Pre-holiday storm leaves 10,000 without power in NJ


Tom Davis reports for The Patch, National Staff:

New Jersey was dealing with the impact of a windy, rainy storm that could affect holiday season travel on Friday. Nearly 10,000 were without power on Friday morning.
Wires were reported down, closing roads like Route 17 in Bergen County and elsewhere. A power outage in Hoboken left more than 5,000 without electricity. Newark had more than 2,000 without power.
More rain was expected on Friday morning and a flood warning was in effect throughout the state. Read more: Route 17 Closed Because Of Downed Wires In Paramus
Toms River officials are warning motorists to be alert to flooded roads Friday as a result of several hours of heavy rain. Read more: Flooded Roads Prompt Warning From Toms River OEM
Many flights at Newark Liberty International Airport were also delayed or canceled as holiday travelers waited anxiously for help.
Long Beach Boulevard on Long Beach Island was starting to flood and will be closed from 31st to 92nd streets. Flooding was also impacting trains in Hoboken and elsewhere.

Hoboken photo courtesy of sean the don ‏

An area of low pressure moving up the spine of the Appalachians could result in a widespread 2-to-3-inch rainfall across the region. Around 4 inches are possible in North Jersey. Rainfall may be heavy at times, according to the National Weather Service.
Rain and possibly a thunderstorm could happen before 2 p.m., then showers are likely between 2 and 4 p.m. There is a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4 p.m.
Here are the alerted areas:

