Quote:

"Living closer to" is relative, but this suggests that 400 feet is the critical radius:

http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... m-sites-set-for-thursday/

For Lafayette & Greenville residents, there's also a great map of chromium sites at:

http://chromecleanup.com/sites_JerseyCity.html

Court gives groups go-ahead to sue about Jersey City chromium site

By Ken Thorbourne/The Jersey Journal
March 29, 2010, 9:12PM

A federal judge gave the go-ahead today for lawsuit to proceed regarding the cleanup of the chromium-contaminated site on Garfield Avenue in Jersey City (shown above).

A federal judge in Newark ruled today that a lawsuit over toxic contamination of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium in Jersey City will be allowed to proceed, according to the plaintiffs.

The case had been on hold since last summer when the responsible party for cleaning up the 16.6-acre site along Garfield Avenue, PPG Industries, argued that a cleanup agreement it negotiated with the state and city barred the case.

The lawsuit, which argues that state's cleanup standards are insufficient to protect the health of the community, was filed in February 2009 by the Manhattan-based Natural Resources Defense Council and the Interfaith Community Organization, the Jersey City group that successfully sued to get to the massive Roosevelt-Drive In site along Route 440 remediated.

Jersey City and PPG officials couldn't be immediately reached to comment.

Last October, the city appointed an eight-member advisory panel to monitor the cleanup of the Garfield site and 19 smaller ones.

The city and state Department of Environmental Protection filed a lawsuit against PPG in 20005. The City Council approved a settlement agreement in June last year.

PPG operated a chromium refinery on Garfield Avenue from 1924 to 1963. Hexavalent chromium, a byproduct of that process, has been shown in studies to cause cancer, respiratory problems and kidney and liver damage.

A 2008 federal study found that city residents living closer to chromium-contaminated sites have significantly higher incidents of lung cancer than those living farther away.

The site is slated for 4,000 housing units and a new Hudson-Bergen Light Rail station.

http://www.chromiumcleanup.com/



Site administrator hears community?s health concerns

JERSEY CITY, N.J., Dec. 21 ? More than 50 residents and interested parties attended a public meeting Thursday night to discuss whether there is a need for future health studies that examine exposure to chrome manufacturing residue near the Garfield Avenue site
in Jersey City.

The two-hour meeting at New Jersey City University was led by Mike McCabe, the independent, court-appointed site administrator for PPG Industries? cleanups.

McCabe provided an overview of existing health studies and his requirements for any future health studies. Audience members also heard presentations from Dr. Kathy Black of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and Dr. Jerry Fagliano of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, who have conducted research into the health impacts of chrome residue near waste sites.

Wondering what people think...are there grounds for challenging the recent chromium settlement given the fact that the FBI corruption sting centered on development of a condo property right across the street?

Disposal Fail: Chromium-Contaminated Barrels Languished on Site Owned by Jersey City By Jon Whiten ? Jun 26th, 2009 ? Category: Featured, News At 824 Garfield Ave., the Jersey City Incinerator Authority stores salt for roads in the winter. But new tests show toxic materials have been stored there for several years as well. Along the Eastern end of the site, which is at the corner of Carteret Avenue, there sat three barrels until yesterday. Environmental advocates, who had for years seen the containers, stored across the street from PPG Industries? chromium-contaminated site, recently noticed that one of the barrels was punctured and speculated that it too was contaminated. ?We knew when we saw yellowish crystals around the first hole, which usually indicate pretty high levels of hexavalent chromium,? Joe Morris, director of the chromium cleanup project for the Interfaith Community Organization (ICO), says. Morris and GRACO president Felicia Collis, accompanied by this reporter, visited the site on June 12 to take samples from the open container (see video below). Morris sent them off to a lab, which used Method 3060/7196, a testing process approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) but which Morris ? and many scientists ? maintains undercounts contamination. The results show hexavalent chromium present in the soil sample at a rate of 606 parts per million (ppm). That?s 30 times higher than the DEP?s current standard of 20 ppm, and more than 600 times higher than standards recently recommended by the DEP?s own scientists. Especially troubling is that it was ? until yesterday ? sitting on city-owned property, spilling out of a rusty barrel. ?That drum?s in bad shape ? it has holes in it,? Morris says. ?There?s nothing to stop material from leaking out of the drum.? Collis expresses bewilderment at Jersey City?s lack of due diligence at the site. She says the ?green? image the administration tries so hard to promote stands in stark contrast to it allowing these drums stand with punctures on property it owns. ?Jersey City fails to be deliberate about lessening chromium exposure by refraining from cleaning up and fencing its own JCIA property,? Collis says. ?Taking care of the homefront sets a precedent for local and outside polluters to do the same.? Morris adds that it fits the pattern of neglect that PPG, the city and the state have had for the area. ?It?s a symbol of the city and the DEP?s inattention to this issue, and PPG?s contempt for people in that neighborhood,? Morris says. He adds that he?s unsure about how long the containers have been at the site, but says he has seen them there ?for several years.? Collis and Morris hand-delivered a letter to PPG?s Jersey City office yesterday asking them to expeditiously remove the contaminants. By Thursday evening, PPG?s Jon Holt told Collis that the drums were removed from the JCIA site. Jersey City spokeperson Jennifer Morrill says the city did not know about the drums until yesterday, when they were informed by PPG. She says they have a hunch about where the drums came from, but aren?t 100 percent sure. ?While we believe these drums are the consequence of soil testing conducted by a prospective developer, the Jersey City Police Department is conducting an investigation into the matter,? Morrill says. The city?s response leaves Morris with one question: What took them so long to find these drums, which he?s seen on site for years? ?You would think the city would inventory its properties, and at least do the minimum to protect public health,? he says. ?It?s telling that it took a group of citizens with very few resources to figure out that there were barrels of chromium-contaminated soil sitting on a city-owned lot.?

