NJ lawmakers get ready to override DEP Highlands rule


Legislators move to roll back rule, issue rare rebuke to executive branch that originally passed regulation

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

Ignoring a plea from state environmental officials, lawmakers yesterday moved to rescind a new rule that would open up forested parts of the Highlands to more development.
The unanimous vote by the Senate Environment and Energy Committee makes it more likely the Legislature will act to revoke the regulation by the end of the lame-duck legislative session in January in what would be rare rebuke to the executive branch.
The dispute is the latest in what has been an ongoing battle between environmentalists and the Christie administration over the Highlands, a more than 800,000-acre region in central and northern New Jersey of forested hills, lakes and ample farmland.
The regulation, adopted by the state Department of Environmental Protection this past summer, allows for development in ecologically sensitive parts of the Highlands by increasing the density of septic tanks in those areas.
Much of the state’s environmental community and Democratic lawmakers view the new rule as inconsistent with the 2004 law creating the Highlands Act, a measure designed to preserve an area of wide biological diversity and a source of drinking water to millions of residents.

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Beekeepers buzz town officials about residential hives


In the last of our reports from the New Jersey State League of Municipalities 2017 Convention in Atlantic City, we chat with Jeffrey Burd of the NJ Beekeepers Association.


His organization was one of scores of exhibitors looking to introduce their issues and products to local officials.


In the case of the beekeepers, the twin messages were: the value of bees to New Jersey’s agriculture and the safety of beekeeping in residential areas.


Related:
Water quality rule changes keep NJ testing labs busy
Was every local official in NJ in AC this week?

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NJ looks to ban pesticide that EPA’s Pruitt approved

pesticide

Widely used on a variety of crops, chlorpyrifos has been linked to potentially harmful effects in people


Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:


The state is moving to ban the use of a pesticide linked to potential harmful effects in humans, a step considered but ultimately rejected by the Trump administration.

Under legislation to be taken up by the Senate Environment and Energy committee today, the use of chlorpyrifos (CPS) would be prohibited in New Jersey, seven months after the bill (S-3405) is enacted.
CPS, widely used on a variety of crops like apples, grapes, and soybeans, is now a restricted-use insecticide in New Jersey, which means it can only be purchased and used by certified and licensed pesticide applicators.
At the end of the Obama administration, scientists at the federal Environmental Protection Agency recommended the product be banned, but Scott Pruitt, the new administrator reversed the decision.
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Some happy but wary about shads return to the Delaware

Steve Meserve shows off shad in Lambertville. Kim Weimer, staff photographer

A big shad run up the Delaware River this year has many excited the historic fish could be making a comeback. But others urge caution, saying the fish has a long way to go.

Kyle Bagenstose reports for the Bucks Courier-Times:
The number of shad — little-known but important fish — increased dramatically in the Delaware River in 2017, leading to the fish’s best migratory showing in decades.
That’s according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which netted 1,262 shad during its surveying this year, the most since 1995.
But some fish watchers are urging caution. They note that it’s just one year in a long history of declining shad populations along the Atlantic Coast.
“We don’t want to make too much of any one year, in any one place,” said Joseph Gordon, Northeast manager for U.S. oceans with the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.
Many area residents may best know the fish through Shad Fest, an event held each spring in New Hope and Lambertville.
Shad Fest gives participants a taste of the fish, as restaurants serve up shad hauled in by local fishermen. Like salmon, shad spend most of their lives at sea but migrate up fresh waterways to spawn once a year.
That makes them an integral part of the ecosystem, providing an important food source for saltwater and freshwater predators.
“They take important nutrients from off-shore ecosystems and bring them into rivers,” Gordon said. “There’s this crucial link that connects the ocean to river systems, which could be recovered but is mostly gone.”
Shad were once so abundant in the Delaware that numerous fisheries in Bucks County and beyond employed fishermen who caught and shipped them to restaurants in Philadelphia and New York City. But mid-20th-century pollution prevented shad from migrating up the Delaware, dropping their migratory numbers from the millions to zero, with a modest recovery in recent decades.
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Debate: Did Christie fetch Trump’s sandwiches or not?

Editor:
1st story: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was “a sort of manservant” who delivered orders from McDonald’s to then presidential candidate Donald Trump.  


2nd story: Nope, it was all made up and leaked by enemies within the campaign to embarrass Christie.


3rd story: Wrong again, Christie indeed was the sandwich fetcher


Expected follow-up stories:
If Christie was not the transporter, who was?
Is President Trump still getting fast-food takeouts?
What are his favorites? With fries? Supersized?
Who’s paying? The public? The RNC? Trump? Christie?

New Yorker reporter defends story that Christie fetched McDonalds for Trump

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