New Jersey volunteers build another Bayshore oyster reef































Stories like this seem to be growing like, well, oysters? And that’s a good thing.


Justin Auciello reports for newsworks:

The third annual “Shell-a-Bration” oyster reef building volunteer event earlier this month brought together two conservation organizations that have been leading efforts to restore the ecology and economy of New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore communities, an environmental organization announced. 
The volunteers worked alongside the American Littoral Society and the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey to build a near-shore oyster reef at Dyers Cove, at the end of Dyers Creek Road in Newport, Cumberland County, New Jersey.
The organizers say the goal is to prevent beach erosion from wind-driven waves. 
The near-shore project will also test whether the shell bar creates calmer water for spawning horseshoe crabs.
Horseshoe crab eggs are vital to shorebirds, such as the federally listed Red Knot, when they visit the Delaware Bay during the annual migration, according to David Wheeler, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey Executive Director. 
“There are many strategies to defend our Delaware Bayshore, but one of the best and most productive are these oyster reefs,” stated Dr. Larry Niles, a biologist with American Littoral Society and Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey. “They not only replicate a lost but important habitat on Delaware Bay — reefs once covered much of the Bayshore — but they provide just enough protection to make a difference in how long our beaches persist against the unrelenting forces of nature. In a way, we are fighting nature with nature.”

Volunteers built a similar reef at South Reeds Beach in Cape May Court House last year.  


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Methane vents at NJ landfill are torching birds

Brenda Flanagan reports for NJTV NEWS:


The images break your heart. Kestrels — small birds of prey — their wings and tails torched, some burned down to the skin.

“It hurts me. Hurts me in here,” said Chris Takacs.
Audubon member Takacs — an avid bird photographer — took a picture of a kestrel burned by flying through a virtually invisible flare emitted by a pipe. It vents flammable methane 15 to 20 feet into the air at Kingsland Landfill, nonstop — a continuous 1,700-degree vortex created as the gas from decaying garbage burns off, unseeable except for shimmering heat unless you look at it after dark. Takacs took a video. He caught the burned kestrel in his photo, says it was grounded.

“Severely burned on two wings and severely burned in the tail. There was almost two-thirds of the feather gone. This bird could not fly. We watched it run around and jump to catch grasshoppers,” Takacs said.

“When you have even their feathers burned, you have to consider it a dead bird. They might not die at that instant but if they can’t hunt, if they can’t migrate — anything that hinders that — you have to consider that a bird that’s not going to survive the winter, unfortunately,” said Don Torino.

Torino heads the Bergen County Audubon Society. He says they found four burned kestrels around the landfills in North Arlington last month, don’t know how many they missed. But it’s prime kestrel habitat, located in the Meadowlands near DeKorte Park. Not that kestrels are the only birds burned by the methane flare.
Read the full story here


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After all the anguish, NJ’s gas tax increase tip-toes into law


Remember all the New Jersey road projects shut down, the construction workers laid off, the games of political one-upmanship between the Democrat leaders in the Assembly and Senate, and the governor beseeching Grover Norquist for a tax-hike dispensation?  


What it all produced in the end was a ‘compromise’ bill so unpalatable to so many that the governor had to sign it without any ceremony on Friday afternoon.  


Here’s how Bill Orr of Blue Jersey sees it:


“On a quiet Friday afternoon our government often
issues releases announcing actions for which it does not want to attract
attention. Normally an important bipartisan bill would be signed in a public
ceremony with the Governor, the Assembly Speaker, the Senate President, other
legislators, guests, and the press in attendance. Such could have happened
Thursday when legislators were in Trenton. That did not happen. Instead
Christie signed the TTF bill quietly into law on Friday with no ceremony.

“It’s not surprising that
legislators shied away from attending a ceremony. The signed bill provides
essential and substantial funding for the TTF for eight years but comes after
considerable unpopularity from the public, acrimonious wrangling, and a long
delay.

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“The public was not enthused with
either the 23 cent per gallon increase in the gas tax nor the long work
stoppage this summer on transportation projects after the fund ran out of
money. Conservative legislators want to shrink, not grow the state coffers with
an increased tax. Progressive legislators particularly disliked ending the
estate tax and were concerned with other tax policy changes which leave a hole in future state budgets. The governor
insisted on tax policy changes which led to delays and acrimony in reaching an
agreement. 


“It was not fun watching the sausage being made in secret between the Governor, Assembly Leader,
and Senate President. As a supporter of the imploding Donald Trump and in
receipt of a summons accusing him of Official Misconduct, our embattled
governor has little appetite for appearing before the press.

“So our politicians did not want to
put on party hats and toot the horns yesterday.

“The gas tax increase takes effect
November 15. The governor also lifted the executive order shutting down
statewide “nonessential” construction projects. There will be a referendum on
the Nov. 8 ballot to dedicate the new gas tax revenue solely to transportation
projects.”

You can see how legislators voted on the bill here.


Other news coverage:

Christie signs bill raising N.J. gas tax 23 cents a gallon
N.J. gas tax to rise 23 cents a gallon on Nov. 1
23 cent gas tax hike deal will open new budget hole 

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The defense asks judge to drop all Bridgegate charges

The federal judge in the Bridgegate trial was asked during an abbreviated session on Friday to drop all the charges against Port Authority employees Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly. The judge will take the weekend to decide. NJTV NEWS reporter David Cruz has the details above.