Testing for Chromium Contamination on a Site Owned by Jersey City from The Jersey City Independent on Vimeo.

At 824 Garfield Ave., the Jersey City Incinerator Authority stores salt for roads in the winter. But new tests show toxic materials have been stored there for several years as well. Along the Eastern end of the site, which is at the corner of Carteret Avenue, there sat three barrels until yesterday. Environmental advocates, who had for years seen the containers, stored across the street from PPG Industries? chromium-contaminated site, recently noticed that one of the barrels was punctured and speculated that it too was contaminated. ?We knew when we saw yellowish crystals around the first hole, which usually indicate pretty high levels of hexavalent chromium,? Joe Morris, director of the chromium cleanup project for the Interfaith Community Organization (ICO), says. Morris and GRACO president Felicia Collis, accompanied by this reporter, visited the site on June 12 to take samples from the open container (see video below). Morris sent them off to a lab, which used Method 3060/7196, a testing process approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) but which Morris ? and many scientists ? maintains undercounts contamination. The results show hexavalent chromium present in the soil sample at a rate of 606 parts per million (ppm). That?s 30 times higher than the DEP?s current standard of 20 ppm, and more than 600 times higher than standards recently recommended by the DEP?s own scientists. Especially troubling is that it was ? until yesterday ? sitting on city-owned property, spilling out of a rusty barrel. ?That drum?s in bad shape ? it has holes in it,? Morris says. ?There?s nothing to stop material from leaking out of the drum.? Collis expresses bewilderment at Jersey City?s lack of due diligence at the site. She says the ?green? image the administration tries so hard to promote stands in stark contrast to it allowing these drums stand with punctures on property it owns. ?Jersey City fails to be deliberate about lessening chromium exposure by refraining from cleaning up and fencing its own JCIA property,? Collis says. ?Taking care of the homefront sets a precedent for local and outside polluters to do the same.? Morris adds that it fits the pattern of neglect that PPG, the city and the state have had for the area. ?It?s a symbol of the city and the DEP?s inattention to this issue, and PPG?s contempt for people in that neighborhood,? Morris says. He adds that he?s unsure about how long the containers have been at the site, but says he has seen them there ?for several years.? Collis and Morris hand-delivered a letter to PPG?s Jersey City office yesterday asking them to expeditiously remove the contaminants. By Thursday evening, PPG?s Jon Holt told Collis that the drums were removed from the JCIA site. Jersey City spokeperson Jennifer Morrill says the city did not know about the drums until yesterday, when they were informed by PPG. She says they have a hunch about where the drums came from, but aren?t 100 percent sure. ?While we believe these drums are the consequence of soil testing conducted by a prospective developer, the Jersey City Police Department is conducting an investigation into the matter,? Morrill says. The city?s response leaves Morris with one question: What took them so long to find these drums, which he?s seen on site for years? ?You would think the city would inventory its properties, and at least do the minimum to protect public health,? he says. ?It?s telling that it took a group of citizens with very few resources to figure out that there were barrels of chromium-contaminated soil sitting on a city-owned lot.? http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... ite-owned-by-jersey-city/

The taping of PPG settlement will air tonight on Channel 51, 10:30 PM and Tuesdays @ 9:00 PM. For those without Comcast, you can see the video www.speaknj.com Yvonne

Set hearing on new PPG pact
Friday, June 12, 2009
By AMY SARA CLARK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City has negotiated a new settlement with PPG Industries for the cleanup of a chromium-tainted 16-acre site along Garfield Avenue, and other smaller sites, and is holding a public hearing on the agreement Monday night at City Hall.

The new plan replaces a settlement widely criticized by community groups for not including lifetime medical monitoring for area residents, not enforcing a thorough enough cleanup, and not doing enough to punish PPG Industries.

According to Jersey City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis, the new settlement addresses many of these concerns, but community groups say it doesn't go far enough.

The new settlement still states a "goal" of completing the cleanup in five years, but states that if PPG does not meet a schedule set by the site administrator, he can get the courts to force PPG to do it.

It also increases the amount PPG must pay to a Jersey City Environmental Trust Fund from $1.25 million to $1.5 million, adds six new sites to the 16 PPG is already required to clean up; prioritizes cleanup of residential properties where chromium is found, and requires PPG to make "all reasonable efforts" to give 20 percent of the contracting opportunities and jobs to Jersey City residents and businesses.

It does not include medical monitoring, Matsikoudis said, but does require the site administrator to determine within six months whether it is necessary to study the extent to which residents have been exposed to chromium.

"We're looking to clean up the site so people won't get sick from it," he said, adding that people who believe they have gotten ill from chromium "have the right to sue."

Nancy Marks, senior attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, which with the Interfaith Community Organization has filed its own lawsuit against PPG, criticized the settlement.

"The main problem is that it doesn't incorporate any scientifically defensible remediation standards," she said.

Currently, the state has a chromium cleanup standard of 20 parts per million, which the settlement requires, but scientists are urging the state to adopt a standard of 1 part per million. Matsikoudis defended the settlement plan's cleanup standard as "the most stringent in the world," and said that if the state adopted stricter standards, PPG would be required to abide by them.

Felicia Collis, president of the neighborhood group Graco, called the new settlement "deplorably inadequate and capricious" for not setting a firm timetable, not requiring medical monitoring and not adopting the stricter cleanup standards.

The agreement can be found on the city's Web site at www.cityofjerseycity.com.

People do not get cancer just walking near Chromium-6, he said. They may never get sick, even if they live next to it their entire lives. It comes down to risk factors that depend on degrees of exposure and individual health traits. Still, Costa said with Chromium-6, the goal is to have as low a level as possible.

"If you ingest enough of it, you get cancer," Costa said.

Other experts warn against developing a new soil standard from the Chromium-6 water study.

