Activists to basin commissioners: Ban drilling and fracking


Thomas Friestad reports for the Bucks County Courier Times:

The Delaware River Basin Commission met before a copy of Emanuel Leutze’s 1851 painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware” painting Wednesday morning at Washington Crossing Historic Park. In response, environmental activists encouraged the board to “have courage like the men in the boats” by banning fracking and drilling in the Delaware River Watershed.
About 75 activists hailed from the basin’s four states — Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Delaware — and roughly half spoke on behalf of different groups during the public comment section of the meeting in Upper Makefield.
“Fracking damages the beauty of our communities, fracking wastewater trucks destroy our roads and fracking wells leak methane into our water,” said Marguerite Chandler, a member of the group No Fracking Bucks. “Very few decisions can make the impact on future generations that this one (to ban the practices) can.”
The five commissioners had placed an indefinite moratorium on watershed fracking in May 2010, voting unanimously to postpone judgment on fracking projects until members could study and discuss the practice’s impact and draft regulations, a process that remains ongoing, according to the commission’s website.
But speakers argued that an outright ban is necessary to safeguard the watershed over the long term.
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Judge orders more enviro-analysis of Dakota pipeline

Valerie Volcovici reports for Reuters:

A federal judge ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reconsider its environmental review of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Wednesday, opening up the possibility that the line could be shut at a later date.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said the Army Corps did not adequately consider the effects of a possible oil spill on the fishing and hunting rights of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.


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Trenton pedestrian bridge and park along the Delaware

The New Jersey Department of Transportation will put up $15 million for a pedestrian bridge and the state Department of Environmental Protection will use more than $3 million to develop a four and a half acre riverfront park in Trenton.
–Michael Hill reports for NJTV News

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Port Authority chief supports selling Red Hook Terminal

John Degnan
Port Authority Chairman John Degnan  speaking at Crain’s 2017 Real Estate Conference – Buck Ennis photo

John Degnan is open to off-loading 80-acre waterfront site for potential development, but political pitfalls remain

Daniel Geiger reports for Crain’s:

The chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey revived an idea floated in recent years for the agency to sell off one its biggest and most valuable real estate assets: the Red Hook Container Terminal, an 80-acre relic of the Brooklyn waterfront’s industrial past.
The site is still used for shipping, but, with sweeping views of lower Manhattan and New York Harbor, and an address in an increasingly hip precinct of Brooklyn, it could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars for the kind of large-scale residential development that has risen in other areas such as Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Dumbo.
“A core recommendation … was to divest real estate assets that are not producing a flow of income that supports investments in transportation infrastructure,” Degnan said. “Red Hook is a primary example of that. I know there are political difficulties in the state and city of New York to doing it, but the Port Authority would be enormously benefited.”

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NJ’s budget for funding clean energy shrinking again


Diversions may dip slightly, but funneling money away from its intended purpose has cost fund some $1.5 billion over past seven years

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

The state’s budget for funding clean energy is shrinking once again.
The Office of Clean Energy is proposing to spend $166 million in the upcoming year, down from the $208 million it expected to spend in fiscal year 2017 on new commitments for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other programs.
The state said it will maintain the overall clean energy budget at $344 million, the same level as the current year, but that number is inflated by money being diverted for other uses — paying utility bills at state buildings; patching holes in the state budget, which ends in June 30; and addressing issues at NJ Transit.
Those diversions, now at $208 million, will dip to $183 million, continuing a trend of relying on unspent Clean Energy Funds to pay for unrelated programs, a pattern that has cost renewable energy and energy-efficiency efforts more than $1.5 billion over the past seven years.
Those recurring raids have angered clean energy advocates and consumer advocates, mostly because the program is funded by a surcharge on customers’ gas and electric bills. Indeed, there is a bill pending in the Legislature (SCR-151) that would prohibit such diversions from occurring, although its future is uncertain.

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Carbon filters not totally effective with fire-fighting foam

Carbon filtration tanks in Horsham, Pa Kim Weimer photo


Kyle Bagenstose reports for the Bucks County Courier:

As dozens of communities across the country face PFOS and PFOA contamination of their drinking water, many are turning to a technology called granular activated carbon to help filter the toxic chemicals — including three heavily impacted towns in Bucks and Montgomery counties.
The military and local water authorities in Horsham, Warminster and Warrington are spending millions of dollars to install 20-foot tall towers of carbon at numerous drinking wells.
But a new study from the Colorado School of Mines raises concerns about the effectiveness of this progress. About two dozen chemicals related to PFOS and PFOA also can be found in water contaminated by firefighting foam, and those chemicals slip through carbon treatment faster than the other two perfluorinated compounds. This means the chemicals could get into drinking water if a water authority isn’t looking for them.
“If you’re treating for PFOS or PFOA only, a lot of these other chemicals are going to break through the system,” said Chris Higgins, a professor of environmental engineering at the Colorado college and the study’s lead researcher. “That is not to say that carbon does not work for these chemicals … it does work but it doesn’t work as effectively.”
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