EnviroPolitics Blog

NJ-NY rail service getting back on track after long, hot interruptions

The last few days have been an overheated nightmare for thousands of rail commuters trying to travel between New Jersey and New York.

NJ Transit, Amtrak service resumes after suspension due to power issues, large fire near NJ Turnpike

By Jacob Flanagan, FOX 5

NJ Transit and Amtrak service along the northeast corridor resumed Thursday evening after power issues caused by a nearby brush fire had caused a suspension.

A power failure that Amtrak attributed to a malfunctioning circuit breaker somewhere along the tunnels under the Hudson River caused the original suspension, leaving passengers stranded for hours.

A brush fire in the vicinity of County Road in Secaucus, New Jersey had also impacted wire repairs, but the fire was extinguished by early Thursday evening.

Emergency crews are working to extinguish the flames.

Meanwhile, Amtrak said that service had been temporarily disrupted between Philadelphia 30th Street Station and New Haven Union Station due to a malfunctioning circuit breaker that had caused a loss of power on the tracks between Penn Station and Newark Union Station.

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George Norcross indictment: The continuing story

The Democratic power broker and co-defendants are also accused of bending state law to serve their own interests

By JOHN REITMEYER, NJ Spotlight News

Democratic power broker George E. Norcross III and several co-defendants, including a former Camden mayor who served in the state Senate, are facing first-degree racketeering and other charges related to allegedly corrupt real estate dealings in Camden under an indictment announced by the state attorney general’s office.

The bombshell, 13-count indictment unsealed Monday also alleges Norcross and several co-defendants influenced the drafting of an important state tax-incentive law over a decade ago to serve their own interests.

Attorney General Matt Platkin, speaking during an afternoon news conference — which Norcross himself attended as an apparent uninvited guest — accused Norcross, a long-standing figure in state politics, of “running a criminal enterprise in this state for at least the last twelve years.”

“On full display in this indictment is how a group of unelected, private businessmen used their power and influence to get government to aid their criminal enterprise and further its interests,” Platkin said.

“The alleged conduct of the Norcross Enterprise has caused great harm to individuals, businesses, nonprofits, the people of the State of New Jersey, and especially the City of Camden and its residents,” Platkin said.

Read the full NJ Spotlight story here

George Norcross indictment: The continuing story Read More »

EPA explains changes to cleanup plan for S. Plainfield Superfund site

Today’s news from your EnviroPolitics Blog

(June 18, 2024) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued the final Explanation of Significant Differences that explains changes to the cleanup plan to address contaminated soil and debris at the Woodbrook Road Dump Superfund site in South Plainfield, New Jersey.

“Today, we are announcing our update to the cleanup plan for the Woodbrook Road Dump site, which confirms our original plan to remove the contaminated soil to an approved off-site disposal facility,” said EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia. “This plan will protect the health and environment of the people and wildlife living near the site, which is now part of the Peter J. Barnes III Wildlife Preserve.”

The update to the final cleanup plan being announced today documents that the estimated cost of the original cleanup rose from $45.4 million in 2018 to $70 million in 2023 due in part to inflation and increased disposal costs. In addition, EPA updated the cleanup goal to 1.1 parts per million (ppm) for the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations in the soil and debris at the site. The cleanup plan update also recognizes that in 2021, New Jersey created the Peter J. Barnes III Wildlife Preserve which includes the Woodbrook Road Dump site.

EPA’s cleanup plan for the site was originally documented in a 2013 Record of Decision and modified in a 2018 Explanation of Significant Differences.

In 2020, then-Administrator Andrew Wheeler asked EPA Region 2 to review the selected cleanup plan for the site. The results of EPA’s review, carried out in coordination with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, confirmed that the 2013 selected cleanup plan remains the best option, but the costs had increased due to inflation and increased disposal costs.

The final cleanup plan includes:

Removing an estimated 4,000 cubic yards of soil and debris that contains capacitors, capacitor parts and PCB-contaminated soil and debris with PCB concentrations greater than 100 ppm for disposal at an approved off-site disposal facility.
Removing an estimated 143,000 cubic yards of soil and debris that contains PCBs at concentrations greater than 1.1 ppm for disposal at an approved off-site disposal facility.
Establishing restrictions to prevent a change in land use, such as residential development.