Here are the towns impacted by power outages:
  1. HOBOKEN 5,816
  2. WEST NEW YORK TOWN 3,306
  3. NEWARK 2,274
  4. MIDDLETOWN 1,063
  5. PLAINSBORO TWP 800
  6. TEWKSBURY TOWNSHIP 607
  7. RIDGEFIELD BORO 447
  8. HOLLAND TOWNSHIP 391
  9. WAYNE TOWNSHIP 306
  10. CALIFON BOROUGH 297
  11. DELAWARE TOWNSHIP 277
  12. PARAMUS BORO 207
  13. FAIRVIEW BORO 182
  14. RARITAN TOWNSHIP 179
  15. HARMONY TOWNSHIP 125
  16. HILLSDALE BORO 114
  17. WOODCLIFF LAKE BORO 83
  18. MOUNT LAUREL TWP 73
  19. Wenonah Boro 70
  20. ROCHELLE PARK TWP 67
  21. PARSIPPANY TROY HILLS TOWNSHIP 65
  22. RIDGEWOOD VILLAGE 65
  23. PEQUANNOCK TOWNSHIP 62
  24. LITTLE FERRY BORO 52
  25. FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP 44
  26. SANDYSTON TOWNSHIP 44
  27. ASBURY PARK CITY 39
  28. BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP 35
  29. MEDFORD TWP 26
  30. ENGLEWOOD CITY 24
  31. Winslow Twp 18
  32. MILLSTONE TOWNSHIP 18
  33. MAYWOOD BORO 17
  34. CLIFTON CITY 15
  35. GREEN TOWNSHIP 12
  36. BERGENFIELD BORO 12
  37. ALEXANDRIA TOWNSHIP 9
  38. LEBANON TOWNSHIP 8
  39. KNOWLTON TOWNSHIP 8
  40. FLEMINGTON BOROUGH 7
  41. OLD BRIDGE TOWNSHIP 7
  42. HANOVER TOWNSHIP 7
  43. LONG BRANCH CITY 6
  44. WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP 5
Here are the flooding spots and impacts on traffic:
  • NJ 44: Flooding on NJ 44 in both directions area of CR 656/Paradise Rd in West Deptford Twp. 1 lane may be closed use caution.
  • US 30: Flooding on US 30 eastbound East of NJ 50/CR 563 in Egg Harbor City. 1 lane may be closed use caution.
  • NJ 47: Flooding on NJ 47 southbound North of CR 624/West Rio Grand Ave in Lower Twp. 1 lane may be closed use caution.
  • NJ 147: Flooding on NJ 147 westbound at Maryland Av in Middle Twp. 1 lane may be closed use caution.
  • NJ 47: Flooding on NJ 47 southbound South of CR 740/Mackeys Ln in Maurice River Twp. Right lane closed use caution.
  • US 40: Flooding on US 40 in both directions from East of CR 608/Franklin Av in Egg Harbor Twp to East of Dorset Av in Atlantic City. All lanes closed and detoured use caution.
  • I-80: Flooding on I-80 eastbound area of Exit 60 – NJ 20 in Paterson. Left lane closed 30-35 minute delay.
  • US 130: Flooding on US 130 in both directions North of NJ 45 in Westville. 1 lane may be closed use caution.
  • US 1: Flooding on US 1 southbound at Raymond Rd in South Brunswick Twp. Jughandle closed.
  • US 22: Flooding on US 22 eastbound I-287 in Bridgewater Twp. Partial ramp closed.
  • US 9W: Flooding on US 9W southbound South of Hollywood Av in Englewood Cliffs. 1 lane closed 5-10 minute delay.
  • NJ 440: Flooding on NJ 440 northbound South of Pulaski St in Bayonne. Right lane closed 5-10 minute delay.
  • NJ 21: Flooding on NJ 21 southbound ramp to Exit 9 – NJ 3 in Clifton. Ramp closed and detoured 5-10 minute delay.
  • I-28: Accident on I-287 northbound South of Exit 44 – US 202 in Boonton. All lanes temporarily closed.
  • I-295: Accident on I-295 southbound at Exit 13 – US 130 in Logan Twp. All lanes closed and detoured use caution, 15-20 minute delay.
  • NJ 17: Downed wires and a Transformer fire on NJ 17 in both directions South of Century Rd in Paramus. All lanes closed and detoured 40-45 minute delay.
  • Outside Agency Assist: Garden State Parkway southbound entering at Exit 163 – NJ 17 in Paramus. Ramp closed due to downed wires on route 17 and Century Rd.
  • Accident on the Garden State Parkway southbound North of Asbury Toll Plaza in Tinton Falls. Right shoulder blocked.
  • Accident: Garden State Parkway northbound South of Exit 136 – Stiles St in Clark Twp. Right shoulder blocked.
  • NJ 63: Downed wires on NJ 63 in both directions North of CR 48/Fairview Av in Fairview. All lanes closed and detoured 10-15 minute delay.
  • New Jersey Turnpike: Disabled tractor trailer on the New Jersey Turnpike outer roadway northbound ramp to Joyce Kilmer Service Area in East Brunswick Twp. Right shoulder blocked.
  • Garden State Parkway : Accident on the Garden State Parkway southbound South of Exit 36 – CR 651/US 322/US 40 in Egg Harbor Twp. Right shoulder blocked.
  • I-78: Overturned tractor trailer on I-78 westbound East of Exit 13 – NJ 173 in Union Twp. Left and center lanes closed 15-20 minute delay.
  • NJ 36: Traffic Signal Down on NJ 36 northbound at Atlantic St in Keyport. Right lane closed use caution.
  • Watermain break on Essex Street eastbound at Hudson Street in Hackensack. All lanes closed until further notice.
Photo courtesy of (Stone Harbor)

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NJ joins big court fight to halt Trump off-shore drilling plan

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and DEP Deputy Commissioner Debbie Mans announce New Jersey's participation in a multi-state environmental lawsuit. (Courtesy OAG/Tim Larsen)

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and DEP Deputy Commissioner Debbie Mans announce New Jersey’s participation in a multi-state environmental lawsuit. (Courtesy OAG/Tim Larsen)


Michael Sol Warren and S.P. Sullivan report for NJ.com:

Officials in New Jersey and eight other states are taking President Donald Trump’s administration to court over its decision to allow seismic testing off the Atlantic coast, a move widely seen as the first step toward off-shore oil and gas drilling.

