On Ringwood, NJ, Superfund site, did the EPA fail again?



In an editorial today, The
Record ripped the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the latest in a
series of public relations embarrassments related to withheld or delayed public
notice of contamination findings at a Superfund site in Ringwood, NJ.
On February 22, Record reporter Scott Fallon disclosed that:
A chemical that is likely to cause cancer has been discovered at almost 100
times the state standard in the groundwater of the Superfund site in Ringwood
where Ford Motor Co. dumped tons of toxic paint sludge decades ago.

The chemical — 1,4-dioxane — had not been identified before at the highly
polluted site. It was found deep under the Peters Mine area by engineers for
Ford, according to documents obtained by The Record.

Its discovery is one of the reasons more test wells are being dug this month to
assess whether that chemical or others are migrating from the site, which sits
above the Wanaque Reservoir, a drinking source for 3 million people.


U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, who are overseeing the work,
didn’t mention the chemical when asked about the new test wells two weeks ago.
They said the wells were to be drilled to “assess benzene contamination” — one
of the more widely found pollutants at the site — along with other chemicals
that the agency didn’t name.

A spokesman said at the time the EPA team assigned to Ringwood would share
specific information at a public meeting scheduled for March 1.

From
today’s editorial:
WHEN IT
comes to the Ringwood Superfund site and the federal response to what has been
a decades-long environmental nightmare for local residents, trust has been all
but eroded. This week those residents were once more forced to wrap their heads
around an instance where they were misled, or not given relevant information in
a timely manner, about toxic chemicals in their midst.
As Staff Writer Scott Fallon reported, environmental regulators
knew three months ago that a chemical that likely causes cancer was found for
the first time at the Superfund site. The chemical — 1,4-dioxane — was
discovered in late November at almost 100 times the state standard in the
groundwater of the Superfund site where Ford Motor Co. dumped tons of toxic
paint sludge decades ago.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “should have
called an emergency meeting,” said Vincent Mann, chief of the Ramapough
Turtle Clan, a Native American tribe that has made the mountain its home for at
least 200 years. “I keep saying it over and over and over again, they are
leaving the human element out of the management of this site.”
EPA officials elected not to inform residents
of the finding immediately, they said, because they do not consider the amount
of the toxic solvent discovered to be an imminent health threat. Even if you
take that explanation at face value, federal officials might have considered
total transparency to be good policy, considering that the people who live in
and around Upper Ringwood have been dealing with this contamination crisis for
50 years, and have been misled many times before. 



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LCV cites NJ’s best and worst in Congress on green issues

** Updated to include score for NJ Congressman Donald M. Payne**

The New Jersey League of Conservation Voters today gave the highest score (100 percent) to four members of the state’s congressional delegation for their 2015 voting records on environmental issues, while lambasting the lowest-scoring for being “complicit in extreme attacks on important environmental laws and more recent progress to protect our air, water, public lands, and wildlife.”

“Despite last year being the hottest year on record, members like Congressmen (Scott) Garrett and (Rodney) Frelinghuysen put polluters’ agenda ahead of the health of New Jerseyans, safeguarding the environment, and climate action,” said New Jersey LCV Executive Director Ed Potosnak. 


“Fortunately, New Jersey’s strongest environmental allies like Senators (Bob) Menendez and (Cory) Booker and Congress Members (Frank) Pallone and (Bonnie) Watson Coleman consistently stood up to these radical attacks,” Potosnak added.



The New Jersey scores were part of the national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) 2015 National Environmental Scorecard for the first session of the 114th Congress.
The LCV said it included “the most votes ever scored and reveals the most anti-environmental Congress in our history.” 

“Both chambers seemingly left no environmental issue untouched in 2015, with assaults on the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Antiquities Act,” the organization said in its report. 
“It includes 35 House votes, which ties the record for the most votes scored in the House for the fourth time in five years, and 25 votes in the Senate, the second highest number ever included.”
“The good news,” according to the LCV, is that the Scorecard also includes “many votes led by environmental allies who stood up for climate change science, clean energy, public lands, and wildlife protections, among other issues. Thanks to President Obama and environmental champions in Congress, virtually all of the legislative attacks on the environment and public health were defeated.”

