Driver strikes New Jersey deer and deer seeks revenge

The dashboard camera in a New Jersey police vehicle responding to a distress call from a woman whose car had just hit a deer caught this footage of the wounded deer trying to force its way into the woman’s car.


Had Bambi decided not to go down without a fight?  


Here’s the story (and amazing video) from Brick Shorebeat:


Video from a Howell Township police vehicle shows what the department likened to a “scene from a cheap comedy” on Wednesday – a deer jumping into a woman’s car.
In the incident, which occurred Sept. 18 at about 8 p.m., Patrolman Nicholas Austin was responding to a call for service while traveling on Oak Glen Road, approximately one mile west of Rt. 547, when he saw a deer cross the roadway from right-to-left several hundred feet in front of him.
Austin, according to Detective Sgt. Christian Antunez, wasn’t sure if the vehicle, a 2008 GMC Envoy, travelling in front of him struck the deer until the vehicle pulled over to the side of the road. Austin also pulled over to provide assistance to the driver, Ellen Sager, 43 of Howell.
While doing so, the same deer that Sager had just struck ran back across the roadway left-to-right and attempted to jump into Sager’s vehicle as she opened the door. Sager was still in the driver’s seat with the door open as the deer attempted to climb over her and into the vehicle.
“In what appears to be a scene from a cheap comedy, Sager physically struggles with the rather large deer and has to kick the deer out of her vehicle and quickly close the door to keep it out,” said Antunez. “Austin was nearly as surprised as Sager and the two shared a laugh after the incident.”
Sager reported a minor injury to her knee as a result of the “scuffle.” Unfortunately, Antunez said, the deer succumbed to its injuries as a result of the impact with the vehicle.

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Cuomo’s vision: New Penn Station for Amtrak and the LIRR

Charles V. Gagli reports for The New York Times:

For nearly a quarter-century, governors and mayors in New York have been stymied in their attempts to fix Pennsylvania Station, one of the busiest transit halls in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most crowded and confusing.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday presented a fast-track plan that would finally create a train hall and retail space in the James A. Farley Building, also known as the General Post Office, on the west side of Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, while renovating the cramped, dingy underground passageways and platforms across the avenue at Penn Station.

The Farley Building would become a home for both Amtrak and, in a break with past proposals, the Long Island Rail Road; that should bring some relief to the congestion at Penn Station, which also houses New Jersey Transit trains and two subway lines. On any given day, more than 600,000 commuters and travelers — triple what the station was designed for — move through it.

The Farley train hall is expected to open in December 2020.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said his administration had selected a team — the developers Related Companies and Vornado Realty and Skanska AB, the giant construction management firm — for the $1.6 billion plan. He announced the plan at a luncheon for the Association for a Better New York, a business organization.

“This plan is smarter and better for people who will use the complex,” Mr. Cuomo said in an interview. “And it will actually happen.”

According to state officials, all of the necessary approvals are in place, as well as the funding. The developers would pay New York State about $600 million, which would include an upfront payment of $230 million and annual payments in lieu of taxes over 30 years, which the city has to approve. The developers would also provide the state an unspecified share of the retail revenues at the train hall and, possibly, advertising, officials said.

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Wildstein says Christie knew; No evidence, Christie says

NJTV NEWS Correspondent Michael Aron calls Tuesday’s testimony by David Wildstein, a former aide to NJ Gov. Chris Christie, ‘explosive.’


Wildstein testified that the governor knew about the George Washington Bridge lane closures during the lane closures.





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NJ’s largest utility moving into unregulated power sales

New Jersey’s largest utility is quietly setting up PSEG Energy Solutions to sell

Ralph Izzo, chairman, CEO, and president of PSEG

electricity and gas to commercial and industrial accounts

NJ Spotlight‘s Tom Johnson reports:

