Recycling programs could benefit from Pa. landfill tax bill

A tipping fee on material dumped at solid waste landfills in Pennsylvania currently funds local

Rep. Garth D. Everett

recycling programs and the state’s popular Growing Greener Fund.  

Republican Rep. Garth Everett of Muncy wants to increase that funding and has introduced HB 1624 that would extend the 25-cents per three cubic yards tip fee to residual waste disposed of at residual waste landfills.

In a letter to his Houses colleagues, Everett said that, "In discussions with folks in the waste industry, I found no rationale for assessing these fees on one classification of landfills and not another."

Everett estimated that his legislation could yield nearly an additional $1 million for recycling programs and $1.6 million for Growing Greener.

The bill was referred yesterday to the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. 

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Asbury Park Press leading charge for NJ property tax cuts


The Asbury Park Press, the daily newspaper that covers the New Jersey shore counties of Monmouth and Ocean, has launched a series of stories, proposed plans, a petition drive and a public forum all aimed at forcing state legislators to drive down property taxes.



The paper’s editorial board writes: 

At $8,161, New Jersey has the highest
average property tax in the nation. For more than 120 towns, $8,100 a year
would be a relief. Some towns have taxes that top $9,000, $10,000, even $15,000
a year.  
Even with the 2 percent property tax cap in place, tens of
thousands of homeowners are seeing huge spikes in their taxes, from several
hundred to several thousand dollars in just one year. In fact, the 2 percent
cap is really a 2 percent tax hike that costs homeowners $500 million more a
year.

Where does the money go? Who profits from your hard-earned tax dollars? Why are
people and businesses leaving the state? And why can’t this tax be put under
control?


How can you fight back?

Read the full story to learn what the newspaper is doing and proposing. And, unless you’ve already signed a contract on your new home in Delaware or the Carolinas, you might want to stop complaining and start demanding change.  


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Pipeline foes urge NJ town to adopt legally untested ban

An anti-pipeline advocacy group will try to persuade the Borough Council at its next meeting to reconsider a recently tabled ordinance banning all unregulated pipelines in the municipality, Steve Janoski reports for The Record.

The proposed ordinance is thought to be aimed squarely at the Pilgrim Pipeline, a 178-mile dual pipe that would cut through five New Jersey counties as it brings crude and refined oil from Albany, N.Y., to the Bayway Refinery in Linden. Such pipelines, the statute read, are designed to transport “hazardous substances” and a leak would result in environmental degradation.

Enacting local codes to preempt construction of the deeply unpopular pipeline is the newest strategy being tried by municipalities, but it’s a largely untested one in the state.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has said it has no jurisdiction over the pipe because it will move oil, not natural gas, and that lack of federal involvement might give municipal ordinances the legal weight they need to keep the project at bay.

 
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$43M plan to dredge Pompton Lake’s polluted sediment

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Details of a $43 million plan to remove 10,600 dump trucks’ worth of contaminated sediment from the bottom of Pompton Lake have been submitted to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, James M. O’Neill reports in The Record. It is expected to take three years to remove the contamination as well as tainted soil from the shoreline, according to the plan. The pollution came from a munitions factory DuPont once operated in the area. Chemours, a DuPont spinoff that is responsible for cleaning up old DuPont sites across the country, expects work on the project to start next June. Over the next few months, the EPA will review the plans, and Chemours may then be asked to make changes based on the EPA’s comments, said James Martin, an EPA spokesman. The plan is the culmination of years of study of the lake — and of discord between EPA and DuPont over how much sediment should be removed. The mercury and other contaminants were carried off DuPont’s former munitions factory in Pompton Lakes by Acid Brook, which drains into Pompton Lake. The EPA wants the sediment removed because a toxic form of mercury can build up in fish, posing a health risk to humans who eat them. Exposure to mercury can damage nervous systems and harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and immune system. The 200-acre Pompton Lake, bordered by Pompton Lakes and Wayne in Passaic County and Oakland in Bergen County, is a backup source to replenish a key reservoir that supplies drinking water to towns in both counties. The lake is used by residents for boating and fishing, but it is so contaminated that fishermen are warned not to eat their catch. Read the full story here 


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NJ lawmakers seek to eliminate utility bill rate shockers

bill shock
Consumers might be better protected from unexpected spikes in their utility bills if they choose to switch gas or electric suppliers under a legislative package being pushed by the Legislature, Tom Johnson reports in NJ Spotlight.
The three-bill package, now headed to the full Senate for a vote, is designed to protect customers from unscrupulous suppliers who promise savings on their utility bills that they might not deliver.
The legislation was spurred by events nearly two years ago when customers who had switched energy suppliers were socked with huge hikes in their monthly bills, largely because an unusually frigid winter sent natural-gas prices soaring.
Some energy suppliers had not locked in prices for the natural gas that their customers use to heat homes, costs they passed on to those customers. As a result, unhappy consumers flooded state regulators with complaints about the increases.
Many customers were unaware that their bills were allowed to fluctuate under so-called variable-price contracts.
The issue also led to a civil complaint against three energy suppliers by the state attorney general’s office, accusing them of defrauding customers by promising them they would save money on their utility bills, when, in fact, prices skyrocketed.
To try and guard against that, the package of legislation aims to establish requirements and contract standards for gas and electric suppliers asking customers to switch from their incumbent utilities.

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How many solar panels do we need to power the Earth?


Keep this article nearby for the next time one of your fossil-fuel-loving friends scoffs at your solar energy advocacy and demands to know how many solar panels it would take to power the Earth’s needs.

Rebecca Harrington of Tech Insider posed that question and got the answer from the Land Art Generator Initiative which provided the map below that shows just how little space it really would take. 

And the answer is?

If solar is 20% efficient (as it has been in lab tests) at turning solar energy into power, we’d only need to cover a land area about the size of Spain to power the entire Earth renewably in 2030.


And this is today. Solar panels and solar battery storage, however, are both areas of intense research that has been producing significant cost-savings for the technology in recent years.  The amount of energy that solar panels generate will continue to rise as its cost of application continues to drop.
 
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