Pa water authority mulls suit against fire-foam makers

Foam used to contain storage tank fire in England (BBC photo)

Kyle Bagenstose reports for Bucks County Courier Times:


Board members of the Warminster (Pa) Municipal Authority voted unanimously Friday afternoon to pay a legal firm to assess whether the authority could file a lawsuit to recoup its expenses over recent water contamination.

Philadelphia law firm Anapol Weiss will investigate “the viability of a legal cause of action against various manufacturers of the firefighting foam” that was used for decades at the former Naval Air Warfare Center Warminster, said authority solicitor Robert Nemeroff, of Jenkintown’s Friedman Schuman law firm. A subject of extensive investigation by this newspaper, the foams contained perfluorinated chemicals, or PFAS, that contaminated the water aquifer beneath Warminster and other nearby towns.
Several area lawsuits already have been filed against manufacturers of firefighting foam, although all were brought by private citizens. Anapol Weiss represents clients in those suits.
The Warminster Municipal Authority, which serves about 40,000 people, has been severely impacted by water contamination. Some of the highest levels of chemicals PFOS and PFOA in the nation were found in the water authority’s groundwater supply wells in 2014, prompting their closure. Several more were shuttered in 2016 after the Environmental Protection Agency lowered its recommended safety limit for the chemicals.

In all, six of the authority’s 18 wells were found to contain the chemicals above the EPA safety limit. The military has agreed to pay millions of dollars to install carbon treatment systems on four of the six wells. The military originally agreed to pay for the two others as well, but reneged after retesting about two years later found chemical levels had fallen back below the EPA recommended safety limit, Nemeroff said.


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PSEG to pay $39M to PJM grid for bidding violations



Mistakes chiefly affect how much customers pay 

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:


Public Service Enterprise Group will pay $39 million to settle allegations of numerous violations by a subsidiary concerning its bidding into the nation’s largest energy market.
In a consent agreement signed Monday and made public Wednesday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, PSEG Energy Resources & Trade, LLC admitted to the facts set forth in the stipulation while neither admitting nor denying the violations.
The violations involved assorted errors in bids the company submitted to PJM Interconnection, the operator of the regional power grid, dating back to 2005. The bids largely determine how much consumers pay for electricity.
The notice of the investigation earlier this month came as PSEG is on the verge of gaining approval for a controversial bill (S-2313) to direct up to $300 million a year in subsidies from ratepayers to prop up three nuclear power plants in South Jersey. Without the subsidies, PSEG has threatened to close the plants because they are economically challenged.

Unproven claims

Critics of the bill, now awaiting action by Gov. Phil Murphy, contend the company has failed to prove its claim that the units will turn unprofitable within the next few years.
In the consent decree with FERC, the company, the trading arm of PSEG Power, which runs the plants, agreed to pay a civil penalty of $8 million. The company also will disgorge $26.9 million in unjust compensation for the incorrect bids, as well as $4.5 million in interest.
“It’s a lot of money,’’ noted Division of Rate Counsel Stefanie Brand. Most of it involves disgorgement, which is the profit the company should not have made, she noted.
The federal agency was made aware of the incorrect bids, which staff alleged were false and misleading, as a result of the company’s self-reporting of the problem in April 2014.

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Former NJ Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno joins Connell Foley

Former Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey Kim Guadagno (Aaron Houston photo)

Former Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno has accepted a position as partner with Roseland-based law firm Connell Foley.

In her new role, Guadagno will provide strategic counsel in a number of areas, including real estate, litigation, complex civil cases and criminal law, as well as provide legal advice to the firm’s partners and their clients.

“I did my time in public service and now it’s time to go back to doing what I was trained to do in the first place, which is practicing law,” said Guadagno, a Republican who lost the state’s gubernatorial race to Democrat Phil Murphy in November.

“I never expected to be the lieutenant governor of the state of New Jersey. I always expected to practice law,” she said in an interview. “So when Connell Foley came to me in January, I saw a growing firm with services for just about everyone.”

