Vote tomorrow on Delaware River basin fracking ban

Associated Press photo

Frank Kummer reports for Philly.com:

The Delaware River Basin Commission said Monday that it would consider a resolution Wednesday to make permanent the current moratorium on natural-gas development near the river, a move met with both joy and caution by environmentalists.

The DRBC measure would “include prohibitions related to the production of natural gas utilizing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing” within the 13,539-square-mile basin.

“The revised draft regulations also would include provisions for ensuring the safe and protective storage, treatment, disposal or discharge of hydraulic fracturing-related wastewater where permitted, and provide for the regulation of inter-basin transfers of water and wastewater for purposes of natural-gas development where permitted,” the commission said in a statement.

The DRBC, a regulatory body with representatives from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the federal government, will vote only to introduce the resolution, beginning a months-long process. The resolution would direct the commission’s executive director, Steven J. Tambini, to prepare revised rules that would be brought up for public comment by Nov. 30. Hearings would be held.

Wednesday’s meeting is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. at the Linksz Pavilion at Bucks County Community College in Newtown.

The moratorium was initiated in 2010 by the DRBC, which oversees the water supply of 15 million people. If a permanent ban is approved, it would apply to Pike and Wayne Counties in northeastern Pennsylvania, part of the nation’s largest gas field, the Marcellus Shale.



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A renewed claim that Exxon settlement cheated the public

Bayway Refinery, Linden, NJ

New Jersey’s $225 million settlement with Exxon
Mobil short-changed the public, four environmental organizations and a Democratic
state senator told an appeals court Monday, adding they should be allowed to
push for more case 


Michael Catalini reports for the Associated Press:

New Jersey’s $225 million settlement with Exxon Mobil short-changed the public, four environmental organizations and a Democratic state senator told an appeals court Monday, adding they should be allowed to push for more cash.
State Sen. Ray Lesniak and an attorney for the environmental groups continued their yearslong push to intervene in New Jersey’s settlement with the Texas petroleum company on Monday, arguing before a three-judge appeals court in Trenton that the trial judge was wrong to deny them the ability to intervene in the 2015 settlement.
The state’s legal fight against Exxon goes back to 2004, when New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection brought a suit against Exxon over decades of pollution at two oil refineries in Bayonne and Linden. A months-long trial was about to result in trial Judge Michael Hogan’s decision when Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s administration and Exxon announced the settlement.
Lesniak, an attorney, argued for himself on Monday before the court. He called the lower court’s decision “unfair, unreasonable and not in the public interest.”
Lesniak and the environmental groups’ attorney, Edward Lloyd, said they not only want the right to intervene but also challenge the merits of the settlement. They argued that the state accepted far too little compared with the earlier $8.9 billion estimate the state had calculated was needed for cleanup.
Allan Kanner, an attorney representing the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, and Ted Wells, Exxon’s lawyer, argued that Hogan was correct to reject the previous intervention attempts on the grounds that they didn’t have standing.
Lesniak said that as a resident of Elizabeth, New Jersey, near where the contaminated sites noted in the suit are located, he believes he has standing. Lloyd argued before the judges that the question of standing was incorrectly applied to the groups by the trial court judge.
The 2015 deal also included the settlement of claims concerning more than 1,000 retail gas station sites and additional refinery locations across the state that were not initially part of the litigation.
Christie hailed it as the largest settlement of its kind in state history and pointed to it as a sign his administration was “aggressively litigating against polluters.”
But Lesniak and environmental organizations said the state settled for “pennies on the dollar,” and sought to challenge the deal.
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Sen. Bateman supports permanent fracking ban by DRBC

Senator Christopher “Kip” Bateman (R-Somerset, Mercer, Middlesex, Hunterdon) is urging the Delaware River Basin Commission to approve a permanent ban on fracking in the basin, following reports that the commission could vote on the matter this week.
http://www.senatenj.com/uploads/stop-fracking-pipelines-520.jpg
In a news release, Bateman said:

“If we allow fracking in the Delaware River Basin, 17 million people could be exposed to contaminated water. There is too much uncertainty at the federal level right now to allow the temporary ban to expire without putting our own permanent protections in place immediately.

“I believe that ignoring the safety and environmental concerns surrounding fracking in sensitive areas like the basin is completely irresponsible. I’m not willing to stay silent and allow oil and gas companies to come here and put our families at risk.

“The commission has a responsibility to protect the increasingly fragile natural resources we rely on from pollution. It can start by immediately voting ‘yes’ on a permanent ban on fracking in the basin. It’s the right thing to do.”

The Delaware River Basin supplies water to parts of the Mercer County region in New Jersey, as well as areas of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York. The commission, which is made up of representatives from all four states, in 2010 enacted a 7-year temporary moratorium on fracking within its jurisdiction. The commission’s next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017.

