Google search car tracking down leaky PSE&G gas pipes

Google Street View car equipped with methane detectors (Photo: PSE&G)

James M. O’Neil reports for The Record:


To prioritize which aging gas mains to replace, the utility used a Google Street View car equipped with methane sensors.

PSE&G collaborated on the leak detection effort with the Environmental Defense Fund, Google and Colorado State University. The utility learned about work EDF and Google had done mapping gas leaks in Boston and Indianapolis, and asked to work together to do the same in North Jersey.
The EDF collaborators have since mapped gas leaks in Dallas, Syracuse, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh and elsewhere. This was the first project in which the EDF group worked directly with a utility to map out leaks.
The PSE&G gas main replacement project is designed to improve safety, waste less gas and reduce emissions of methane — the main component of natural gas — that contribute to climate change.
“Reducing methane emissions is one of the quickest ways we have to protect the climate,” said EDF President Fred Krupp. “It takes courage to invite an environmental group to come sniffing around for leaks in their system. By tackling these leaks faster, PSE&G will achieve a lot more environmental benefit for their infrastructure dollars.”
The typical cost of replacing a mile of gas line in the PSE&G system is about $1.5 million to $2 million, according to the company.
The company used the Google Street View car to gather millions of readings over hundreds of miles of roadway in Bergen, Passaic, Hudson and Essex counties. The car was used in Fort Lee, Edgewater, Paramus, Ridgewood, Wayne, Fairview, Northvale, Paterson, Clifton and Passaic, as well as other towns.
There are four Google Street View cars specially equipped with the technology developed by EDF, Google and Colorado State University.
The technology not only allows volume to be measured with great precision, but also maps the leaks. EDF, Google and CSU spent five years putting the technology, the data processing and the analytical expertise together in one package.
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Wheel weights, paint recycling and dredging bills advance

lead wheel weights


The New Jersey Assembly’s Environment and Solid Waste Committee this afternoon approved and released the following bills:


A-261, sponsored by Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex), prohibits the installation and sale of wheel weights containing lead or mercury. The bill also prohibits sale of new motor vehicles equipped with wheel weights containing lead or mercury. The bill was released on a 5-0 vote.  Here’s what the sponsor had to say about it 


A-1373, sponsored by Assemblyman Tim Eustace (D-Bergen), requires paint manufacturers to establish a recycling program for used consumer paint. 


The bill was released on a 4-1 vote with a paint manufacturers organization and several recycling and environmental groups in support.  


A-4152 , sponsored by Assemblyman Bob Andrzejczak(D-Cape May), limits application of DEP shellfish habitat rules for certain dredging activities.

The bill would eliminate the current requirement for pre-dredging testing for shellfish habitats when the dredging would be undertaken in limited areas near marinas. The bill would not apply to new development or to an expansion of any water-dependent development.  A person dredging would have to obtain all other required state and federal permits and approvals for the dredging.


The legislation was released 5-0. 
  
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Philly ex-congressman Fattah draws a decade in prison

Former Congressman Chaka Fatah sentenced to jail (AP photo)
Anna Orso reports for BillyPenn:

A federal judge sentenced former U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah to spend a decade in prison and pay $614,000 in restitution to victims of corruption charges on which the longtime legislator was convicted this summer.

For 22 years, Fattah represented Pennsylvania’s second congressional district and has long been one of the top politicians in the city of Philadelphia. In open court today, moments before handing down his sentence, U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III called Fattah’s crimes “astonishing” and said “political corruption in high places is a grave matter.

“Those in high places,” Bartle said, “will certainly know what happened in this courtroom today.”

The judge said Fattah is to surrender into federal custody on Jan. 25; however, his attorneys have indicated they will appeal his conviction and asked for bail pending that appeal.

Fattah said during a brief statement to the court that he regrets some of his decisions that led to criminal charges, saying the investigation and the trial has been the “most disappointing” event in his life. He first asked the judge for leniency for his co-defendants, and then said he has “regret” for his constituents.

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School district tackles huge drinking-water testing project


Karen Wall reports for the Brick Patch:

William J. Kolibas Jr. opened a fat binder sitting on the table.