"There is no question about the carcinogenicity of hexavalent chromium," said Ted Simon, a former toxicologist for the federal Environmental Protection Agency. "But the risk assessment process tries to push it."

He said New Jersey's water standard for Chromium-6 contamination equals a soil standard of 17,000 parts per million.

"The average person drinks about two liters of water per day. ... To reach the same intake, the same dose, you would have to eat or incidentally ingest almost seven ounces of tainted soil per day," Simon said.

Others counter that the state water standard also is too lax -- and that the state needs to keep in mind the hundreds of additional carcinogens people are exposed to each day.

"You're not just worried about chromium, but so many different assaults on us in New Jersey be cause of the kind of state we are," said Zoe Kelman, a former DEP scientist. "It's the synergistic effect of all the types of pollution and carcinogens we live with."

Legal efforts are ongoing in Hudson to push Honeywell International, PPG Industries and Occidental Petroleum to remove and cart away the contaminated soil left behind by predecessor compa nies. PPG struck a recent deal to clean 14 Hudson County lots, including a 16.6-acre former chromite ore plant on Garfield Avenue in Jersey City, at whatever the DEP establishes as the new standard.

For now, PPG has banked $200 million for the project.
"Our first order of business is to get it all remediated, get it cleaned up and do it on PPG's dime," said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy. But he was concerned an "unnecessarily strict" new standard could undo some of the 50 other projects thought to be finished -- and render nearly 60 more remaining cleanups in the city financially impossible.

"The stuff," as Healy and his corporate counsel, Bill Matsidkou dis, call it, is everywhere.

Matsidkoudis said, if the standard is too tough, the entire city will need a cleanup.

Paul Lioy, director of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers University, said any cleanup has to be done rationally.

"Otherwise you bulldoze all of Jersey City and that would be totally inappropriate. ... It comes down to how clean is clean, and it depends on what you decide is a level to protect the public health and at the same time to be able to use a site," said Lioy.

But striking that balance can be like hitting a moving target, he ex plained.

New Jersey has one official standard, set in law, for allowable pub lic exposure to any carcinogen: no more than 1 in 1million people should risk getting cancer during a lifetime of exposure. Yet different carcinogens meet that threshold in different amounts -- and the science often changes as research progresses.

The DEP tolerance for Chromium-6 in residential communities is 240 ppm, and in February 2007 the DEP revised the standard for cleaning sites to be used for hous ing, schools and commerce to 20 ppm. State scientists now contend the DEP standard for acceptable levels of Chromium-6 in the soil should be set at 1 ppm.

Costa of New York University said to justify tougher standards, New Jersey must find the extent to which people in places like Jersey City are being exposed to Chromium-6. He and Jersey City officials are discussing a study of red blood cells in children and adults living near the PPG plant.

The only state study to date has been a statistical analysis of lung cancer cases in Jersey City from 1979 through 2003. It showed higher cancer rates among people living near polluted sites, but could not link that to Chromium-6.

New Jersey scientists are urging the state to adopt the strictest levels ever for Chromium-6, the deadly carcinogen linked to lung cancer and which contaminates more than 200 former industrial properties in Hudson County.

The tougher standard could affect cleanup efforts either proposed or under way for more than 70 contaminated sites -- and renew scru tiny of an estimated 130 tainted properties in Hudson County already "cleaned" and redeveloped under older criteria.

Mark Mauriello, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, could announce whether he will accept the new standard as early as today, and there are concerns the costs of "re- cleaning" some sites could be staggering.

The scientific report calls for soil cleanup standards 20 times more stringent than soil standards adopted in 2007, and 240 times more stringent than older standards applied to past cleanups -- including work on a 32-acre Jersey City site known as the Roosevelt Drive-In, which has already cost $450 million and is a year away from completion.

The state's Division of Science, Research and Technology called for a new soil standard for Chromium-6, also known as hexavalent chromium, in an April report after the National Toxicology Program linked greater incidence of cancer in lab mice to Chromium-6 tainted drinking water.

Environmental activists, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the New Jersey Sierra Club, have accused the DEP of resisting tighter standards for fear it could stop redevelopment of Hudson County's shoreline fronting the New York City skyline, known as New Jersey's "Gold Coast."

DEP officials deny any such agenda.

"Why would the administration want to do that? It's ludicrous," DEP spokeswoman Elaine Maka tura said. "Nothing is more impor tant in this administration and the DEP than the public health."

Fueling criticism, however, is what environmentalists labeled a "gag order" imposed June 1 on DEP employees after the Chromium-6 report was made public through an Open Public Records Act request. They were told they cannot release internal reports be fore the material is finalized by administrators and the press office -- even if it is the subject of an OPRA request.

Chromium-6 has been linked to lung cancer among workers at chromite ore refinement plants, such as the three defunct operations in Hudson County that left behind various levels of Chromium- 6. It was the culprit in the drinking water for people in Hinkley, Calif., whose struggle was portrayed in the Julia Roberts movie "Erin Brockovich."

Mark Mauriello, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, could announce whether he will accept the new standard as early as today, and there are concerns the costs of "re- cleaning" some sites could be staggering.

The scientific report calls for soil cleanup standards 20 times more stringent than soil standards adopted in 2007, and 240 times more stringent than older standards applied to past cleanups -- including work on a 32-acre Jersey City site known as the Roosevelt Drive-In, which has already cost $450 million and is a year away from completion.

The state's Division of Science, Research and Technology called for a new soil standard for Chromium-6, also known as hexavalent chromium, in an April report after the National Toxicology Program linked greater incidence of cancer in lab mice to Chromium-6 tainted drinking water.

Environmental activists, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the New Jersey Sierra Club, have accused the DEP of resisting tighter standards for fear it could stop redevelopment of Hudson County's shoreline fronting the New York City skyline, known as New Jersey's "Gold Coast."

DEP officials deny any such agenda.

