrier wall to prevent further off-site migration of coal tar
  • Installing recovery wells to remove potentially mobile coal tar
  • Continued operation of on-site groundwater and stormwater collection and treatment systems
Part of the reason for the Superfund designation for the site is that contamination has been found downstream in the soil along the banks of the Cayadutta Creek.


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Why engineers use different barriers to protect NJ coast

    Sandbags are used to slow the erosion of the bank along the Delaware River. (Bill Barlow for WHYY)
Sandbags are used to slow the erosion of the bank along the Delaware River.l
Bill Barlow reports for WHYY:

New Jersey’s East Point Lighthouse at the mouth of the Maurice River has survived pelting winds, driving storms and long periods of neglect in its 170 years.
Before the end of this year, a state project could help protect the historic building on the Delaware Bay from eroding land and rising seas.
The state plans to install 900 feet of Geotube, made of flexible material filled with sand, to protect the lighthouse and its sandy bayfront parking lot from tide-driven floods.
The bids will go out soon, with the work to begin in late summer, said Larry Hajna, a Department of Environmental Protection spokesman. That will avoid interference with breeding horseshoe crabs or the migrating birds that depend on their eggs. Once completed, the Geotube will be covered with sand to resemble a dune, Hajna said.
“Basically, it’s a big Christmas stocking which you stuff full of sand,” said Stewart Farrell, the director and founder of the Coastal Research Center at Stockton University in Pomona.
But what’s right for the Delaware Bay may not always be what’s right for a town facing the ocean.
“The East Point Lighthouse is in an entirely different environment than, say, Atlantic City’s Boardwalk,” Farrell said. “What would be fine for the lighthouse would be a complete waste of money out on the oceanfront. Are you trying to stop a runaway freight train? Or are you trying to stop a kid on a bicycle?”
Several factors determine waves. The strength of wind blowing across the water and the area of water surface over which that wind blows — known as fetch. It’s a little over 22 miles across the Delaware Bay from the lighthouse to the small town of Bowers, Delaware.
“In the Delaware Bay, the fetch is limited,” Farrell said. “And so there’s a very finite wave size that you will see, no matter what kind of storm you have. That means the fabric material to be put in place will likely work fine. You’re not going to see 15-foot breakers.”
Engineers have to determine the best way to protect the coastlines — and that means using different barriers to get the job done. Here are a few approaches that you may have seen used in New Jersey.

Geotubes

Geotube, a brand name for a kind of long sandbag, was trademarked by the Netherlands in 1994. Farrell uses the more generic name of geotextiles. Sand and water are pumped into a large synthetic fabric sleeve. The water drains off, leaving the sand contained.
“The sand doesn’t move away so readily. But it’s not such a hard structure that it can’t be removed. You can cut the thing open and pull the fabric away,” leaving the sand in place, Farrell said. They can range from 3 feet wide by 12 feet long to hundreds of feet long and 10 to 12 feet wide.
“The biggest one I’ve seen put in place in New Jersey was in Sea Isle City,” he said. That one was about 2,400 feet long.
Sunlight is a weakness for this style of shore protection, he said. Manufacturers continue to improve the product, but UV rays can break down the fabric over time. Often, Geotubes are covered in sand, both as protection and to make them look more like dunes.
That’s the DEP’s plan at the East Point Lighthouse, and what was done along Ocean Drive in northern Sea Isle City and southern Strathmere. A portion of the Geotube was exposed there after Hurricane Sandy but was reburied as part of a beach replenishment since then.

Sand replenishment

Cape May lighthouse in Cape May, New Jersey. (Dale Gerhard, The Press of Atlantic City/AP Photo)

When sand disappears from beaches, the obvious solution is to put it back. The process has been going on for decades, even before the Army Corps of Engineers began a 50-year commitment to protect Cape May’s beaches in 1991.
That set the standard for future projects. From Seaside Heights to Avalon, and for most of New Jersey’s beach towns, a huge dredge pumping sand from offshore to rebuild eroded beaches has become a routine sight.
Even before Hurricane Sandy brought a flurry of federal spending to beaches, the cost of beach replenishment in New Jersey had topped $1 billion, with no end in sight.
Farrell said there is little choice in the matter.
“If you want to have a recreational facility, you’re kind of limited to beach fills,” he said. “In other words, you bring in material and replace it as it moves elsewhere, or bring it back from where it moves to.”
The replenished beach will protect properties from future storms and keep the summer visitors happy.
Farrell said the sand moves in predictable ways.
“After a beach fill, that sand doesn’t melt,” he said. “It goes somewhere else.”
Aside from pumping sand in from the inlets offshore, he said, towns could also gather the sand that washed to other areas and return it to the eroded section. He said the next step is to get approvals from regulators. But he predicts resistance.
“It will require some convincing of the folks in that area. They say, ‘You’re not taking my sand.’ Well, first of all, it’s not your sand,” he said.
For instance, North Wildwood’s beaches are extensively eroded, while the beaches in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest to the south on the same barrier island have grown over 20 years, he said.
“It’s real cheap compared to pumping material from offshore,” he said.
The Army Corps of Engineers has made dunes a key component of beach projects. The dunes can block storm-driven waves and serve as a reserve of sand as the ocean removes beach. There has been controversy there, too, with Margate opposing the construction of dunes as part of a 2017 beach project.

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