“The federal government is putting the fossil fuel industry above New Jersey’s residents, above the environment, and above the law,” state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal told reporters at a press conference in Belmar, one of the Jersey Shore towns state authorities say would be hurt by fossil fuel exploration along the coast.

New Jersey is joining Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New York in opposing the decision by the federal government to allow preliminary scientific testing that could harm marine mammals.

Seismic geophysical surveys are conducted to map the ocean floor and determine areas where oil and gas may be. The process uses airguns towed by ships to blast compressed air into the ocean, creating sound waves that reach the ocean floor and bounce back to a receiver, where the sound waves are measured to determine what materials lie beneath that section of the Earth’s crust.

Seismic testing is incredibly loud. The effects of the blasts on marine life are not fully understood, but scientists are increasingly worried about the impacts on endangered whales and other species, according to an NPR report.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, also called NOAA Fisheries, last month issued “incidental harm authorizations” to five companies seeking to perform such tests. In the lawsuit, the states claim that NOAA Fisheries violated three federal laws meant to protect wildlife and the environment by issuing the authorizations.
New Jersey and the other states claim that NOAA Fisheries violated the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The nine states are joining a lawsuit filed by environmental groups earlier this month in U.S. District Court in South Carolina.
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Enviros ask BPU, Pinelands to stop natural gas pipeline

If either agency consents, it could force New Jersey Natural Gas to halt construction of the pipeline, which began earlier this month in Plumsted, Ocean County, and is proceeding at the company’s “own risk,” meaning the utility will accept responsibility for the expense of restoring any disturbed property if the courts end up scuttling the project.
David Levinsky reports for the Burlington County Times:
TRENTON — Two environmental groups have asked the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and the state Pinelands Commission to order a utility company to stop construction of a controversial natural gas pipeline through northern Burlington, Monmouth and Ocean counties.
Both agencies already have approved construction of the 30-mile pipeline, but those decisions are under appeal, and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance and the New Jersey Sierra Club want the two agencies to suspend their approvals until the litigation is resolved.
If either agency consents, it could force New Jersey Natural Gas to halt construction of the pipeline, which began earlier this month in Plumsted, Ocean County, and is proceeding at the company’s “own risk,” meaning the utility will accept responsibility for the expense of restoring any disturbed property if the courts end up scuttling the project.
The transmission feed, called the Southern Reliability Link, is planned to run from a compressor station another utility company has built off Route 528 in Chesterfield and travel west through North Hanover, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and other towns in Monmouth and Ocean counties to a connection with the utility’s distribution system in Manchester, Ocean County.
New Jersey Natural Gas insists the project is critically important to the reliability of gas delivery to its more than 1 million customers, mostly in Ocean and Monmouth counties because it will provide a second transmission feed to its territory.
But opponents have waged an unrelenting battle against the project, arguing that the close proximity of the compressor station and pipeline route to residences and businesses in Bordentown Township, Chesterfield and North Hanover will pose a significant safety and pollution risk.
Environmental groups also argue the infrastructure promotes hydraulic gas drilling in Pennsylvania, which they say pollutes water and contributes to climate change.
In their request, the two environmental groups argue that the appeals are likely to be successful and that New Jersey Natural Gas places its ratepayers at risk by proceeding with the appeals still unresolved.

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NJ coalition takes on combined-sewer overflow problem

New Campaign Launches to Engage Communities in Shaping Solutions to Combined Sewer Overflows

