$70M in federal funds will help NJ upgrade water systems


Allocation will help finance $500 million in upgrades to sewage-treatment plants through the New Jersey Drinking Water State Revolving Fund

waste water treatment

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:



The federal government yesterday awarded nearly $70 million to New Jersey to help fund projects to upgrade sewage-treatment plants and drinking-water systems.



The allocation should help finance more than a half-billion-dollars worth of projects through the state’s Environmental Infrastructure Trust, a vehicle set up to help communities fund clean-water projects.
The award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is part of an annual appropriation to help the state raise water quality by improving treatment at wastewater plants and public systems providing drinking water to residents.
The money will help put a dent into one of New Jersey’s most pressing infrastructure needs — upgrading aging sewage-treatment systems and drinking water facilities.
By the EPA’s estimate, the state needs to spend $17 billion to fix its wastewater systems over the next five years and another $8 billion to upgrade drinking water infrastructure.
The biggest chunk of the money, $54.2 million, will go to the state’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, administered by the Department of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Infrastructure Trust. Along with a 20 percent state match and repayments from prior loans, the award will help finance approximately $510 million in clean-water projects at wastewater facilities.
The EPA also awarded $15.7 million to the New Jersey Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which should help finance up to about $115 million in drinking water projects.
“Resources such as these will help in the effort to modernize our aging infrastructure in our big cities, small towns, and rural areas,’’ said DEP Commissioner Bob Martin.
The EPA award comes from a program that has averted deep cuts in President Donald Trump’s first proposed budget. Forty percent of the New Jersey DEP’s budget relies on funding from the federal agency, according to Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters.
Earlier in the day, environmental groups, members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, and local officials held a press conference calling on the GOP-led House to block the cuts in environmental spending.
Since 1960, the federal agency has awarded $2.5 billion to New Jersey through these clean-water programs, which has enabled New Jersey to finance $6 billion in projects, largely through low-interest loans.

Related:
Environmentalists in NJ urge Congress not to cut the EPA’s budget 


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Two NJ solar companies power onto Inc’s Top 100 list


Eric Strauss reports today in NJBiz: 
Inc. is out with its annual Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies, and more than 140 from New Jersey made the 2017 list, including four in the Top 100 overall.
The companies were ranked by their percentage growth in revenue over three years.
Interestingly, the four from the Garden State that cracked the Top 2 percent were divided evenly among the beverage industry and the solar energy sector. 
The top-ranked company in New Jersey was Newark-based Single Serve Beverage Distribution, which distributes single-serve beverage pods for Keurig machines and other drink devices. Single Serve came in at No. 11 overall thanks to a three-year growth rate of more than 13,739 percent.
The second-best-performing New Jersey business was West New York-based Dyla, which serves two beverage brands, Forto coffee drink and Stur fruit drink mix, in retail stores. Dyla ranked No. 41 overall, with three-year growth of 6,634 percent.
Momentum Solar, based in Metuchen, was the third-ranked company in the Garden State, finishing at No. 67 overall with a three-year growth rate of 5,223 percent. Momentum installs custom-designed residential and commercial solar systems.
The final New Jersey company in the national Top 100 was Sun Up Zero Down, based in Egg Harbor, which also designs and installs residential solar systems. The company had three-year growth of 4,407 percent, good for the No. 84 spot nationally.
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Offshore energy waiting on gentler political winds in NJ

The state’s industry sector needs to be brought back to life, and that will take a new administration — for starters

offshore wind

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight: 
It has been nearly seven years since a measure to promote offshore wind in New Jersey was signed into law, and not a single turbine is turning off the state’s coast.
But clean-energy advocates and some business executives remain upbeat about prospects for the sector in the state, saying there is still an opportunity for New Jersey to nurture an offshore wind industry and create tens of thousands of jobs.
At a conference in Atlantic City, the Business Network for Offshore Wind outlined steps to resuscitate the state’s offshore wind program, including increasing the commitment to build at least 3,500 megawatts of capacity, up from the existing target of 1,100 megawatts.
That would be an ambitious goal — given the repeated missteps and delays the industry has encountered in New Jersey. Although a law designed to spur offshore wind farms along the coast was passed in 2010, not a single project has won state approval.

Christie cools on wind

Gov. Chris Christie signed the law, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, but the governor has since cooled on the technology, fearful the cost of developing the wind farms would spike energy costs in the state.
Also, his administration never bothered to implement a key provision of the law — developing a financial mechanism to provide ratepayer subsidies to help pay for the projects. Without such a mechanism, offshore wind developers say they will be unable to obtain Wall Street financing.
Nevertheless, two developers, DONG Energy and U.S. Wind Inc., have paid nearly $2 million to secure leases to build wind turbines off the coast, but their projects are still in the early stages, assessing the suitability of the sites to build the farms. By most estimates, no turbines will be operational until the middle of the next decade.