"Why would the administration want to do that? It's ludicrous," DEP spokeswoman Elaine Maka tura said. "Nothing is more impor tant in this administration and the DEP than the public health."

Fueling criticism, however, is what environmentalists labeled a "gag order" imposed June 1 on DEP employees after the Chromium-6 report was made public through an Open Public Records Act request. They were told they cannot release internal reports be fore the material is finalized by administrators and the press office -- even if it is the subject of an OPRA request.

Chromium-6 has been linked to lung cancer among workers at chromite ore refinement plants, such as the three defunct operations in Hudson County that left behind various levels of Chromium- 6. It was the culprit in the drinking water for people in Hinkley, Calif., whose struggle was portrayed in the Julia Roberts movie "Erin Brockovich."

(continued...)

FYI: The city has unveiled its revised settlement for chromium cleanup in Ward F.

There's a public hearing on the settlement Monday (6/15) at 7 pm.

New Jersey keeping environmental records under wraps
Posted by The Star-Ledger Editorial Board June 05, 2009 5:33AM
Categories: Environment, Policy Watch, Politics

SETH WENIG/FOR THE STAR-LEDGER
The defunct Standard Chlorine factory on the banks of the Hackensack River is built on a landfill of chromium, a carcinogenic agent.
In April we learned that a Department of Environmental Protection report concluded the state's standard for levels of hexavalent chromium in soil is 240 times higher than it should be. The report was leaked to the press, just before it was due to be released in response to a request filed under the Open Public Records Act.

The DEP hasn't yet decided whether to change its chromium standard. But it is moving to place similar reports beyond the reach of the public and the media for as long as it takes the department to ponder them.

An internal memo (also leaked to the press) outlines procedures for releasing information that environmental advocates have characterized as a "gag order." Department spokeswoman Elaine Makatura says the procedures are not a reaction to the release of the chromium report. But both the timing and the substance are troubling.

Under these rules, scientific reports like the chromium finding would not be released until after they are reviewed by other experts, either inside or outside the department. Then they must be approved by program managers, and if there's a "hot topic" involved, the commissioner must be notified. The last step: Approval from the DEP communications office.

Until they get all the way through this process, reports will be labeled "deliberative material," which exempts them from the open records act.

To be sure, DEP has every right to its internal discussions. Scientific findings and raw data need to be reviewed and analyzed. No one wants to alarm the public about soil and water contaminants or air pollution with incomplete research and half-baked theories. But time is of the essence. DEP needs to put in place timelines as well as guidelines.

Makatura said the chromium report was not ready for release because acting DEP commissioner Mark Mauriello had not fully vetted its recommendations. And when will the commissioner decide whether to adopt a new chromium standard? She couldn't say. In the meantime, under the proposed guidelines, we'd still be in the dark about the final report of the department's own scientists on the inadequacy of the current standard.

We'd hate to find out that a politically inconvenient report languished in limbo because it never emerged from its "deliberative material" draft status. That could become a burial ground for recommendations that are difficult or costly to implement.

A public agency should err on the side of transparency. DEP should give the public and the media credit for understanding the review process. The answer isn't to cloak deliberation and discussion in secrecy, but to better explain the procedures by which important decisions are made.

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Posted by nohesitation on 06/05/09 at 10:08AM
Dear editors:

Nice job! I agree!

Wolfe

Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by mcmid on 06/05/09 at 11:24AM
What's Corzine's take on this? After all, he hired the people instituting the process. Once again, Corzine's idea of open and transparent government is to leave the citizens out.

Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by nohesitation on 06/05/09 at 12:56PM
Hey mcmid - I agree with you to a cerrtain egree: Corzine should be asked point blank by the media if he supports this DEP policy.

Yesterday, I ran into DEP Commissioner Mauriello at a Corzine press event in NYC and sked him point blank if he supported the Herb memo (which set the policy).

Instead of answering that question, Mauriello made up some lame story that the memo was only draft.

I called DEP pres office to ask for a copy of this cover memo - one would assume they would provide it, given it could show the Ledger story as wrong and put DEP in a beter light.

DEP has not responded and returned my call.

I call BS on Mauriello's dissembling cover story!

Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by JerseyOpine on 06/05/09 at 7:07PM
"We'd hate to find out that a politically inconvenient report languished in limbo "

Agreed. So, let's see how the S-L stays on this story & follows it up.

DEP compromises scientific integrity and public health
Posted by Bill Wolfe June 02, 2009 9:04AM
DEP issues a "gag order" on internal review and restrictions on public release of scientific studies

[Update - 6/5/09 - Star Ledger editorial shares my concern: New Jersey keeping environmental records under wraps
http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page ... _keeping_environment.html

Today's Star Ledger reports:



Bill Wolfe
Environmentalists rip DEP proposal as a 'gag order'
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
BY BRIAN T. MURRAY
Star-Ledger Staff

The state Department of Environmental Protection proposed restrictions yesterday on the public release of its scientific studies and reports, which environmental groups lambasted as a sweeping "gag order" spurred by a controversy over chromium pollution in Hudson County.

The commotion surrounds written guidelines from Jeanne Herb, the DEP's director of policy, planning and science, against employees disclosing technical and scientific reports -- even if they are the subject of an Open Public Records Act request -- until they are approved by upper management and the press office. The directive follows the April release of a report by DEP scientists concluding a new, stricter soil cleanup standard is needed for hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, because the cancer-causing substance is riskier than previously believed.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/ ... 43915636194930.xml&coll=1

(more on the flip)

The Washington DC based watchdog group PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) blew the whistle on this DEP attempt to suppress and politically control science. In a press release, PEER disclosed the leaked DEP memo, written by Jeanne Herb who works in the DEP Commissioner's Office as Director of Policy, Planning and Science:

NEW JERSEY SLAPS GAG ORDER ON ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTISTS -- Embarrassing Chromium Study Prompts Management Review of Scientific Findings
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1199

The DEP memo can be read here:
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/09_01_06_njdep_gag_memo.pdf

I will be writing more on this and providing examples that can illustrate why this is so corrupt and how it allows polluters to benefit at the expense of public health.