“This is all the information we have to compile,” said Kolibas, director of facilities for the Brick Township (NJ) School District. “The government requires a lot of paperwork.”
The paperwork is for the district’s screening of its drinking water for lead. Lead contamination in schools’ drinking water exploded as a concern roughly 18 months ago, when children in Flint, Michigan, were becoming sick from lead poisoning, the result of lead leaching into the water in their homes and schools.
The crisis in Flint stirred concerns across the country and led to testing of water in some of New Jersey’s inner-city schools; results from 30 schools in Newark found lead levels as high as 35 times above the federal action limit of 15 parts per billion, according to a report in NJ.com. In May, Gov. Chris Christie announced that all of the state’s 3,000 schools would be tested for lead exposure, and the state appropriated $10 million to help cover the costs.
 The 15ppb is set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the maximum allowable level, as lead in drinking water can have serious health impacts, especially for children.

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With the regulations and testing protocols in hand, Brick Township has been moving forward with testing at the district’s 12 schools to address issues and fix them immediately.
“As soon as we got the regulations from the state, in August or September, we got moving,” interim Superintendent Thomas Gialanella said Friday morning during an interview at the district’s administration building. “We wanted to get out in front of it.”
The district has had testing conducted through an independent private consultant with assistance from the Brick Township MUA, which Gialanella said offered the best price.
So far, the district has tested three schools: Lake Riviera Middle School, Drum Point Elementary School, and Midstreams Elementary School. Four more — Warren Wolf, Emma Havens Young, Osbornville and Herbertsville — will be tested after winter break, probably in mid-January, with the remaining schools — Brick Township High School, Brick Memorial High School, Veterans Memorial Middle School, Veterans Memorial Elementary School and Lanes Mill Elementary School — tested in February. 
The final five schools will likely be broken down into two groups because the high schools are so much larger than the other schools, Kolibas said. The protocols also urge the testing of schools with younger children first, and then older children, as younger children are more at risk from lead because of their smaller bodies and metabolisms.
It is a complex, detailed process.
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Fishermen sue to block U.S. offshore wind farm auction

The Associated Press reports:

Commercial fishing companies, trade groups and seaport communities in four states have asked a court to stop the federal government from auctioning off the rights to develop a huge offshore windfarm in the Atlantic Ocean between New York and New Jersey.

The petition, filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., said the plan to build as many as 194 turbines in a 127-square-mile section would hurt fishermen who now cruise the area looking for scallops and squid and others who harvest fish species including summer flounder, mackerel, black sea bass and monkfish.

The groups want to delay the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s plans to conduct a Dec. 15 lease sale. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the motion ahead of its filing.

“BOEM must carry out the proper analysis prior to officially leasing out areas to companies for construction, due to the importance of this fishery area,” said James Gutowski, president of the Fisheries Survival Fund, which is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

A BOEM spokeswoman declined to comment.

Others seeking a delay include groups representing scallop and squid fishermen, the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. The U.S. still has no offshore wind projects online, though BOEM has awarded 11 commercial offshore wind leases for sites in the Atlantic. Political opposition has delayed some major projects.

The country’s first offshore wind farm, a project off Rhode Island with just a few turbines, is expected to debut this month.

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NY psych professor going to jail for NJ bear-hunt protests

Repeat charges against bear-hunt protester Bill Crain bring jail time


Katie Moen reports for the New Jersey Herald:

Prominent animal rights activist Bill Crain, who faced civil disobedience charges related to protests against the state bear hunt, was sentenced Thursday to 10 days in the county jail.
Crain, who lives with his wife on a 40-acre farm and sanctuary in Poughquag, N.Y., has a long history of protest-related arrests. Since 2005, he has been convicted seven times for acts of civil disobedience.

In 2015, Crain, 73, a professor of psychology at City College of New York, was fined $1,500 after pleading guilty to using a state wildlife management area contrary to posted regulation. At the time, Municipal Court Judge William Devine dismissed two other charges that had been filed against Crain (obstructing the administration of law and recklessly creating a hazardous or physically dangerous condition), but warned him that another conviction could mean jail time.

Thursday night, that prediction came true. Crain again entered a guilty plea to the charge of using a state wildlife management area contrary to posted regulation. Though Crain has always been able to avoid incarceration in the past, Devine imposed a 10-day jail sentence this time around. The other two charges, the same as in previous years, were dropped.
About 20 supporters were present in in the courtroom, including one woman who sat with a stuffed bear on her lap.
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