2018 Sustainable Raritan River Awards Presented

Three individuals and one organization received Sustainable Raritan River Awards at the 10th Annual Sustainable Raritan Conference and Awards Ceremony at Rutgers’ Kathleen G. Ludwig Global Village Learning Center on Friday, June 8, 2018. 

The annual awards recognize outstanding achievements in efforts to revitalize, restore and protect the Raritan resources and promote the area as a premiere place to live, work and raise a family.

“It has been tremendously gratifying over the course of the last decade to have the opportunity to recognize local individuals and organizations who make a difference every day in the quality of life and the condition of our environment here in the Raritan Watershed. These awards are a chance to acknowledge and thank these quiet heroes as they inspire all of us to do what we can to protect the Queen of Rivers” stated Michael Catania of Duke Farms, one of the judges for these awards.

The Sustainable Raritan Awards, established in 2010, promote innovation and energize local efforts to restore and protect the rivers, streams and habitat of the Raritan River and Bay.  The awards highlight extraordinary accomplishments and inspire other groups and individuals across the watershed to achieve comparable levels of excellence.

“It is wonderful to see such an abundant and diverse range of conservation activities throughout the length of the Raritan River being undertaken by so many.  On the Lower Raritan both ecosystem and economic progress hinges on forcing polluters to clean contaminated sediments,” said Greg Remaud, Baykeeper and Chief Executive Officer, NY/NJ Baykeeper, also a member of the Awards Committee.

This year’s recipients (pictured at the top of the newsletter) are:

  • Leadership Award – Debbie Mans, Deputy Commissioner, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection 
  • Public Education Award – Jean Marie Hartman, Rutgers University 
  • Non-Profit Innovation Award – Raritan Headwaters Association
  • Citizen Action Award – Captain Paul Eidman

Descriptions of their accomplishments as well as past award recipients can be found on our website at http://raritan.rutgers.edu/events/raritan-awards/
The Awards Committee for this year’s awards included, Michael Catania, Executive Director of the Duke Farms Foundation, William Kibler, Director of Policy for the Raritan Headwaters, and Greg Remaud, Baykeeper and Chief Executive Officer of NY/NJ Baykeeper.  All three of the organizations that they represent are members of the Sustainable Raritan River Collaborative, a growing network of over 130 organizations, governmental entities and businesses in the Raritan River region working together to balance social, economic and environmental objectives towards the common goal of restoring the Raritan River, its tributaries and its estuary for current and future generations.
Award nominations are accepted throughout the year.  To learn more about the Awards, the Sustainable Raritan River Collaborative, or Rutgers’ Sustainable Raritan River Initiative, visit www.raritan.rutgers.edu.

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New Jersey Audubon weighs in on plastic bag fee vs. ban

Kelly Mooij, NJ Audubon Society

This opinion piece by Kelly Mooij of the NJ Audubon Society appeared in today’s Asbury Park Press:

Consider this: Plastic carryout bags are used for an average of just 12 minutes but live on in our environment for hundreds of years. Created from oil, plastic bags are non-biodegradable, harm wildlife, debilitate recycling facilities and pose threats to public health.

At least 600 species of wildlife have been harmed by plastic pollution, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Seabird species such as ospreys and cormorants are particularly vulnerable to the effects of ingesting plastic particles, leading to intestinal blockage and reproductive failure. To paint an even bigger picture, projections warn that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans.

In a state where residents use approximately 4.4 billion bags each year, it’s clear that we don’t have any time to waste to bag up this mess. The good news is that the wheels are in motion.

A bill that would impose a 5-cent fee on carryout bags currently awaits Gov. Phil Murphy’s pen, but it needs some work. NJ Audubon is urging the governor to conditionally veto A3267/S2600 to close significant loopholes that would exclude certain populations and stores from complying, allow stores to provide thicker plastic bags to customers free of charge, and preempt municipalities from passing their own bag laws.

This is not a bad bill, and a bag fee will certainly not be bad for our environment as some reports have claimed. Rather, it’s an excellent first step to curb the use of plastic bags through behavior change that can be made significantly stronger with a few amendments.