But for now, I'd like to make a few points:

The DEP press flack defends the Order with the following deeply cynical pack of lies:

"This department is completely transparent. What is being discussed here are copies of draft reports that come out before they are finalized or even peer reviewed," said DEP spokeswoman Elaine Makatura. "What is wrong with suggesting that scientific reports, with the material they contain, be finalized before they are released? It's not to say that the information won't come out."

First of all, the Gag Order itself is not transparent because it is stamped "deliberative". This is done to exploit a loophole in the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) that exempts "deliberative" documents. The word "deliberative" has a legal meaning related to documents intended to support agency decisions. The Gag Order was not "deliberative" and it supported no decisions. Instead, it directed DEP staff to comply with specific requirements before scientific documents are released to the public. For the same reason, corrupt tobacco industry managers used to copy lawyers on scientific studies that proved that smoking caused cancer, to keep those studies secret under the "attorney client" privilege. The asbestos and chemical industry did this as well. Now a public agency, DEP, is engaging in these same transparently corrupt practices.

Second of all, the whole purpose of the Gag Order was to restrict public release of scientific information and allow DEP press office and political appointees to review, modify, and suppress science that did not fit the policy or political agenda of DEP or the Governor. Until and unless a DEP scientific document met their political, media and management approvals, it remained "draft" and was prohibited from release and exempt from OPRA. DEP managers could sit on a study virtually forever. The whole point of the Gag order was to reduce transparency and frustrate public right to know, which are the purposes of OPRA. To now claim that DEP is "completely transparent" is beyond Orwell, and a lie so large that it should be grounds for dismissal of any public servant.

Third, this has nothing to do with scientific peer review. The Gag Order established specific procedures for internal DEP political, press office, and management review. To claim that this is related to scientific peer review is another egregious lie.

Fourth, reminiscent of Pontius Pilate, Makatura cynically asks:

"What is wrong with suggesting that scientific reports, with the material they contain, be finalized before they are released?"

The answer is that there is PLENTY WRONG.

When a report is written by a research scientist, and then "finalized" by a group of DEP press officers, political appointees, and managers, it destroys scientific integrity. The Bush administration was pilloried for how they allowed political hacks to tone down the findings and revise scientific reports on global warming to fit the Bush political message and policy. The DEP Gag Order actually is worse than the Bush Adminstration's corrupt practices.

For specific examples of the michief allowed under the DEP Gag Order, consider this:

"* In September 2002, the [Bush] Administration removed a section on climate change from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) annual air pollution report. This report had contained a section on climate change for the past five years.

* The New York Times reported that the White House tried to force the EPA to substantially alter another report on climate change in 2003. Interviews with current and former EPA staff revealed that the Administration demanded a number of amendments including the insertion of a discredited study of temperature records which was funded in part by the American Petroleum Institute."
For Full Report, see:

Scientific Integrity in Policy Making - Investigation of the Bush administration's abuse of science
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_inte ... scientific-integrity.html

More to follow on this story. Let's hope this story has legs, and inquisitive journalists start asking DEP tough questions about specific studies that are impacted by the Gag Order. For startes, here are some examples from the Bush Administration:
http://www.rhtp.org/science/documents ... fic_Integrity_at_Risk.pdf


* Full disclosure: I worked with Jeanne Herb while at DEP from 2002-2004 and with PEER as NJ PEER Director from 2005-2008.

[Note: can't seem to post this comment reply to mcmid, so I will put it in the body of the post:

mcmid - I share you concern about how the NJ environmental groups endorse political candidates. They set the bar way too low and then withhold criticism of those they endorse. This allows politicians to enjoy a "green" image without earning it and sometimes allows then to be hostile to the environment without accountability.

But the blame for all of Corzine's environmental failures can't be lain at their feet. The business community and the legislature exert constant pressure on DEP to be more "business friendly" and to not enforce environmental laws.

Plus, DEP has been under miserable leadership and management for years, and had budgets persistently slashed.

I assume that Corzine is not aware of DEP's Gag Order, so it is tough to blame him for it. The media should ask him if he supports it or will order its revocation and replacement with real transparency and public right to know, as mandated by OPRA.
In terms of who the enviro's will back in November, that seems obvious because the Republican candidates are bashing DEP and have no environmental platforms.
Last, I am not affiliated with any environmental group, have not endorsed Corzine, and have written extensive criticism of his policies here. So, I don't know who you are referring to when you say "you" have no one to blame but yourself. I assume you are not targeting me.
Wolfe

Tags: corporate access, corruption, DEP, OPRA, public health, right to know, scientific integrity
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Posted by mcmid on 06/02/09 at 9:57AM
It's just more open and transparent government, courtesy of Corzine. Would you like to bet who the environmental groups will back this November? You ahve no one to blame but yourselves.

Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by DEPEngineer on 06/02/09 at 1:41PM
I feel like I'm living in a George Orwell novel. I want to wake up and find it was just nightmare.

If Jeanne Herb acted on her own - she has to be fired. What are her qualifications to interpret and then determine whether science should be public or not? Wait we pay our taxes to support scientists to do their job. No one has the authority to take that away. Especially someone who wasn't elected.

What are Herb's qualifications to head research scientists? Someone thought she was just a journalist. Are tax dollars being spent on journalist instead of scientists?

If you are going to cut staff at DEP - start with the liberal arts degrees.

Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by ZoharLaor on 06/02/09 at 1:45PM
What a disgrace to the state!

Shame for all of us for paying a premium price for less than mediocre administrators to run our state. Administrators who see their first civic duty as pushing through political agendas instead of adhering to their position of public advocates.

DEPEngineer - it sure would be nice if someone inside the DEP sent hidden reports to be published.


Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by nohesitation on 06/02/09 at 2:04PM
Dear DEPEngineer - Orwell knew that control of information was the coin of the realm in politics and political and economic power.

You raise very interesting points - it is not clear whetehr Herb was acting on her own or following orders. I agree that if she was acting on her own, she should be fired. I do not know her academic background, but having worked with her I know she is not technically trained. I also know that Herb is a political appointee and holdover from the McGreevey Administration.


Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by nohesitation on 06/02/09 at 2:08PM
Dear ZoharLaor - Thanks, I share your outrage over crap like this.

The concept of the public interest has been missing from DEP for many years. It is a self serving bureaucracy full of careerists out for themselves, not public servants.

I am working on some reports suppressed under this Gag Order and will report on a MAJOR one very soon.

More shoes to drop on this story.

If any DEP staffer have more specific documents, please send with complete annonimity to me at

PO Box #1
Ringoes, NJ
08551

or via email bill_wolfe@comcast.net

Wolfe

Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by DEPEngineer on 06/02/09 at 2:47PM
Environmentalists should start requesting reports and documents now through OPRA on all developments, contaminated sites, and environmental permits before they are considered deliberative. There is no guarantee information on contaminated sites will be available once the program is taken over by private contractors.

You may buy a property on a brownfield site - and later find out toxic vapors are coming into your home. That happens.

Inappropriate? Alert us. Post a commentPosted by 14yrbumpkin on 06/02/09 at 9:06PM
And the people that they have writing the regs for the licensed site remediation "professionals" are the same suckups that promoted the LSRP in the first place. And the person writing the groundwater regs has NEVER run a groundwater investigation herself and wouldn't know which end of a drilling rig goes in the ground.

Chromium: DEP should clean New Jersey's 'chrome coast'
Posted by The Star-Ledger Editorial Board April 27, 2009 5:56AM

Categories: Environment
In 2004, The Star-Ledger documented how three major companies successfully lobbied the state Department of Environmental Protection over a decade to relax its limits on chromium and delay cleanup of contaminated sites.

By engaging their own scientist and spinning doubt about how much was actually known about chromium's dangers, Honeywell, PPG and Maxus Energy saved about $1 billion in potential cleanup costs.

Hudson County residents have born the brunt of delays in measuring the true extent of contamination.


Three chromium plants operated in the county for about 50 years; the last one closed in 1976. Over the decades, Jersey City residents have seen rainwater pooled on the ground with a green and yellow tinge ("like Mountain Dew," one said), and children playing on ballfields suffered from unexplained rashes.

Hexavalent chromium, the most dangerous form, is a byproduct of a refining process that produces paint pigments and bumper plating, among other things, and has been linked to lung and other cancers for about 80 years. It is the same contaminant that spurred Erin Brockovich into action, helping to win a multi-million dollar suit for residents of a small California town.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control reported that people who live near the contaminated sites in Hudson County have higher rates of lung cancer. In addition to the risk from inhalation, the National Toxicology Program of the federal Department of Health and Human Services last year confirmed a link between oral ingestion of chromium and cancer.

With the latest evidence in hand, state scientists at DEP's Division of Science, Research and Technology this week concluded the state's current standard for an allowable amount of chromium in the soil of residential areas is 240 times higher than it should be.

Two years ago the state adopted a stricter standard for sites being cleaned up for new schools or homes, where the dirt is churned up by construction. But the new report says even that limit is 20 times too high.

Now DEP acting commissioner Mark Mauriello must decide whether to adopt the more stringent limit, stick with the current rules or come up with a compromise.

It's time for DEP to finally listen to its staff scientists on the issue of chromium. Public health and safety have been compromised for too long.

It's also time for a long-overdue reckoning with DEP's abysmal record on this issue.

Cleanup at one Jersey City site began in 2005 only after the Interfaith Community Organization sued in federal court. In ordering the cleanup, the court blasted DEP: "The evidence demonstrates a substantial breakdown in the agency process that has resulted in 20 years of permanent clean-up inaction."

Joe Morris, the ICO organizer in Jersey City, welcomed the news of a proposed tougher standard for chromium remediation but added, "It took them 23 months too long."

According to Morris, DEP delayed revising its standards while continuing to announce settlements under the old, less rigorous standard. Just this February, it announced a settlement with PPG to clean up chromium contamination at 14 sites in Jersey City, Weehawken and Bayonne within five years.

Mauriello should delay no longer in adopting the tougher standards on chromium.

No doubt that will make cleanups more expensive. But as Nancy Marks of the National Resources Defense Council puts it, "Someone has to bear the cost. Whether it's a health cost, government cost or profits, someone has to pay."

Developers like Josh Wuestneck are watching closely. He is a senior vice-president at Applied Development Co., which does large-scale projects involving brownfields in polluted urban areas that depend on the Honeywells and PPGs of the world to do the right thing and cleanup before developers like himself move in. His company has projects in the Jersey City area -- some completed, others still underway.

"Any change in remediation standards certainly affects redevelopment," he said. "It's the uncertainty that becomes a problem." The concern for developers like Wuestneck is that DEP could reopen settled cases. Some projects had chromium-contaminated soil capped; others had it carted away.

"The paramount issue is protecting public safety," Wuestneck said. "We stay out of the debate about science. That's DEP's job."

And so it is.

Mauriello, in a DEP press release announcing the PPG settlement, said "I grew up in Jersey City and know firsthand the frustration felt by people who have had to live with chromium contamination."

He could do his hometown proud by leading DEP to finally do the right thing.