In New Jersey, 7 House members and both Senators earned a score of 91 percent or greater on the 2015 Scorecard, while 4 House members earned “an abysmal score” of 11 percent or less. The average House score in 2015 for New Jersey was 52 percent and the average Senate score was 100 percent.   (See map for scores of all delegations)


Scores of the New Jersey Delegation
Senate:
Senator Menendez, 100%
Senator Booker, 100%
House:
Congressman Frelighuysen, 3%
Congressman Garrett, 3%
Congressman Lance, 11%
Congressman LoBiondo, 23%
Congressman MacArthur, 6%
Congressman Norcross, 91%
Congressman Pallone, 100%
Congressman Pascrell, 97%
Congressman Payne, 77%
Congressman Sires, 94%
Congressman Smith, C., 23%
Congresswoman Watson Coleman, 100%

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High level of cancer-causing chemical in water at NJ site


A chemical that is likely to cause cancer has been discovered at almost 100 times the state standard in the groundwater of the Superfund site in Ringwood where Ford Motor Co. dumped tons of toxic paint sludge decades ago.


Scott Fallon reports in The Record today:

The chemical — 1,4-dioxane — had not been identified before at the highly polluted site. It was found deep under the Peters Mine area by engineers for Ford, according to documents obtained by The Record.
Its discovery is one of the reasons more test wells are being dug this month to assess whether that chemical or others are migrating from the site, which sits above the Wanaque Reservoir, a drinking source for 3 million people.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, who are overseeing the work, didn’t mention the chemical when asked about the new test wells two weeks ago. They said the wells were to be drilled to “assess benzene contamination” — one of the more widely found pollutants at the site — along with other chemicals that the agency didn’t name.

A spokesman said at the time the EPA team assigned to Ringwood would share specific information at a public meeting scheduled for March 1.


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Spinoffs staying in Delaware after Dow-DuPont merger

The state and New Castle County
offered tax relief and pledged $17 million to keep DuPont strong
in Delaware, and it paid off on Friday.
The News Journal‘s reporting team of Jeff Mordock, Scott Goss, Adam Duvernay and Matthew Albright writes:

The
state beat out Iowa and Indianapolis to land the corporate headquarters
for what will be the largest agriculture company in the nation, a spinoff that
will be created after the merger of DuPont and Dow Chemical later this year.

The
First State will become home to two of three spinoff companies that will be
created from the$130 billion
merger.
A
yet-unnamed specialty products company, which includes DuPont’s nutrition and
health unit, will also be headquartered in Delaware. The third spinoff, a
material sciences company, will be based in Dow’s hometown of Midland,
Michigan.
“One
of the key things that is nice for us is that we’ve got this great talent
here,” DuPont Chief Executive Officer Ed Breen told The News Journal
Friday. “We’ve been pleased with all of the hard work by the people at the
corporate headquarters.”
Combined,
the two spinoffs are expected to generate more revenue than the
existing DuPont, according to documents filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Agriculture will have about $20 billion in revenue
and specialty products is expected to produce $13 billion in revenue. DuPont
generated $25 billion in revenue in 2014.
The new agriculture company will surpass St.
Louis-based Monsanto Co.
How
DE out-hustled other states to win DuPont ag unit
[News-Journal reporters Scott Goss, Matthew Albright, Jeff Mordock and Xerxes Wilson]

After two centuries of shared
history between DuPont and
Delaware, local officials had just 10 weeks to pull together a
deal that would secure the company’s future in the state it helped to
build.
DE Gov. Jack Markell Photo: Kyle Grantham – The News Journal
That
meant putting together an incentive deal with enough tax breaks, subsidies
and capital improvement assistance to keep thousands of jobs in New Castle
County.
It also
required working together to present an unrelenting sales pitch that
would beat out much larger states Iowa and Indiana, a feat many analysts
and other outsiders considered unlikely, if not downright impossible.
Seventy
days later, Delaware emerged victorious with two out of the three businesses
that will eventually be spun off from DuPont’s impending merger with The Dow
Chemical Co.
“It
certainly wasn’t out of the question that we could lose all of it,” Gov. Jack
Markell said Friday.
“That
would have been devastating,” he said. “So we put together a team of
collaborators and got to work immediately after DuPont and Dow announced their
planned merger in December.”
That
effort paid off Friday when the companies announced plans to locate the
agriculture company’s corporate headquarters in Delaware.