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Christie backed off at lewd and for that he got screwed


Daily News writers Denis Slattery and Terence Cullen report:

Raunchy recordings of President Trump bragging about infidelities and lewd behavior cost Chris Christie his shot at a cabinet position, according to former White House aide Stephen Bannon.
The New Jersey governor’s reaction to the release of a 2005 recording of Trump making sexually degrading comments about women to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush sealed his fate, Bannon tells CBS News’ “60 Minutes” in an interview set to air Sunday.
Bannon said the weekend after the scandalous tape was released was a “litmus test” in terms of who was really with Trump.

“Billy Bush Saturday showed me who really had Donald Trump’s back to play to his better angels,” he told CBS News.

Trump huddled his top advisers together on Oct. 8, a day after millions of Americans heard him describe grabbing women by the genitalia.
Bannon recalled then-Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus gave Trump an ultimatum: “You either drop out right now, or you lose by the biggest landslide in American political history.”

The conservative adviser — who went on to spend six months as the White House’s chief strategist — claims he was the only one in the room who said Trump still had an “absolutely 100%” chance of winning.

“(Voters) knew Donald Trump was just doing locker room talk with a guy,” he continued. “And they dismissed it. It had no lasting impact on the campaign.”
Anyone in Trump’s inner circle who thought otherwise was bound to pay a price, Bannon said.  
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PADEP’s quarry reclamation requirements upheld


Thomas Friestad reports for the Bucks Courier-Times:
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection was “reasonable” in the reclamation requirements it set for New Hope Crushed Stone and Lime’s quarry in Solebury, the five-person Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board ruled Thursday.
The board had originally deemed the quarry off Phillips Mill Road a “public nuisance” in July 2014 for “the unabated, unpredictable and dangerous formation” of at least 29 collapsed sinkholes on Solebury School’s campus and other surrounding properties between 1989 and 2013, caused by mining operations, wrote board Judge Bernard Labuskes Jr. in the court’s decision.
New Hope Crushed Stone had to fill in its mining pit with backfill to eliminate the nuisance, the DEP determined, but the quarry protested requirements the department gave it in a January 2016 plan.
The requirements, including assigning four laborers to work 40 hours each week and placing  a minimum of 200 cubic yards of fill in the pit per hour, were “arbitrary and capricious,” New Hope Crushed Stone wrote in an appeal to the Environmental Hearing Board the next month. 
Quarry executives also argued that the DEP’s requirements ignored “significant safety concerns” — winter precipitation could cause soil near the pit to slip and send laborers over the edge, said Lou Vittorio, the quarry’s longtime consulting hydrogeologist. Christina Cursley, the quarry’s chief financial officer, also echoed comments she sent the DEP in a June letter, saying the quarry had difficulty hiring and retaining employees, and therefore had to juggle training unskilled laborers while making progress on filling the pit.
But the DEP presented significant evidence that other quarries had safely performed reclamation during winter months, Labuskes wrote. And staffing difficulties or not, he wrote, the quarry’s ability to comply with the DEP’s requirements is “irrelevant” in determining whether those requirements are objectively reasonable. The Environmental Hearing Board ultimately dismissed the quarry’s appeal.
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Eli Lilly to close NJ office, eliminate 3,500 jobs worldwide

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly will close its New York-New Jersey headquarters in Bridgewater, as well as eliminate roughly 3,500 jobs around the world — about 8 percent of its total workforce — as part of an effort to streamline its operations.


The company said in a press release that the majority of the 3,500 employees will have the option of choosing its Voluntary Early Retirement Program, and that the move is expected to produce $500 million in savings annually starting next year.
“We have an abundance of opportunities — eight medicines launched in the past four years and the potential for two more by the end of next year,” David Ricks, Lilly’s CEO, said in a press release. “To fully realize these opportunities and invest in the next generation of new medicines, we are taking action to streamline our organization and reduce our fixed costs around the world.
“The actions we are announcing today will result in a leaner, more nimble global organization and will accelerate progress towards our long-term goals of growing revenue, expanding operating margins and sustaining the flow of life-changing medicines from our pipeline.”
The Bridgewater office, which was located in the Grande Commons off of Route 22, had about 200 employees and was used mainly for research and development. Some of those employees will be relocated to the company’s New York City office and Branchburg location, which is staying open, or will be offered early retirement benefits if eligible, a company spokeswoman said.
The office is being closed as a way to “streamline the global pharmaceutical research and development activities,” the press release said. “The commitment and perseverance of our people, who never give up on our mission of tackling hard-to-treat diseases, make up our legacy of more than 140 years. We will implement changes with fairness and the utmost respect for our Lilly colleagues, while we remain a vibrant, thriving competitor.”
The Indianapolis-based company expects to incur charges of approximately $1.2 billion in pre-tax ($0.80 per share after-tax), which includes the estimated participation of the U.S. voluntary early retirement program, global severance and facility closures. These charges will be reflected as asset impairment, restructuring and other special charges in the third and fourth quarters of 2017, the press release said.


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