Also covering the trial, Paul Berger of The Record reports:

For the second time at the Bridgegate federal trial in Newark, a defense lawyer has insinuated that Governor Christie was told about the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge before and during the scheme — to cause traffic as a form of political retribution — played out on the streets of Fort Lee in 2013.


Christie, who is not on trial in the case, maintains that he did not find out that his deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, was involved in the September 13 lane closures until months later.

Her lawyer, Michael Critchley, suggests otherwise.

Questioning the governor’s former chief counsel, Charlie McKenna, on Friday morning, Critchley asked: “Were you aware she had conversations with the governor before the lane closures and during the lane closures?”

McKenna replied: “No.”

“Were you aware if Bridget Kelly’s knowledge of what Governor Christie knew — if it ever came out — it would be damaging to his presidential campaign and it would affect the Christie Administration Bridgegate coverup?” Critchley asked.

“I didn’t know,” McKenna responded.

The exchange came on the seventeenth day of the trial of Kelly and Bill Baroni, the governor’s former top executive appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that owns and operates the bridge.

Critchley raised the same assertions about the governor earlier this week while questioning Deborah Gramiccioni, a former Christie ally who replaced Baroni as deputy executive director of the Port Authority. Gramiccioni said that she had no knowledge of such conversations between Kelly and Christie.


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Some utilities–like PSEG–are rethinking business model


Some states are successfully using ‘decoupling’ as a way to get power companies to convince customers to use less energy — without taking an economic hit

Ralph Izzo, chairman, CEO,
and president of PSEG

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:


If the state is going to be more successful in cutting energy use and saving consumers money in the process, it needs to revamp its business model for utilities, according to New Jersey’s most prominent energy executive.
In a keynote address on the state’s evolving energy needs, Ralph Izzo, the chairman, president, and CEO of Public Service Enterprise Group, offered the company’s most expansive plea to date to develop a new regulatory model to encourage utilities to more aggressively invest in energy-efficient technology.
Izzo suggested that Public Service Electric & Gas, the state’s oldest and largest utility as well as PSEG’s most profitable business, is interested pursuing an overhaul of the century-old utility system.
Talks to that effect are now occurring in Trenton among a wide-ranging legislative task force, but similar efforts in the past have proved fruitless. Still, utilities are increasingly being squeezed financially by an array of changes sweeping the sector — declining energy use; increased reliance on cleaner and more localized energy sources, such as solar; and demands for better reliability.
“Meeting new expectations will require utilities to evolve,’’ Izzo said. “Energy efficiency is what the customers need… and we want to make it easy for them to get it.’’
Twenty-nine states already have embraced one new utility model in some form, a system dubbed “decoupling’’ in energy jargon. According to Izzo, “It seems to be a promising way to help make that (energy efficiency) happen.’’

Read the full story here

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Star-Ledger’s Tom Moran says: Give fracking a chance

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The columnist and chief editorial writer for New Jersey’s largest newspaper–the Star-Ledger–says give fracking a chance (with tighter regulations).  His    column, reproduced below, has already generated 61 comments. Give it a read and let us know what you think. To do so, click the tiny ‘comments’ line at the bottom of this post.

Climate change is why environmentalists must reconsider fracking | Moran

By  Tom Moran | Star-Ledger Editorial Board

The Sierra Club, like most environmental groups, vehemently opposes fracking for natural gas, and building pipelines to send it to market.
But it’s time for them to take a fresh look. PSEG announced last week that it will close two enormous coal plants, one near Trenton and the other in Jersey City. By switching to natural gas, carbon emissions will drop by about half.
Why did PSEG make this decision? Mainly because it’s now cheaper to run a power plant on natural gas, thanks to the abundant supplies produced by fracking.
Power companies across the country are making the same decision, with coal burning dropping by 9 percent this year alone. This transition has actually dropped power plants behind transportation as the largest source of carbon emissions for the first time in 1979 — a significant step in the greatest environmental challenge we face.
No doubt, fracking presents two big risks. The process calls for pumping chemicals into the ground to force out the natural gas, and that puts water supplies at risk. And leaks of methane, a gas that is an even more potent risk to the climate than carbon, can undercut the gains of this switch.
But those risks can be managed with vigorous regulation. The Obama administration has found only a few isolated cases of water contamination, and believes the methane leaks are not big enough to outweigh the clear advantages of switching to natural gas. It is studying ways to further reduce both risks with more strict oversight.
The fight against climate change is a desperate one that we are losing. Even if all nations honor the ambitious pledges made during the Paris talks in 2015, scientists say it will be only a start, and that much more must be done to avert catastrophe.
Yes, the ultimate challenge is to wean ourselves off fossil fuels entirely. And a hefty carbon tax is the best way to start. But Washington isn’t close to doing that.
Even when they do wake up, as they will have to eventually, a carbon tax would not suddenly end our reliance on all fossil fuels. It would take years, probably decades.
We need to bring a fanatic realism to this fight, and that means taking every step we can to reduce carbon emissions now. Including fracking.
So let’s not end fracking just yet.   61 Comments
More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.


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