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Neither snow, nor rain, nor Wild New Jersey Turkeys…

The mail must go through. And surely it did on February 16 in the placid borough of Hillsdale in Bergen County, NJ. But only after two policemen were dispatched to rescue a mailman trapped inside his truck by a posse of wild turkeys who didn’t give a good gobble gobble about his appointed rounds.





Lisa W. Foderaro writes in the New York Times:


“It was just one of the latest skirmishes in suburbia’s wildlife wars. Turkeys have now joined the ranks of raccoons, foxes, coyotes, bears and deer, all of which have both fans and detractors and seem to make headlines with growing frequency.

“While New Jersey environmental officials say they are unaware of anyone’s being physically harmed by a turkey, the large birds are intimidating. The state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which reintroduced turkeys to the state in the 1970s, says that there are now about 25,000 statewide.

Foderaro provides details of the Hillsdale standoff and other wild turkey encounters across the state and speculates that it all might be attributable to a sort of turkey testosterone rush.

You have to read this for yourself.  Full story here.

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A program to protect fish may be saving fishermen, too

The captain and crew of the Moriah Lee pose with sablefish caught off the coast of Half Moon Bay, Calif. A new study found that fishermen in the West Coast sablefishery were much less likely to engage in risky behavior — like sailing out in stormy weather — after catch share quotas were implemented.
The captain and crew of the Moriah Lee pose with sablefish caught off the coast of Half Moon Bay, Calif.
A new study found that fishermen in the West Coast sablefishery were much less likely to engage in risky
behavior — like sailing out in stormy weather — after catch share quotas were implemented. (Ethan Righter)
A program used in many U.S. fisheries to protect the marine environment and maintain healthy fish populations may have an immensely important added benefit: preserving the lives of American fishermen.
Clare Leschin-Hoar writes in NPR‘s food blog, the Salt:  
That’s according to a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers found that catch share programs (where fishermen are allotted a set quota of the catch) reduce some of the notoriously risky behavior fishermen are known for, such as fishing in stormy weather, delaying vessel maintenance, or heading out to sea in a boat laden with too much heavy fishing gear.
Traditional fishery-management programs open and close fishing seasons on specific days. By contrast, catch shares work on a quota system, under which fishermen have a longer window to harvest their predetermined share. That gives fishermen the luxury (and perhaps the life-saving option) of time.
The findings don’t surprise Scott Campbell Sr., who spent most of his 35-year career fishing the Bering Sea for king crab the way it used to be done: derby-style. Crab season would open, and regardless of weather, Campbell and his crew would be on the water, hoping to nab enough crab during the season’s brief window to keep his business afloat.
“If you can picture a four-day season for crab — and that’s the only four days you’re going to get — and a 50-knot storm blows in for 24 to 48 hours of that four days, well, a lot of boats didn’t stop fishing, because that was their only revenue stream for the whole year,” says Campbell. “It forced us to take unnecessary risks for financial survival.” (His son, Scott Campbell Jr., is a former star of Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch, about the hazards of the fishing industry.)
That kind of risk-taking has historically made fishing one of the nation’s most dangerous professions, with a fatality rate more than 30 times the U.S. average, according to the new report.
Today there are approximately two dozen state and federal catch share programs in the U.S. Most launched in the last decade. However, derby-style fishing still exists in many U.S. regions, including the Pacific and Atlantic swordfish fisheries, the Northeast’s monkfish and herring fisheries, and the West Coast dungeness crab fishery.


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