[News release]
A statewide coalition today unveiled Sewage-Free Streets and Rivers, a coordinated campaign across New Jersey communities with combined sewer systems that overflow raw sewage during heavy rainfalls. These overflows can cause sewage backups into basements and streets, and dump an estimated 23 billion gallons of raw sewage into New Jersey’s waterways annually.
“After rains, the raw sewage that spews into our waterways and backs up into the streets of many urban communities poses a significant health threat to people and denies folks their right to access to safely swim, fish and recreate local on local rivers and waterways” said NY/NJ Baykeeper Greg Remaud, one of the partners in the campaign. 
“This is a huge environmental and health issue that impacts hundreds of thousands of people in New Jersey,” said Nicole Miller, Newark DIG co-chair, and another campaign partner. “The people who live and work in these communities need to know what’s being done about raw sewage overflowing onto their streets and into their rivers, and that they can and should have a say in the solutions being considered.”
“Upgrades to these aging sewer systems will be one of the largest infrastructure investments residents will see in a generation,” said Mo Kinberg, community outreach manager with New Jersey Future, a campaign partner. “It’s critical that communities affected by this work have an opportunity to speak up about how these upgrades will be implemented so that they can help ensure the work really bring community benefits.”
The 21 municipalities with combined-sewer systems are also affected by private-sector disinvestment and a history of environmental contamination from industry. The culmination of industry and combined sewer overflows has had a disproportionate impact on low-income residents and communities of color.
“Residents in many of New Jersey’s older communities, like here in Newark, know only too well what happens when they get too much rainfall for the sewage system to handle,” said Drew Curtis of Ironbound Community Corporation, another campaign partner. “They have to deal regularly with flooding and raw sewage spills. This campaign is an opportunity to influence how those problems will be solved, and to advocate for the solutions that are best for them.”
“By July of 2019, the 25 municipalities and utilities that hold sewer treatment permits in these communities will need to submit a report evaluating alternative solutions to the sewage-overflow problem,” said Kim Gaddy, the environmental justice organizer with Clean Water Action, a campaign partner. “That means that now is the time for members of the community to speak up and make their concerns and preferences heard. The purpose of the Sewage Free campaign is intended to be used as a vehicle to coordinate and amplify the voices.”
The goal of the campaign is to build capacity for community organizations to engage residents, business leaders, and elected officials in communities affected by these overflows to learn about various solutions and to indicate which ones they want prioritized. The campaign advocates for funding for extensive public educational outreach; for at least three meetings to allow meaningful public discussion of available alternatives; and for assurances that the solutions being evaluated will be cost-effective, reflect community values, and bring additional benefits such jobs, job training, local contracting and more green infrastructure and green spaces.
In 2015 the state Department of Environmental Protection issued operating permits to 25 communities and authorities with older combined sewer systems that carry both stormwater and sewage in one pipe. The permit requires these operators to develop plans for reducing the number and severity of combined sewer overflows, which happen when stormwater overwhelms the system. This combination of stormwater and sewage is released into nearby waterways, and sometimes floods area streets and backs up into basements. The plans require each municipality and sewage treatment plant operator to evaluate by July 2019 all the alternative techniques available to them to remedy the problem and to file plans by July 2020 showing how they will implement these alternatives to reach the desired reduction.
The Sewage-Free Streets and Rivers campaign was developed by a group of organizations working to make New Jersey communities stronger and healthier places to live and work and is attracting a growing list of partners, including:
The towns and utilities with combined sewer systems are:

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John Dorsey, former Senate majority leader, dead at 80

Former NJ State Senator John Dorsey

 Morris Republican spent 18 years in NJ Legislature

David Wildstein reports for the New Jersey Globe:

John H. Dorsey, a former majority leader of the New Jersey State Senate and a powerful Republican legislator for eighteen years, passed away on Sunday. He was 80.

Dorsey served in the State Assembly from 1976 to 1978, and in the Senate from 1978 to 1994. He lost his seat in 1993 after blocking the reappointment of a Superior Court Judge in Morris County.

He launched his political career in 1971 at age 34 as a candidate for an Assembly seat, losing a Republican primary to incumbent Josephine Margetts (R-Harding) and Albert W. Merck (R-Mendham), the scion of the Merck pharmaceutical fortune. He finished third in a field of seven candidates, running 1,479 votes behind Merck.

When Margetts gave up her seat to run for the Senate in 1973, Dorsey ran again. He won the Republican primary by 544 votes against James J. Barry, Jr. (R-Harding). Dorsey and Merck were casualties of the Watergate landslide that year, losing to Democrats Gordon MacInnes (D-Morris Township) and Rosemarie Totaro (D-Denville). Dorsey ran 4,119 votes behind MacInnes, but just 903 votes behind Totaro. He out-polled Merck by 435 votes.

