Ringwood Superfund Meeting Tonight

Just got this week's update from Representative Scott Garrett, and for those concerned with the Ringwood Superfund site, there's a meeting tonight. Garrett also provided a link to where residents and citizens can get more information. Here's the post:

EPA TO UPDATE PUBLIC ON PROGRESS AT RINGWOOD SITE

As part of its ongoing commitment in keeping residents informed of the most recent activities at the Ringwood Mines Superfund Site, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will host a public information session at the Ryerson Middle School in Ringwood, New Jersey on March 24, 2009 at 7:30pm. This information session will be an opportunity for residents and other stakeholders to discuss issues and ask questions related to the site.

“EPA has and continues to work closely with interested members of the Ringwood community on every aspect of our work at this site,” said acting Regional Administrator George Pavlou. “We are keeping the line of communications open and will continue to make sure people have access to EPA experts and can participate in the important process of addressing contamination at this site.”

EPA will update residents on the work that has gone on at the Ringwood Mines Superfund site in the past year during the public session. This update will include discussion of cleanup actions taken at the site, as well as discussion of future plans for work at the site. The information session will be held at the Ryerson Middle School, located at 130 Valley Road in Ringwood, New Jersey. EPA welcomes all residents and members of the community to attend the public information session to ask questions or raise any concerns they may have in relation to the Ringwood Mines Superfund site.

To find out more about the Ringwood Mines Superfund site, visit:
http://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/ringwood/index.html.

Garrett and Ringwood

Who says Representative Scott Garrett doesn't pay attention to the District? Well, at least his press office does.

After I pointed out that it was Representative Frank Pallone, and not Garrett, who started the effort to get the Ringwood Superfund site relisted; followed by Dennis Shulman saying the plight of the Ramapoughs reinforced his desire to run; Garrett put out the following today as part of his Garrett Gazette:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: RINGWOOD SUPERFUND SITE

As you may know, I have been actively involved with efforts to re-list the Ringwood, New Jersey site on the National Priorities List (NPL),also known as the National Superfund list. The site had been de-listed initially by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1994, but in 2006 it became the first EPA Superfund site to be re-listed.

Since entering office, I have been actively involved in working to resolve this situation.

That's not entirely true.

Garrett was first elected in 2002. According to the Bergen Record, Garrett's first demand of a report of the status of the clean-up came only after their award winning series "Toxic Legacy" debuted. The series broke in late 2005, so Garrett was in office almost 3 years before making serious comment on the situation.

Garrett also was not part of the letter to the EPA Inspector General from Pallone, as well as Senators Bob Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, demanding an investigation into why the site was de-listed in the first place. Whether or not Garrett was invited to participate, and therefore, whether or not he declined to call for the investigation is not clear.

To his credit, the New York Times says Garrett did urge the EPA to relist the site, which I don't think anyone questions. It's more of how committed he was to it before being shown up by other members in the Congressional Delegation.

"Since entering office" is quite a stretch.

NJ's Rights Attacked (Again)

One of the fundamental beliefs I've held for the entire time I've been politically conscious is that while the Federal government sets minimum standards, it is a State's right to determine if those standards adequately protect it's population. Granted, there will always be issues where the interest of the nation leads to standards above what some States would like, the number of those issues is where the classic divide between Republicans and Democrats stands. However, up until the Bush Administration, it was almost unheard of that the Federal government would attempt to trump a State's right to enforce a more stringent safety standard than the Federal one. Now, for at least the third time in less than a year the Administration is attacking New Jersey's right to protect us.

First, it was an Administration supported bill aimed at eliminating New Jersey's right to label the food we buy at the supermarket as we saw fit (Rep. Garrett voted against this bill and it died in the Senate). Then, it was the EPA announcing an increase in the amount of pollutants like mercury and lead a company could dispose of in the environment before they reported how they did it. Now, it is the Department of Homeland Security continuing it's march toward an April 4th change in regulations that would weaken New Jersey's regulations on the chemical plants we have in our state that contribute to New Jersey being home to the "Two most dangerous miles in America."

At a hearing held by Senator Frank Lautenberg in Newark yesterday, a Deputy for DHS Lawrence Stanton had this to say:

"The federal government has a role to play as well as the states, and we believe as a matter of principle that these things can be worked out," Stanton said.

The Homeland Security Department plans to preempt a local or state rule only when the rule would "frustrate" Washington's ability to secure plants, he promised.

That's all well and good, and would make sense if it wasn't an established fact that our security regulations are the most stringent in the nation, so preempting only stands to make us less safe. With NJ's population density and seven plants within range of a million people, our tougher standards are intended to prevent another Bhopal disaster. In a worst case scenario at one of those seven plants, the loss of life from Bhopal(15,000) compared to what New Jersey would suffer is akin to comparing the loss of life from Hurricane Katrina (1,836) to the 2004 Tsunami (229,866). It would be Bhopal on steroids.

