Corzine signs cleanup bill to ire of critics
Gov. Corzine on Thursday signed a divisive bill that changes the way New Jersey remediates many of its toxic sites — legislation allowing consultants to oversee and sign off on cleanups now handled by the Department of Environmental Protection.
While Corzine signed a companion executive order that strengthens the DEP’s role in some cases — on land that could be used for homes, schools and athletic fields, for instance — his decision was met with a collective groan by many environmentalists. The program’s many vociferous critics are opposed to the idea of letting private “licensed site professionals” hired by the responsible parties — polluters, property owners — certify the cleanup work.
The program is similar to one in Massachusetts; in an April letter urging Gov. Corzine to veto the bill, the Eastern Environmental Law Center cited a 2006 study that found 70 percent of sites audited by the Massachusetts DEP contained errors significant enough to warrant further work.
Supporters of the plan say it will mean faster treatment of the state’s many languishing toxic sites at a limited cost to taxpayers.
“Despite viable alternatives, the governor pushed through a plan to further empower the folks who made the mess and have failed to clean it up,” David Pringle of the New Jersey Environmental Federation said in a statement.
Pringle welcomed the executive order, but said it was “a tacit admission of the bill’s flaws, but it doesn’t fix those flaws.”
Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey Sierra Club says the legislation is unconstitutional “and will put people in harm’s way.”
“The executive order validates our criticism that the bill fails to provide proper oversight, so we’re glad there’s an EO, but this bill remains a giveaway to polluters,” he said in a statement. “The Attorney General and DEP also have a long history of not enforcing EOs.”
In a post yesterday, blogger Bill Wolfe said the legislation was akin to taking “the environmental cop… off the beat.”
“How we got to this point — and how this bill was allowed to sail through the N.J. Legislature — illustrates a systemic collapse by the N.J. Legislature, the Governor’s Office, the DEP and the media,” Wolfe wrote.
Previous coverage: N.J. plan to speed toxic cleanups headed to legislature (Green Jersey)
Groups urge Corzine to veto ‘unconstitioual’ cleanup bill (Green Jersey)
May 12th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Hey Dave and Jeff - sorry, too little too late.
YOu should have clipped Lisa Jackson’s wings when she set up the Stakeholder process with hand picked allies.
The ENGO community also collapsed on this bill - I left that inside story out of my post.
And just to clarify and give credit where credit is due: that Mass audit data was collected and released by my colleague Kyla Bennett of the New England PEER office. I then injected it into the NJ LSP debate in testimony and press release well over a year ago.