Dorsey ran for a third time in 1975. This time he finished first in the GOP primary, running 1,083 votes ahead of Barry. Barry took the second seat by 23 votes over Parsippany attorney Alfred Villoresi.

In the general election, Dorsey and Barry narrowly defeated Totaro and MacInnes.

Dorsey was the top vote-getter, running 11 votes in front of Barry and 591 votes ahead of Totaro. MacInnes finished fourth, 1,693 votes behind Dorsey.

After one term in the Assembly, Dorsey gave up his seat to challenge freshman State Sen. Stephen B. Wiley (D-Morris Township).


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Atlantic City offshore wind energy project goes 0-for-3

Nautilus official says ‘state is missing out’ as Board of Public Utilities gives thumbs-down to 25-megawatt wind farm

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

New Jersey has once again rejected a plan to build a small pilot offshore-wind project off Atlantic City, a decision seemingly at odds with the Murphy administration’s commitment to make New Jersey a national leader in an emerging clean-energy sector.

The project, located in state waters 2.8 miles off the resort city, was deemed too costly to ratepayers who would finance the 25-megawatt wind farm and unable to demonstrate it would be a net economic benefit to New Jersey and the customers who would pay for it.

This marked the third time the state Board of Public Utilities has refused to approve the Nautilus Offshore Wind LLC project by EDF Renewable Energy. Prior iterations of the proposal had been pushed by Fishermen’s Energy and rejected for largely the same reasons by state regulators during the Christie administration.

Doug Copeland, regional project manager for EDF, called the decision very disappointing. “With permitting already in place, Nautilus is the only project capable of giving New Jersey an early lead in the offshore wind space race,’’ he said. “We think the state is missing out on a great many opportunities.’’

Only one offshore-wind farm is operating in the U.S., but states up and down the Eastern Seaboard are developing aggressive plans to build turbines off their coasts, with none more ambitious than New Jersey.

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Fiordaliso: Benefits were ‘too tentative’
Gov. Phil Murphy has opened a solicitation to build up to 1,100 MW off the Jersey coast, a process expected to draw interest from up to five offshore-wind developers in an application window that closes three days after Christmas.

Nautilus has touted its three-turbine project as serving as a pilot to develop the infrastructure and skilled workforce to establish New Jersey as a leader in the offshore wind industry. It had its backers.

“Although Nautilus was a small project, it has always offered significant value beyond the clean power in the form of continuing the efficiency of the New Jersey offshore wind supply chain and business community,’’ said Liz Burdock, president and CEO of the Business Network for Offshore Wind.

The project had its detractors, too. The New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel opposed the project, calling its price to ratepayers too high and its supposed benefits too nebulous.

BPU president Joseph Fiordaliso agreed. He described the price that customers would pay, which the state declined to reveal as “confidential,’’ as much higher than similar projects elsewhere in the U.S. and in the United Kingdom.

“Simply stated, the Nautilus proposal contains a price too high and benefits too tentative,’’ Fiordaliso said. The state law promoting offshore wind requires developers to show a net economic benefit to ratepayers, who will ultimately foot the cost of the electricity generated by the wind farms.
Several environmental groups opposed

The project also drew opposition from New Jersey Audubon, the National Wildlife Federation, and the American Littoral Society, among others.

“Pursuing offshore wind as an element of the state’s response to climate change has a place in the agenda, but it cannot be done at the cost of our coastal and marine wildlife,’’ said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has conducted extensive studies on how birds and marine wildlife would be impacted by offshore wind farms, and essentially found the potential harm to wildlife is minimized the farther the turbines are located offshore.

The projects expected to come into the BPU by the end of the year are expected to be located in federal waters extending from 10 miles to 20 miles off the coastline. Those projects are expected to be utility-scale wind farms, bringing economies of scale to lower the cost to ratepayers


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