COMMENTS (1)Post a comment

Posted by 14yrbumpkin on 04/27/09 at 10:20AM

You have one date wrong. It wasn't last week that the DEP decided the old standards were not stringent enough. An April 8 memo by Eileen Murphy to Mauriello confirmed that DEP's scientists agreed with an even older report produced by an interagency group. Eileen Murphy has been fired since that memo appeared. There has been stonewalling on this issue by DEP going back years. And behind-the-scenes machinations such as former Assistant Commissioner for Site Remediation Evan Van Hook now being employed in a top position at Honeywell and former Sen. Torricelli being named a "special master" for a site by the court. It is the stuff of its own movie except no one could follow the twists and turns in the plot line. The Sierra Club and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) as well as the ICO have been fighting a long fight with about one hundredth of the resources of the Responsible Parties involved. The public needs to start paying attention because DEP employees know what happens when they speak up.

Chromium Far Deadlier Than Earlier Assessments Indicate Scores of Capped New Jersey Contaminated Sites Will Have to Be Re-Evaluated http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/04/22-1 WASHINGTON - April 22 - A new risk assessment concludes that even a miniscule amount of chromium in the soil is associated with carcinogenicity, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Current New Jersey standards are more than 200 times laxer than these new findings indicate are needed to protect public health. The "Risk Assessment for Hexavalent Chromium" performed for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) was finalized on April 8, 2009. Its key conclusion is - "Based on exposure assumptions for the oral exposure pathway in the NJDEP Soil Remediation Standards, this potency factor corresponds to a soil remediation criterion for Cr+6 of 1 ppm". This 1 part-per-million finding raises serious questions about the current New Jersey soil clean-up remediation standard for residential areas of 240 ppm (6100 ppm non-residential). That means that families living in areas meeting state remediation standards may still be at significant risk. New Jersey has many chromium-contaminated sites from old industrial operations. Hexavalent chromium is the same substance against which Erin Brockovich campaigned in California. The new risk assessment came to light because of a state public records request filed by Zoe Kelman, a former NJDEP chemical engineer, who resigned in disgust after her warnings about chromium migrating off completed sites and likely coming into direct contact with residents and workers were ignored. Last week, NJDEP closed public comment on a controversial chromium cleanup settlement for Jersey City sites owned by PPG Industries. This new risk assessment was completed on April 8th but was not given to the community and was released to Ms. Kelman after the April 15th comment deadline passed. "Withholding this critical public health information shows stunning official insensitivity to the residents of Jersey City and other affected communities," said Kelman, who was removed from chromium-related issues and denied meaningful work by then-DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson after she voiced concerns. "NJDEP has repeatedly shown that it is incapable of addressing needed remedies for chromium contamination in an honest and straightforward manner." This latest assessment only looked at the ingestion danger from chromium from dust or soil. A study released last fall looked at the inhalation danger and found greatly heightened risks of lung cancer from exposure to airborne chromium in the Jersey suburbs of the New York metropolitan area. "Contrary to state standards, these studies show there is virtually no safe exposure level for chromium," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that California is now preparing to adopt its own chromium standards. "This assessment validates the alarms sounded by Zoe Kelman. Yet, despite repeated wake-up calls on chromium dangers, New Jersey continues on snooze control." Read the Risk Assessment transmittal letter View the full Risk Assessment Compare New Jersey's chromium standards Look at the ignored warnings from DEP's own scientists See last fall's inhalation risk studies ### Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals. PEER's environmental work is solely directed by the needs of its members. As a consequence, we have the distinct honor of serving resource professionals who daily cast profiles in courage in cubicles across the country. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chromium Survey = Deadly Wrong

Hi, I'm researching and trying to gather personal stories of JC residents who have experienced health and medical issues as a potential result of hexavalent chromium exposure.

There's been a lot of coverage of the politics of the PPG case and others, but the issue seems to be missing faces and real-life stories.

If anyone has had personal experience with this issue--particularly lung, bone, blood, stomach or colon cancers--please pm me.

Thanks!

Disclaimer first - I've only read very little on this, basically anything I could find on JClist, along with a few other sources.


I have to say I did not know where in JC this was, until I googled 900 Garfield Avenue. I think that perhaps since people see this listed as a Ward F problem, they don't think it could affect them.

Perhaps if you need more people to join in and submit comments during this 30 day open comment period. It might be wise to print out maps, and circle a 1 square mile radius of the site. And hang them around the downtown neighborhoods.

I had no idea how close it is to downtown. I believe many more people would get involved if they realized we are only about 1.5 miles from this site.

I read somewhere, I forget which website, that the chormium dust particles can travel and affect people with a square mile of the site. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want to take my chances with that extra 5 tenths of a mile. Especially the way the wind blows around here.

from 20 years ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/26/nyr ... ey-city.html?pagewanted=1

From the New York Times 1989

"At the Whitney Young School on Dwight Street in the Bergen-Lafayette section here, chromium crystals have been common, apparently for years, on cafeteria and classroom walls.

A former teacher at the school, Kathrine Burno, recalls first noticing the clusters on walls in the basement gym and cafeteria and in her first-floor classroom in 1973, a year after the school was built."

Chromium settlement target of outrage

Thursday, April 09, 2009
By AMY SARA CLARK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

More than a dozen people demonstrated for nearly an hour outside Jersey City City Hall last night against the city's proposed settlement to clean up 16 acres of chromium-tainted land at a former industrial site at 880 Garfield Ave.

The protest was organized by the neighborhood group Graco, which says that the settlement with PPG Industries is woefully insufficient.

"The proposed settlement agreement fails to ensure the safety of the residents," Graco president Felicia Collis said at the City Council meeting after the protest.

PPG had a chromite ore refinement plant on the site from 1924 to 1963. A byproduct of the refinement is hexavalent chromium, which causes such illnesses as cancer, respiratory problems and kidney and liver damage.

A 2008 federal study found that Jersey City residents living closer to chromium-contaminated sites have a significantly higher incidence of lung cancer than those living farther away.

"I would ask the council, were you aware of the level of toxicity of this carcinogen? If so where is the outrage?" asked Graco member Jillian Allen.

