Permit allowing more coal ash dumping in Pa challenged

4,800 tons of coal ash a day would travel by barge on the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers. Credit: Dave Gingrich/Wikimedia Commons
4,800 tons of coal ash a day would travel by barge on
  the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers. Photo: Dave Gingrich
PITTSBURGH – Environmentalists are challenging a permit that would allow more coal ash to be shipped to a toxic waste dump in western Pennsylvania.

Public News Service reports:


The Department of Environmental Protection has granted the permit allowing 48-hundred tons of ash a day to be shipped to a closed landfill in Green County.

Charles McPhedran, an attorney with Earthjustice, says the ash would travel 113 miles by barge on the Ohio and Monongahela rivers.

“And the dangers of the transport are that there will be some spill of the toxic material into the river that will endanger the river and endanger people that live along the river,” he points out.

The landfill where the ash would be dumped already is contaminated, and monitoring wells around the site have detected arsenic at levels 342 times the legal limit.

More than 50 people who live near the landfill spoke in opposition to the proposed permit at a public hearing last spring. According to McPhedran there are several private wells and one public water intake at risk from site contamination already.

“We’re asking the Environmental Hearing Board to send this permit back to the Department of environmental protection so they can improve it so it will be more protective of the public health,” he says.

The environmentalists say the ultimate solution would be to stop producing toxic coal ash waste by switching to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

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NJ joins 24 states is suing to block EPA's Clean Power Plan

 
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie‘s administration on Friday joined at least 24 other states in opposition to President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, claiming it oversteps federal authority and unfairly punishes New Jersey,
S. P. Sullivan reports for NJ  Advance Media.

Calling the plan "fundamentally flawed," Christie announced the state had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the new rules, which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Christie, who is seeking the 2016 Republican nomination for president, had previously sought an administrative stay from the sweeping new rules issued by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which have been endorsed by New Jersey environmental groups and the state’s largest utility, PSEG.

"This plan will also burden New Jersey residents with higher electricity costs and it infringes on the state’s own authority to oversee its energy future," the governor said Friday.

MORE: Christie seeks pass on Obama’s Clean Power Plan

The plan requires states to cut carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030, and each state was given a target to cut emissions based on its previous track record.
But Bob Martin, head of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said those rules put an undue burden on states like New Jersey, which "have already significantly reduced carbon emissions."
New Jersey joins other, mostly Republican-led states — including Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming and Wisconsin — in opposition. Murray Energy Corp., the largest privately owned coal company in the U.S., also joined the suit.
The head of the EPA said in a statement Friday the Obama administration has the authority to enforce the new regulations under the Clean Air Act.
"We are confident we will again prevail against these challenges and will be able to work with states to successfully implement these first-ever national standards to limit carbon pollution, the largest source of carbon emissions in the United States," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
The attorneys general for 15 other states, including New York, as well as the District of Columbia have also said they will support the Obama administration’s rollout of the plan.
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said Christie’s administration was "deliberately leaving out information" in its suit.
"When you look at the states suing for the Clean Power Plan, they are all states that produce oil, coal or natural gas — or they have a Republican governor running for president," Tittel said.
Tittel said the state "could potentially lose billions in federal funds" through its opposition to the new power plan. He accused Christie of "sacrificing New Jersey’s interests for his own political campaign.

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12 companies paying to clean up Trainer Superfund site

