On the Road With EnviroPolitics – Day 5

EnviroPolitics Editor Frank Brill continues his ‘summer is ending road trip’ up
along the Hudson River and then east.

After a pleasant stop in Chatham, NY, Frank moves on to Hoosick Falls, the site of a current legislative investigation into how a suspected, cancer-causing chemical, PFOA, had contaminated the town’s drinking water, leaving residents suspicious of government and worried about long-term health effects on their families.

Previously:
On the Road With EnviroPolitics – Day 4
On the Road With EnviroPolitics – Day 3
On the Road with EnviroPolitics – Day 2 
On the Road With EnviroPolitics – Day 1  



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How bad will that coastal storm be? Here’s the guy to call

Alan F. Blumberg, 5th from left, director of Davidson Laboratory at Stevens Institute of Technology 

Scott Fallon writes today in The Record:

Tropical Storm Hermine was slowly making its way up the East Coast late last Saturday morning when the National Hurricane Center put out a bulletin:

“DANGEROUS STORM SURGE EXPECTED ALONG THE COAST FROM VIRGINIA TO NEW JERSEY.”

A few hours later, Governor Christie declared a state of emergency for most of the Jersey Shore.


But in his laboratory at Stevens Institute in Hoboken, Alan Blumberg looked at his computer screen and shrugged. His complex computer modeling showed no major threat to the Jersey Shore or to the flood-prone sections of the Hackensack, Passaic and Hudson rivers.

The veteran oceanographer told a reporter at the time that Hermine was “a lot of hype.” The storm, he said, would cause nothing more than some rough surf and a little beach erosion.

Blumberg was right. It would take more than 24 hours before the National Hurricane Center would agree with him and lift its warning for New Jersey.

Along with his 18-member team at Stevens’ Davidson Laboratory monitoring the region’s coastal waterways, Blumberg has become essential in forecasting weather threats to New Jersey and New York City.

He gained notoriety four years ago when he said Superstorm Sandy would inundate New York City, Hoboken and the Meadowlands two days before they were deluged with a historic tidal surge.



“Our forecast for the storm surge that hit the Battery was a foot short,” he said of New York’s southernmost point. “The government models were 2-½ feet short. But I still don’t want to be a foot short again.”


Today Blumberg’s forecast stretches out to 78 hours and is bolstered by a network of ocean and river monitors purchased with some of the $15 million the lab received after its work on Sandy. 


Officials at the Port Authority, Hoboken and elsewhere rely on him.

“When there is a storm, he is the person we call,” Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said this week. “We have a lot of trust in him.”

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NJ utility backs off plan to create transmission subsidiary

  

Utility indicates no way to resolve outstanding issues and meet January 2017 time frame to begin investing in new entity

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

Jersey Central Power & Light is giving up its fight to transfer its transmission assets to a new company — at least for now.

In a brief letter to the Board of Public Utilities, the state’s second-largest electric utility notified the agency it is withdrawing its petition, although it may consider resubmitting it in a different form in the future.
The proposal, already rejected once by the BPU, generated opposition from consumer advocates, and more recently, local groups opposed to a new transmission project proposed by JCP&L along the North Jersey Coast Line in Monmouth County.
FirstEnergy Corp, the parent of the utility, previously had won approval to create the new entity, dubbed the Mid-Atlantic Interstate Transmission Co., from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
The company had hoped to begin investing in the new transmission company by January 1, 2017. “However, at this juncture, nearly 15 months after the original petition was filed, there appears to be no prospect of resolving this matter in New Jersey to accommodate the above time-frame,’’ the utility’s lawyer wrote the BPU in withdrawing its plan.
In denying the original petition, the state agency said a purely transmission company did not meet the state’s definition of a public utility because it did not include any distribution assets — the poles and wires delivering power to homes and businesses.

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NJ bill requires education for pesticide users–for bees sake

A bill requiring training for pesticide applicators and operators concerning pollinating bees, S-2078, was released on September 8, 2016 by the New Jersey Senate Environment and Energy Committee.

Ed Wengryn and Kelly Mooij, representatives of the New Jersey Farm Bureau and the New Jersey Audubon Society, explain why their organizations view the legislation as important. 
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Committee releases bill prodding NJDEP on contaminants


Senator Ray Lesniak calls his bill S-2468 a way “to hold DEP’s feet to the fire” in setting
safety limits for contaminants in drinking water.


The Christie Administration put the brakes on setting new limits for a number of chemicals found in public water sources as soon as the governor took office in 2010.

For several years following the issuance of an executive order freezing new rules and regulations, the governor’s office failed to appoint members to the Drinking Water Quality Institute, a science-based panel that makes recommendations to the DEP on limits that it believes should be set for those unregulated chemicals.


Lesniak’s bill, as introduced, would have forced the department to adopt recommendations made by the council. The legislation was amended in the Senate Environment and Energy Committee today to continue the present practice of allowing the DEP to review the recommendation and have a final say in setting the limit, but the bill now sets a deadline for the department to decide.

If the department fails to establish a pubic review process within two months and fails to adopt a standard six months later, the Institute’s recommended limit would automatically go into effect.


The bill was released on a unanimous, bipartisan vote.


Related news story:
Democrats, Republicans chide Christie’s DEP over inaction on drinking water

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Enviros unhappy with latest NJDEP beach-access proposal

Critics contend new rules fail to ensure unfettered access promised by bipartisan bill now before Legislature

Tom Johnson of NJ Spotlight reports:

The Christie administration is proposing minor adjustments to the rules governing access to beaches and the shoreline, setting up a new battle with legislators and conservationists over the issue.

In a new regulation proposed on Tuesday, the state Department of Environmental Protection is recommending modifications in its rules detailing when and how it will require access to tidal waters, a source of controversy for many years.
The proposal is designed to accommodate state policies made in response to a court ruling late last year that overturned the agency’s authority to require access to waterways under certain permitting programs, according to the regulation.
But conservation groups and environmentalists were quick to denounce the proposal, faulting it as falling short of guaranteeing access to beaches and the shoreline as widely as a bill pending in the Legislature.
“They are proposing the same rules that limited beach access, were opposed by the public, and were struck down by the courts,’’ said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “With these rules, we are going back to the day when towns want our money to pay for their beaches, but do not want us to access our beaches.’’
In its proposal, the department noted the changes it is making in the regulation are consistent with recent court rulings and legislation ensuring “public access is provided to tidal waters and their shoreline in a cost effective manner.’’
Citing the importance of public access to beaches as a key component of the state’s coastal tourism industry, the proposal said the changes “will confirm and strengthen the continuation of that access.’’


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