For additional background and to see the final Explanation of Significant Differences, as well as EPA’s responses to the public comments that were received on the proposed Explanation of Significant Differences, visit the Woodbrook Road Dump Superfund site profile page.

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100 blocks along NY’s Gowanus Canal being tested for toxic vapors

By Rich Calder, New York Post

The state is quietly investigating roughly 100 blocks in and around Brooklyn’s toxic Gowanus Canal to determine how many are contaminated with cancer-causing vapors and other hazardous substances, The Post has learned.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation began its probe in September following public outcry over reports it waited nearly two years to alert the public that cancer-causing vapors nearly 22 times the amount considered safe escaped from polluted soil and into a popular shuffleboard club.

Records show recent air-quality tests inside the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club on Union Street have since come back as “safe” once steps were taken to reduce harmful fumes by venting underground contaminants — but many other properties in the testing area, where thousands of people live and work, continue to show high traces of toxicity.

One building, which DEC refused to publicly identify, had air levels of the chemical trichloroethylene, or “TCE” — an industrial solvent linked to cancer, Parkinson’s disease and other ailments — 450 times above acceptable levels, according to tests taken last year.

Martin Bisi (left) and Seth Hillinger of the grassroots group Voice of Gowanus say the state DEC should be doing a better job informing the public that many sites along he canal could be hazardous for occupants.

Similar tests conducted in 2023 at 543 Union St., a massive 19^th Century-era building occupied by 22 businesses, also found TCE fumes on site dozens of times, including one reading 255 times above “safe” levels.”

Over the past century, much of the coal tar – dubbed “black mayonnaise” by longtime residents — also seeped into the canal, which is one of the nation’s most polluted waterways and undergoing a massive federal Superfund cleanup.

Read the full story here

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Yikes! The heat dome is about to clamp down on us

Yikes! The heat dome is about to clamp down on us Read More »

NJ political potentate George Norcross charged with racketeering

Attorney General Platkin unveils the allegations

New Jersey Democratic party boss and insurance executive George Norcross in 2012.

By Andrew Seidman and Jeremy Roebuck, Philadelphia Inquirer, Updated June 17, 2024, 1:21 p.m.

South Jersey power broker George E. Norcross III and key figures in his Democratic political machine were charged Monday in a sweeping racketeering indictment, alleging that they used their influence over city government to corruptly acquire lucrative waterfront real estate and development rights in Camden.

Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin unveiled the 13-count indictment at a news conference in Trenton, with Norcross, 68, sitting in the front row.

Matthew J. Platkin, the New Jersey attorney general, detailed criminal charges against George E. Norcross III, who listened from the front row of the news conference. — Matthew J. Platkin, the New Jersey attorney general, on Monday detailed criminal charges against George E. Norcross III, who listened from the front row of the news conference.Credit…Hannah Beier for The New York Times

It charges him and five codefendants — including his brother Philip, his longtime lawyer William Tambussi, and former Camden Mayor Dana Redd — with various acts of racketeering, financial facilitation, misconduct by a corporate official, and official misconduct that threaten to send them to prison for years.

The charges come days after Platkin’s office charged two Norcross allies on the board of South Jersey Transportation Authority with misusing their positions to exact revenge on a Norcross foe.

The filing of criminal charges against Norcross himself — not to mention several of his key allies — threatens both his political legacy and the narrative he has helped to build over the last decade of Camden’s comeback from decades of poverty and financial disinvestment.

They also threaten to upend New Jersey’s political map ahead of the state’s 2025 gubernatorial race. Among the Democrats running for governor, with Norcross’ backing, is his childhood friend and one of his closest political allies, former state Sen. President Stephen Sweeney.

The real estate investigation, which has been in the works since at least 2022, is the latest probe by state and federal authorities targeting Norcross and his network. But it is the first to ever result in charges against the 68-year-old insurance executive and Camden County native who, despite never having held elected office, is considered one of the most influential political figures in New Jersey.

Over the last quarter century, Norcross has built the South Jersey Democratic machine into a juggernaut that has propelled key allies into all levels of politics and government from city councils and local party committees to government agencies and the state legislature. His backing helped to elect his brother Donald Norcross to Congress in 2013 and to install Sweeney in his leadership role in the state Senate in 2009.