Fees across the U.S. have dramatically reduced and prevented plastics from entering our environment. Washington, D.C.’s 2010 implementation of a 5-cent bag fee resulted in a 60 percent reduction in plastic waste. Six months after Boulder, Colorado implemented a 10-cent bag fee, use of single-use bags declined 68 percent.

Completely eliminating plastic bags is a goal shared by many. However, reducing plastic bag use by more than half within months of enactment cannot be called anything but progress. The current bill grandfathers in all cities and counties that pass ban ordinances before the governor signs the bill. Jersey City, the second largest city in the state, is the latest to act to ban bags. If the governor strengthens the bill on his desk, hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans will be covered under a bag ban and the rest of the state will comply with a fee, reducing bag pollution significantly in the near term.

This is a first step, not the end of the discussion. A hybrid structure, popularly demonstrated in California, is ideal and consists of a ban on plastic bags and a fee on all other bags. We look forward to working toward a hybrid model in New Jersey as well as addressing other sources of plastic pollution such as straws and polystyrene, but immediate action is needed now.

A strengthened version of the bill on Murphy’s desk will move our state forward. This bill represents real action to deal with a problem we’ve been talking about for years. We can’t afford to miss this opportunity to break the plastic habit. Our waterways and wildlife will thank us.

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Strap in and buckle up for Trump’s trade war with China

 1:37
China: United States ‘opening fire’ on world with tariff threats
China warned July 5 the United States is “opening fire” on the world with its tariff threats.
David J. Lynch, Danielle Paquette and Emily Rauhala
report for the Washington Post: 
The United States prepared Thursday to impose tariffs upon Chinese goods, a long-threatened move that is expected to prompt Beijing to retaliate against American products and to plunge the two countries into a costly and increasingly unpredictable trade war.
U.S. customs officers will begin imposing duties on $34 billion in Chinese goods beginning at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Chinese officials have said they will respond with equivalent action against a range of American goods, including pork, poultry, soybeans and corn, and President Trump last month vowed to hit an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods if Beijing did so.
Even if eventually reversed, the moves will mark a historic break with nearly a quarter-century of growing integration between the U.S. and Chinese economies. The U.S. tariffs — intended to spare consumers by aiming at industrial products — are designed to force China to drop numerous trade practices that the president says discriminate against U.S. companies.
After months of rhetorical exchanges between Washington and Beijing, the imposition of the new import taxes makes real a conflict that has rattled markets, scrambled corporate supply networks and chilled business investment.
“I don’t think this is going to get resolved easily and I think these tariffs are going to hurt the U.S. economy,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents multinationals such as Coca-Cola, Ford, and Microsoft.
The exchange of tariffs comes as trade-related cracks are beginning to appear in an otherwise robust U.S. economy, according to minutes of the Federal Reserve Board’s most recent meeting June 12 and 13, which were made public Thursday.
1.00
 1:06
Trump threatens China with tariffs on $200 billion in products
President Trump escalated his trade war with China on June 18, and threatened to put in place tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. (Reuters)
Farmers fear the loss of export sales as U.S. trading partners like China erect trade barriers in response to Trump’s tariffs, while businesses across the country “indicated that plans for capital spending had been scaled back or postponed as a result of uncertainty over trade policy,” the Fed said.

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Debate over plastic bags takes a new twist in New Jersey

Jockeying continues over legislation — or some other initiative to curb spread of plastic — as Murphy’s decision awaited

plastic bags


Tom Johnson reports
for NJ Spotlight:
It was only a single line-item veto in a $37.4 billion state budget, but it has fueled speculation over the fate of a controversial bill to impose a nickel fee on single use carry-out bags.
Gov. Phil Murphy blocked the diversion of funds targeted for lead abatement projects in the budget, a move welcomed by environmental and other advocates who want to see more resources dedicated to eliminating childhood exposure to lead.
In approving a state spending plan for the new fiscal year, the governor eliminated language that would have shifted at least $23 million raised by fees on plastic and paper bags to the general budget instead of lead programs as originally intended.
But Murphy has not yet decided even whether to sign the plastic bag fee bill (A-3267), which was fast-tracked through the Legislature during budget deliberations late last month. “No final decision has been made regarding the legislation,’’ said Dan Bryan, a spokesman for the governor.
The issue boils down to what is the best way to curb what some view as the pervasive spread of plastics in the environment — an outright ban on plastic bags or a fee that will encourage consumers to switch to more environmentally-friendly alternatives.
In this case, the Legislature chose a fee on both plastic and paper single use carry-out bags, a step favored by the New Jersey Food Council, which remains hopeful the governor will endorse that option.
“If approved, New Jersey will be recognized as enacting the most impactful disposable bag law in the country and an environmental leader for other states to model,’’ said Linda Doherty, president of the food council.