The 12 settling parties will pay an estimated $2.5 million for the investigation and an estimated $1 million to remove contaminated soil at the superfund site. They will also reimburse the EPA for its oversight costs.
The entities include:ExxonMobil, BP, DuPont and Veolia are among the 12 private parties that will pay more than $3.5 million as part of a settlement with the EPA related to the Metro Container Superfund Site in Trainer, Pennsylvania.
Environmental Leader reports:
  • ExxonMobil
  • ExxonMobil Oil
  • BP Products North America
  • BP Lubricants USA
  • Atlantic Richfield
  • DuPont
  • Chevron Environmental Management
  • Superfund Management Operations, a series of Evergreen Resources Group (for itself and for Sunoco (R&M) (f/k/a Sun Refining and Marketing Co) and Sunoco (f/k/a Sun Oil Co.)
  • Rohm and Hass
  • Tunnel Barrel and Drum
  • Veolia ES Technical Solutions
  • Stauffer Management
Under the agreement, contamination from a portion of the site will be removed. In addition, a scientific investigation of the site’s contamination will be conducted and site cleanup options will be developed and shared with the community.
Using information from this investigation, the EPA says it will select an effective action to protect the surrounding community and nearby waterways and wetlands from site-related contamination. Stoney Creek is about 1,000 feet from the site and flows directly into the Delaware River.
The Metro Container site was added to the EPA’s National Priorities list, a list of the most contaminated sites in the nation, in 2012. EPA investigations have documented numerous hazardous waste contaminants of concern at the site — including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides and numerous volatile organic compounds — in the soil and ground water plumes migrating from the site and into Stoney Creek and the Delaware River.
Earlier this month the EPA reached a $55 million settlement with Shell Oil Company and the US General Services Administration for the cleanup of contaminated soil at the Del Amo Superfund Site in Los Angeles, California.

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Court ruling could protect scenic views beyond Palisades


A New Jersey appeals court decision in a case involving a proposal to build a huge office tower overlooking the Palisades in Englewood Cliffs may give impetus to protect other scenic vistas along what the judges called a “national treasure.’’
Tom Johnson reports in NJSpotlight:

In a 30-page ruling handed down yesterday, the court said the local zoning board failed to consider the visual impact of a 143-foot-high building LG Electronics USA wanted to erect as a new headquarters on a site in the Bergen County community.

The decision will pave the way for a compromise scaling down the new headquarters to less than 70 feet high. But conservationists said the more far-reaching implication could lead to permanent protection for the entire Palisades.
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Enviros ask appellate court to approve Exxon intervention

EXXON Bayway Refinery
 
Several environmental groups are appealing a decision by a judge who had barred them from challenging a $225 million settlement between Exxon Mobil and the Christie administration.
 
 
 
James M. O’Neill reports in The Record:

The environmental groups filed their appeal with the New Jersey Appellate Division, asking that court to overturn Superior Court Judge Michael Hogan’s decision to deny them legal status to intervene in the case. If the Appellate Division agrees with the environmental groups, it would open the way for them to formally challenge the actual settlement.

 
The settlement is designed to compensate the public for contaminated wetlands around two of Exxon’s former refineries in Linden and Bayonne. It goes beyond any costs incurred by Exxon to clean up the wetlands.
 
Governor Christie has defended the settlement, saying it was by far the largest of its kind in state history. But environmentalists and Democrats in the Legislature have been critical, saying the settlement is small compared with the $8.9 billion the state originally sought when it filed suit in 2004.
 

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FTC limits use of product term ‘biodegradable’

Photo Credit: biodegradable label via Shutterstock
Manufacturers can no longer use the term “biodegradable” on any product unless that product is shown to completely break down into elements in nature within five years after customary disposal, according to a Federal Trade Commission decision released yesterday.
Environmental Leader reports: 
The FTC’s decision reverses its administrative law judge and sets new national environmental policy. It follows the FTC’s recent crackdown on companies’ claims that their products are biodegradable.
In the FTC administrative law judge’s January decision, Judge D. Michael Chappell ruled that ECM Biofilms, maker of an additive that accelerates the biodegradation of conventional plastics, had proven the effectiveness of its product based on generally accepted, competent and reliable scientific evidence, including more than 20 gas evolution tests that prove intrinsic biodegradability.
The FTC on Oct. 19 rejected the ALJ’s decision without a scientific explanation and without identifying any other form of testing generally accepted in the scientific community that could suport a biodegradable claim, according to ECM Biofilms’ attorney.
“This is an egregious instance of abuse of agency discretion,” said Jonathan Emord of Emord & Associates, the firm representing ECM Biofilms. “The ALJ correctly ruled on the record evidence that the ECM product renders plastic intrinsically biodegradable and accelerates plastic biodegradation — in other words that it works. By forbidding ECM from claiming that its product makes plastics biodegradable despite overwhelming evidence that it does, and by erecting an arbitrary and unscientific five-year cut off for use of the term ‘biodegradable,’ the FTC has imposed a constitutionally forbidden prior restraint on truthful speech.”
ECM will appeal the FTC’s decision, Emord said.

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