Guadagno said she got to know the firm as lieutenant governor working with Connell Foley managing partner Philip McGovern Jr. when he was a board member of Choose New Jersey. She also worked with Nevins McCann, another partner at the firm, to set up the Presidents Cup golf tournament in New Jersey last year.

“I’m very familiar with all of the areas in which Connell Foley practices in,” she said. “We are going to be working in the areas where I have exposure in not only in the last eight years, but in the last 35 years as a lawyer: real estate, litigation and corporate work. Connell Foley is a leader in those industries so I’m very excited to be joining them.”

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NRDC, school workers taking Newark to court over water

The city of Newark and the acting commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection are facing a court battle over unsafe levels of lead in drinking water.
Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
With lead levels in supplies nearly twice the federal action level for the contaminant, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Newark Education Workers Caucus yesterday announced plans to sue the government for violating the federal safe drinking-water law.
In 2017, more than 10 percent of samples collected by the Newark Water Department show lead levels in excess of 26 parts per billion (ppb), nearly double the federal action level of 15 ppb under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Approximately 20 percent of the samples exceeded the 15 ppb federal action level, according to the groups.

No exposure

Newark called the allegations false, disputing that residents are exposed to dangerous levels of lead.
“The truth is that the water supplied by the city is fully compliant with federal and state regulations,’’ said Andrea Adebowale, director of water for Newark. “The claimant has seriously misinterpreted the findings.’’
Newark’s problems with lead in drinking water are not a new issue. Over two years ago, unsafe levels of lead were found in drinking water in more than 30 schools, leading the city to shut down drinking fountains and bring bottled water in.
“Newark’s lead levels are shockingly high. Access to safe drinking water is particularly important in low-income communities of color, where residents often face multiple sources of exposure and stressors on their health from environmental burdens,’’ said Sara Imperiale, an NRDC environmental justice attorney.

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Bipartisan legislation seeks repeal of tariff on solar panels



Betsy Lillian reports for Solar Industry:

Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., has introduced the bipartisan Protecting American Solar Jobs Act, which would repeal the Trump administration’s solar tariffs.
H.R.5571 was introduced along with Reps. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., Mark Sanford, R-S.C., Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Steve Knight, R-Calif.
According to a press release from Rosen, the bill would repeal the Trump administration’s “misguided decision” to impose tariffs on solar. In January, President Donald Trump approved an order applying import tariffs on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules starting at 30%, with an annual exemption for the first 2.5 GW of imported solar cells.
Under the proposed legislation, however, duties and tariffs would default back to previous rates and would allow companies that imported any affected solar products under the new tariff to receive retroactive reimbursement.
“Solar energy’s success throughout Nevada has led to new jobs, cheaper power bills and the growth of a new industry that is diversifying our state’s economy,” states Rosen. “This administration directly threatened the stability and financial well-being of our local solar industry when the president decided to impose a 30 percent tariff on imported panels. An attack on solar energy is an attack on the countless hardworking Nevadans who benefit from this growing industry, and my new bill will reverse this damaging decision.”

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Ex-Mercer County mayor who ripped off Asbury Park housing authority to give himself raise gets jail time

Jeff Goldman reports for NJ.com:
The former mayor of a Mercer County (NJ) town has been sentenced to five years in prison for stealing thousands of dollars and using the money to give himself a raise while he served as the executive director of Asbury Park Housing Authority.
Mark W. Holmes Sr., 56, was ordered to pay $35,000 in additional restitution and to forfeit his pension. In addition, Holmes can never again hold a public job, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
Holmes, a Democratic former mayor and councilman in Lawrence Township, pleaded guilty to second-degree theft in January.
He stole more than $90,000 by using state grant money intended to help low-income residents of Asbury Park to give himself a salary increase that wasn’t approved by the agency’s board between 2008 and 2011.

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