Many environmental groups oppose fee

But many environmental groups oppose the bag fee, saying it does not work as well as a ban on plastics; the fee is too small to discourage plastic bag use; and it will end up preempting local bans passed by communities, like Jersey City and Hoboken.

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Look who’s getting ready to rumble over electric vehicles

 and 
 report for Bloomberg:


A red-hot electric vehicle market has triggered a face-off between Big Oil and utilities.
Oil majors, who’ve sold fossil fuels to cars for a century, are now moving into an electricity sector that’s preparing for exponential growth. The problem is that utilities, the primary power suppliers for a century, have the same idea.
BP Plc predicts electric vehicle sales will surge by an eye-watering 8,800 percent between 2017 and 2040, making it an attractive business for oil companies as demand for gasoline and diesel are forecast to slow. Big Oil will have to battle the traditional utilities for charging at people’s homes, on the road and even offices of green-car owners.
“It’s the banging together of” industries “in a way that’s never happened before,” said Erik Fairbairn, the founder and CEO of Pod Point Ltd., one of the U.K.’s largest electric-vehicle charging companies. Power providers are, for the first time, meaningfully interacting with car companies and the oil industry “is realizing if they get this wrong then the requirement for them in the future is significantly diminished,” he said.
The logic for oil companies is clear. Gasoline and diesel sales have been a backbone of their business since the internal combustion engine went commercial at the turn of the last century. But with drivers now becoming more conscious about emissions and the environment, most analysts forecast growth in demand of these fuels to slow and eventually drop.

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Rhode Island sues oil companies over climate change

Miranda Green and Timothy Cama report for The Hill:

THE OCEAN STATE VS. OIL: Rhode Island’s attorney general sued a dozen oil and natural gas companies and their affiliates Monday in state court, accusing them of causing climate change and not sufficiently mitigating its effects.
Attorney General Peter Kilmartin (D) said Rhode Island is uniquely harmed by global warming, with its more than 400 miles of shoreline, fishing industry, marine economy and other factors.
“Rhode Island is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate changes that is now on our doorstep with sea level rise and an increase in severe weather patterns, as seen by the extensive damage caused by storms in the past several years, including Super Storm Sandy and the floods of 2010,” Kilmartin said in a statement.
“The defendants’ actions for the past several decades are already having and will continue to have a significant and detrimental impact on our infrastructure, economy, public health, and our eco-systems, and will force the state to divert already-limited resources to mitigate the effects of climate change, thereby diminishing resources for other vital programs and services.”
Who the suit targets: The defendants in the lawsuit include big companies across the petroleum supply chain, including Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Marathon Oil Corp. and Hess Corp.
Industry responds: The National Association of Manufacturers said such a lawsuit isn’t productive.
“It’s time for politicians and trial lawyers to put an end to this frivolous litigation,” said Lindsey de la Torre, executive director of the group’s Manufacturers’ Accountability Project.
“Taxpayer resources should not be used for baseless lawsuits that are designed to enrich trial lawyers and grab headlines for politicians. This abuse of our legal system does nothing to advance meaningful solutions, which manufacturers are focused on every day.”
What happens now: It’s anybody’s guess how the lawsuit will play out, but the recent record of climate lawsuits by governments against fossil fuel companies is not good.
Just last month, a federal judge dismissed similar claims by San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., against major oil companies. Judge William Alsup said the science of climate change and its link to fossil fuels is solid, but it’s not a place for the courts to get involved.

Read more. 

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