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Pa. takes first step toward regulating PFOA in water




Kyle Bagenstose reports for the Courier-Times:


A Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection board unexpectedly voted Tuesday morning to order a review of PFOA in drinking water, after being petitioned by the Bristol Borough-based environmental nonprofit Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
The chemical, along with sister chemical PFOS, has been found in nationally high levels in drinking water near military bases in Bucks and Montgomery counties, and has also been found in lesser amounts in other parts of the counties.
Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Riverkeeper Network, said the unanimous vote by the DEP’s Environmental Quality Board caught her off guard. “I’m pleasantly surprised,” Carluccio said.
The Riverkeeper Network announced in May that it was petitioning the DEP, initiating a formal regulatory process that required Carluccio to present the petition at Tuesday’s board meeting. Carluccio said she spoke for several minutes and fielded “good questions” from the 20-member, volunteer board.
“There seemed to be a lot of interest in this … they had obviously read the petition and had taken on looking at the issue in a serious way,” Carluccio said.
In an email earlier this month, DEP press secretary Neil Shader said that once the board votes to accept such a petition, DEP staff must study the chemical in question and make a formal recommendation to the board about whether a regulation should be set, and if so, the level of the chemical. If approved, every water authority in the state would be required to test for the chemical and install filtration systems if it’s found above the safe limit.
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Why is Trump rolling back build standards in flood areas?


Executive order rescinds rules intended to safeguard government-financed projects against sea-level rise, climate change

flooding brick

Tom Johnson reports
for NJ Spotlight:


President Donald Trump yesterday repealed stringent building standards aimed at protecting government-financed projects in flood-prone areas by accounting for sea-level rise associated with climate change.
In overturning the two-year-old regulation initiated by the Obama administration, the executive order will roll back protections for infrastructure projects funded with federal aid from the impact of rising sea levels.
The standards, adopted in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and other big storms, were viewed as one of the most significant steps taken in decades to reduce exposure to more frequent flooding due to sea-level rise and climate change.
The action is part of a broad-based effort by the Trump administration to streamline the process for approving infrastructure projects and to roll back regulations dealing with climate change.


A baffling move

The repeal disappointed and baffled environmentalists, planners, and flood-plain managers who argued the Obama standard ensured taxpayers’ dollars would not be wasted on infrastructure projects subject to repeated flooding.
“This anti-regulatory agenda is really going to put lives, first responders, and property at risk,’’ said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society. “Economically, it is going to increase costs for disaster bailout and storm recovery efforts.’’
The order will not bar state and local agencies from using a more stringent standard, nor does it apply to private investments.

Read the full story


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Trump moving ahead on drilling off nation’s coast


Administration seeks to develop program to open all the nation’s coasts to exploration along outer continental shelf


Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:


A lot sooner than they expected, coastal advocates find themselves in a new fight to prevent oil and gas drilling off the Jersey Shore.
The Trump administration will close comments on Thursday on the first step to develop a new program for oil and gas exploration on the outer continental shelf along virtually the entire nation’s coasts.
The process, governing the years 2019-2024, comes only six months after the federal government finalized a five-year program beginning this year for oil and gas leasing — one that excluded the Atlantic from any sales after a huge outcry from public officials, residents, and conservationists.
While the process is only just starting, opponents of oil and gas exploration off the Jersey coast want to send a strong signal during this phase that any drilling poses a threat to the state’s vibrant coastal communities — and its $44 billion tourism industry.
“We’ve got to be on the record at the earliest moments to make sure the state is not included in this new plan,’’ said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, who said the process is being fast tracked by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in the U.S. Interior Department.
So far, some of New Jersey’s congressional delegation has weighed in with a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Both U.S. Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, as well as fellow Democrats Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th), Albio Sires (D-8th), Donald Norcross (D-1), and Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-9th) signed the letter.
“The reopening of this process not only endangers New Jersey’s coastal economy, but also ignores the will of the local communities that would be most impacted by oil drilling — including over 120 municipalities, 1,200 elected officials, 41,000 businesses, and 500,000 fishing families from up and down the Atlantic coast who have all voiced their opposition to oil and gas activities,’’ the delegation wrote.


Where’s Christie?

To date, Gov. Chris Christie and his administration have not taken a stand. Questions to the governor’s press office were redirected to the state Department of Environmental Protection, which did not respond to queries.

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