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

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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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NJ enviros blow horn on Trump’s planned seismic blasts

While New Jersey is not the immediate target, there’s concern that Trump approval of controversial process could open the door to offshore drilling in the region

Raven Santana reports for NJTV News:

Environmental advocates joined Congressman Frank Pallone on Asbury Park’s boardwalk to denounce President Donald Trump’s approval of five incidental harassment authorization permits, which allow companies to use seismic air guns to search for offshore oil and natural gas in the Atlantic.
“It’s like being stuck in an underwater fireworks display for days at end, with no end in sight, creating havoc in our coastal environment,” said NJ Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel.
It’s a process, they say, that can disturb, harm and potentially kill marine life.
“I don’t want to draw any conclusions, but it was very suspicious that the last time we had seismic testing off the coast of New Jersey was the Rutgers geological study that was done. And that was a fraction, a mere fraction, of the size of what we’re talking about. And within days of that happening, four whales were found dead in our region — within days of one another — and that was just directly after that seismic blasting,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action.
Zipf says while seismic testing will not take place directly off New Jersey, it will affect communities along the Jersey coast.
“In the impact zone, you’re going to have the most devastation. But further away, even, there will be harm; marine life won’t know what’s going on, mothers have been known to leave their calves because they’re in a frenzy, they don’t know what’s happening,” Zipf said. “Fish get completely confused, too. They hear this sound and they scatter because they don’t know if it’s a predator or not, so it disrupts the whole ecosystem for tens of thousands of miles away.”
The concern is that seismic testing opens a door for offshore drilling in the Atlantic and along New Jersey’s coast.
The effort to stop seismic testing and offshore drilling is a bipartisan one. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has signed on to a letter with 53 other members of Congress to deny a final permit for companies to conduct seismic testing in the Atlantic.

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How serious is New Jersey about transportation pollution?

Lawmakers consider bill that would clamp down on short-term pollutants like methane but could charge state DEP to restrict CO2 pollution, most of which stems from the transportation sector

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

Warning that it is time to get serious about climate change, lawmakers yesterday approved a bill to clamp down on pollutants contributing to global warming, possibly targeting the biggest culprit of all, carbon dioxide.
The legislation (S-3207), which cleared the Senate Environment and Energy Committee, aims to ensure the state is on target to reduce carbon pollution in New Jersey by 80 percent below 2006 levels by mid-century.
At this point, the bill proposes that the state Department of Environmental Protection adopt strategies to curb emissions from short-lived, but very potent, pollutants, such as methane. But Sen. Bob Smith, the chairman of the committee, appeared to endorse a recommendation from the New Jersey Sierra Club that the state also target carbon dioxide, the most pervasive greenhouse-gas pollutant.

Time to clean up CO2

Jeff Tittel, director of the club, argued the state has had the authority to regulate CO2 as an air contaminant since 2005, but never opted to do so. Recent studies, including the National Climate Assessment released by the Trump administration, warns climate change is happening and will have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy
“We are heading into a climate crisis,’’ Tittel told lawmakers. “What we worried and speculated about is already happening. It’s critical for states to move forward.’’
Smith echoed that sentiment with a not-so-subtle shot at the Christie administration’s failure to address climate change during the former governor’s eight years in office. “We went through the dark ages,’’ he said, “and nothing happened.’’
Although not amending the bill, he urged the DEP to take a look at whether CO2 should be regulated as a pollutant with permits and fees attached to emissions, just like other more conventional pollutants like nitrogen oxide, which causes ground-level ozone, or smog.
If the DEP chooses to follow that course, it could serve as a backstop for regulating emissions of the pollutant, particularly at a time when President Donald Trump is rolling back efforts by the previous administration to combat climate change.

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