Public Service Enterprise Group is getting into the retail energy business.
The Newark energy company is quietly setting up an unregulated business called PSEG Energy Solutions to sell electricity and gas to commercial and industrial customers.
The venture, expected to be launched early next year, is similar to businesses already set up by energy conglomerates, including by affiliates of the owners of the three other electric utilities in New Jersey, all of which have retail subsidiaries.
PSEG Energy Solutions is initially focused on providing a hedge to its PSEG Power, which owns more than 12,000 megawatts of generating capacity. With power prices slumping, the new venture can assure all of its generation assets are maximized.
“Our intention is to help hedge the power portfolio,’’ said Tom Chamberlin, the newly hired managing director of PSEG Solutions. The company will not market to residential customers, unlike other retail businesses set up by competitors.
Since the state deregulated the energy marketplace, utilities have gotten out of the generation business, making a profit only on delivering electricity and gas to their customer through their poles, wires and pipes. Unregulated companies, largely energy companies with power plants, and suppliers that buy the electricity and gas and sell it directly to customers, have taken their place.
Exelon, which recently acquired Atlantic City Electric, owns Constellation, one of the largest retail energy businesses in the country, with 2 million customers. PSEG Solutions’ ambitions appear to be much more modest.
In an earnings call earlier this summer, Ralph Izzo, the chairman, CEO, and president of PSEG, used that term when describing the new company’s aims.
“We remain interested in retail for our defensive purposes managing basis risk and not as a significant growth opportunity by any stretch of the imagination,’’ Izzo said, when asked about the issue.
With power prices depressed, PSEG has relied on its utility, Public Service Electric & Gas, in the past couple of years to earn the bulk of its profits, primarily by investing heavily in a multibillion dollar capital construction program.
A lot of energy companies are getting involved in the retail energy business, according to Paul Patterson, an energy analyst with Glenrock Associates. “It’s a way of hedging their output,’’ he said.
Initially, PSEG Energy Solutions will focus primarily on the electricity sector in areas where its generation assets are located (primarily New Jersey and Pennsylvania), but it also wants the option to provide customers with gas. The company recently applied to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for licenses to sell electricity and gas.
The new company will probably be based in Newark, and is currently looking to fill two or three new positions, according to Chamberlin.

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Under fire, PennEast proposes 33 pipeline route changes


Beset with criticism about the environmental impacts of its project, the developer of the PennEast natural-gas pipeline is proposing dozens of modifications to its route through parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
The PennEast Pipeline Company LLC Friday filed new changes to its pipeline route with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, including seven in New Jersey. All told, the company made 33 modifications to the 118-mile route, adding two miles in the process.
The changes minimize environmental impacts by modifying the route to run along existing transmission lines — avoiding wildlife habitats and reducing tree clearing, according to the company. No new landowners are affected by the revisions, the company said.
But critics argued that the modifications — made after public comment closed on a draft environmental impact statement — demonstrate the harm posed by building the pipeline and called on regulators to undertake a new analysis of the project.
“It’s pretty significant route changes — both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,’’ said Tom Gilbert, campaign director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. “It calls into question the whole EIS.’’
Not a single federal or state agency voiced any support for the projects submitted on its EIS, Gilbert noted. “FERC must withdraw the application to fully evaluate a no-action alternative.’’
But Pat Kornick, a spokeswoman for PennEast, said the company submitted its route modification based on comments made by the public and government agencies and were responsive to their recommendations.
The changes reduce the permanent impacts on forested wetlands by 64 percent; curb impacts to endangered species, including a known salamander habitat in Delaware Township; and incorporate 23 additional trenchless crossings to reduce impacts to pristine waterways. 
Read the full story here

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Bridgegate Trial Day 6: Wildstein on hatching the plot


The government’s star witness in the political conspiracy trial of two former allies of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he identified local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge as a “potential leverage point” against the mayor of Fort Lee two years before the plan was executed.


Paul Berger, reporting for The Record and reprinted in USA TODAY, writes:


David Wildstein also told a Christie-appointed GOP member of the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey about the plan a few weeks before it happened, he said Monday.


“I viewed Mr. (William “Pat”) Schuber as a loyal member of Governor Christie’s team,” Wildstein said. He added that he told Schuber that the order for the lane closures “came from the governor’s office” and Schuber told Wildstein that he understood.


Contacted later, Schuber’s lawyer, Salvatore Alfano, said Schuber “categorically denies that he had any conversation with Wildstein about the lane closures.”


Wildstein said that he informed Schuber of the plot because Schuber was a former Bergen County executive and he most likely would receive complaints once the closures took effect. 


Read the full story here.


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