This dangerous change in DHS policy came before the Senate last year at the behest of the Administration, and they rejected the idea of endangering us by weakening our regulations. Still, the Administration announced the DHS regulations on their own, the Friday afternoon before Christmas (so no one would notice). And what noble cause, national security and public safety requirement dictates our State getting watered down Federal regulations: Corporate interests.

During the hearing yesterday, Stanton acknowledged that his understanding was that the chemical lobby would prefer to have the weaker Federal regulations trump our State's right to protect us. While corporate interests were not so explicitly rolled out with the DHS proposal initially, when the EPA rolled out the weaker reporting requirements they didn't mince words, citing the billions their proposal would save business. Seeing a jarring public health and safety conflict with relaxing the EPA standards, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) requested the Government Accountability Office to look into how this rules change transpired. Here is a bit of what they reported to the Senate a couple weeks ago:

Although we have not yet completed our evaluation, our preliminary observations indicate that EPA did not adhere to its own rulemaking guidelines in all respects when developing the proposal to change TRI reporting requirements. We have identified several significant differences between the guidelines and the process EPA followed. First, late in the process, senior EPA management directed the inclusion of a burden reduction option that raised the Form R reporting threshold, an option that the TRI workgroup charged with analyzing potential options, had dropped from consideration early in the process. Second, EPA developed this option on an expedited schedule that appears to have provided a limited amount of time for conducting various impact analyses. Third, the decision to expedite final agency review, when EPA’s internal and regional offices determine whether they concur with the final proposal, appears to have limited the amount of input they could provide to senior EPA management.

They rushed the process not to protect the public interest or safety, but because they had already received over 118,000 letters in opposition (out of about 120,000) to the plan. There is no way this ever would have gotten through the House, let alone the Senate. The same mode of operation is being used with regard to the DHS attack on our chemical safety laws. They couldn't get it through the Senate, and now the Administration has decided to go through the bureaucracy.

I have no issue with the majority of chemical companies already doing business in our state. While some companies do resist increasing regulations further, the majority have been good partners in disaster planning with First Responders I've spoken with. I also fully understand and appreciate the contributions the chemical industry provides for our State and nation. That said, I also appreciate the fact that they are generating the billions they do with our tougher regulations in place. If other companies wish to tap into our talented and experienced pool of employees, they too can make a profit in NJ without subverting public safety via an overstep of Federal authority.

A large chemical disaster will have one certain outcome, citizen sickness and death. The question is, how many will die and how many will have died unnecessarily if the Administration succeeds? If they haven't already grown the moral fortitude to fight this plan, I hope our entire Congressional delegation will soon be loudly criticizing it, if not they should be held accountable next year.

Lead in Ringwood animals

Ten days after reporting how the Bush Administration wants to allow a massive increase in the amount of toxic substances like lead polluters can dispose of without disclosing how they do it, the front page of the Record carried the findings of lead in animals surrounding the Ringwood Superfund Site.

For those unfamiliar with the story of Ringwood, the really short version is that Ford built 6 million cars in Mahwah and dumped millions of gallons of lead paint waste in Upper Ringwood over a 25 year period ending in 1970. The site was one of the first Superfund sites, declared clean, but was relisted this fall after it was discovered the work was nowhere close to complete and Ford's subcontractor apparently misled the EPA about whether or not residents use groundwater (they do, the contractor said they didn't). By all accounts, the pollution is slowly spreading and approaching a point where it could threaten the Wanaque Reservoir, affecting the drinking water of 2.5 million people.

It's catastrophes like this that the Environmental Protection Agency was created to prevent. There are serious and costly effects of unregulated dumping. Over 35 years after the dumping stopped, the community is still dealing with the aftermath. However, the official line from the White House is that rolling back the reporting requirement will save businesses money. Here is the the gist of the new policy the Bush Administration is pushing.

The change would affect annual reports to the Toxics Release Inventory, a
20-year-old database of hazardous chemicals used, stored and released by businesses into the air, land and water.

Under the rule released Monday, companies that use up to 2,000 pounds of such material --chemicals such as asbestos or arsenic -- could file a shorter form that lists the names of chemicals, but not the amounts. Currently, companies that use more than 500 pounds of those chemicals have to report the amounts they use or release.

For the most dangerous compounds -- highly toxic materials such as mercury or lead that persist in the environment -- the threshold for reporting details would be raised from 10 or 100 pounds to 500.

Basically, what they're proposing is that over 25 years one company can dispose of roughly 12,500 pounds of lead without telling how they did it. This will be a boom for the illegal dumping business, and have potentially disastrous effects on the areas where the dumping occurs. In Ringwood, lead in the small animals was found as high as 292 parts per million. The FDA safety level for lead in candy consumed by children is 0.1 parts per million. Once again, from the Record:

Even in small amounts, lead can harm the nervous system, kidneys and red blood
cell production and can affect reproduction and development, federal health
advisories warn.

Fortunately, several members of Congress have already signaled their opposition to this move and vowed to fight it. I haven't read a statement from Garrett about the proposed rollback, but I have got to hold out hope he'll fight like hell to prevent another Ringwood.