Graco members want the settlement agreement to include lifetime medical monitoring for area residents, even if they leave Jersey City, a more thorough cleanup, a stricter cleanup timetable, and more done to punish PPG for not cleaning up the site in the 19 years since it was ordered to do so by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

"I've lost my father to lung cancer, I've lost many friends due to that chromium," Joyce Willis told the council. "I don't know what my life expectancy is, but I know it's been cut short. And I want monetary compensation."

Bill Matsikoudis, the city's head lawyer, defended the mayor for being the first to take action.

"There's been chromium there for 80 years and the Healy administration is the first to initiate legal actions and to compel PPG to accept responsibility," he said. "At the end of the day this settlement requires PPG to remediate the Garfield Avenue site in five years to the strictest residential standards in New Jersey, which are the strictest standards in the nation."

Good for GRACO it is about time this area is getting attention. These are one of the areas that have been forgotten for so long. I will be at the meeting.

I love the name Garfield Randolph Arlington Clerk Carteret Ocean! We deserve the same quality of life as the waterfront!

As we mentioned above, the settlement is currently in a 30-day public comment period, which will end on April 15. There is also a scheduled public meeting on the topic on Monday, March 30 at 7 pm at City Hall. If you wish to comment, you can mail your thoughts to: Thomas Cozzi, Assistant Director, NJDEP, 401 East State St., PO Box 028, Trenton NJ 08625.

After the public hearing, the settlement will have to go to the City Council for approval. ?When that happens depends upon the level of public comment and potential modification to the document,? Matsikoudis says. ?If we collectively agree to make changes based upon public comment, that drafting period may take a while.?



Tags: 900 Garfield Ave., Bill Matsikoudis, chromium, Department of Environmental Protection, environment, GRACO, Interfaith Community Organization, Joe Morris, NRDC, PPG Industries, Robert Harper, W. Michael McCabe

?The legal instrument was never the problem,? Morris says. ?The will was the problem.?

Matsikoudis says that this settlement ?is far superior to the ACO,? in part because it will be ?an enforceable court order,? but Morris is quick to point out that the ACO was also ?explicitly enforceable in court.? The problem, he says, was that the state never went to court to enforce it, and when it did, PPG deflected enforcement orders.

Community Groups Wary, Too

Morris and the NRDC aren?t the only ones up in arms over the proposed settlement.

?Jersey City is selling out the current and future residents of Ward F for $1 million,? Robert Harper says. As the director of the Garfield Avenue Chromium Coalition, Harper has been following the potential settlement with great interest.

?PPG doesn?t want to really clean it up,? he says. ?They?ve played games in court and with the DEP for decades. It?s beyond criminal.?

He compared the lack of action by PPG to combat the toxic chromium to the infamous U.S. Public Health Service studies on poor Southern blacks that studied the effects of syphilis.

?We?ve got a modern-day Tuskegee Experiment going on in Ward F,? he says. ?There should be people running around in hazmat suits over here.?

Ed Vergara of the community group known as GRACO (Garfield, Randolph, Arlington, Clerk, Claremont, Carteret, and Ocean) agrees that more action needs to be taken. He says the settlement is ?bogus,? which is why his organization retained environmental lawyer Stuart Lieberman to look into its own course of legal action.

Earlier this month, Lieberman and GRACO announced they were filing suit in state court to expedite the cleanup, but after a meeting with officials from the city, the DEP and PPG on Monday Lieberman says he is putting the suit on hold for 30 days.

?The city deserves credit? for doing something at the site after so many years of no action, he says. He is hoping to work some of the things he and GRACO are looking for ? like more extensive medical monitoring of residents close to chromium sites and guarantees that the settlement money go to the community around 900 Garfield Ave. ? into the city?s settlement during the 30-day public comment period.

Matsikoudis says that some medical monitoring is already in place (see related blog post), but he ?remains open to a more expansive medical monitoring procedure.? He also says the city ?will negotiate with the communities on how to distribute the funds,? adding that he ?tried like hell? to get the city more than $1 million but faced an uphill climb considering the current economic conditions.

Morris, who also met with the city, the DEP and PPG on Monday, left the meeting less optimistic than Lieberman.

?I didn?t hear anything that was reassuring,? he says. ?The refrain was ?trust us.? After this many years, ?trust us? is not a strategy.?

A Question of Standards

Even if the Garfield Avenue site is cleaned up in a timely manner in accordance with state DEP guidelines ? a big if, according to critics ? some argue that still may not be good enough for public health.

The DEP no longer has statewide cleanup standards, but relies on site-specific standards based on how much chromium is deemed to be present at a given site.

Matsikoudis says that the Garfield Avenue site will be cleaned up to the standard of no more than 20 parts-per-million down to 20 feet, a standard put in place by former DEP head Lisa Jackson. He adds that it will include no capping ? the practice of simply ?covering up? chromium waste by various mechanisms.

Morris says that 20 feet down is not nearly enough, because there are ?very high levels of chromium below that at the Garfield Avenue site.?

Proper cleanup of the site is especially important, Harper notes, because the recently-approved Canal Crossing Redevelopment Plan Area includes residential zoning at the Garfield Avenue site that is the epicenter of the chromium problem.

For now, the city and the state have tapped former Environmental Protection Agency deputy administrator W. Michael McCabe as the site administrator for Garfield Avenue.

McCabe says that while he?s ?inclined to take the job,? he wants to ?gauge the level of community support? before formally accepting the offer.

?I?ve seen communities where they?re never able to get beyond the oppositional politics that paralyzes movement forward,? he says. ?If that?s what this is about, life?s too short.?

McCabe explains that he understands residents? frustrations ? after all, they?ve seen a toxic site sit untouched for decades. He simply hopes that people are willing to work constructively towards the end goal of cleaning up the site.

He says he has full confidence that the settlement will end in a thorough and safe cleanup.

?I wouldn?t take the position unless I thought that was absolutely the case,? he says. ?I?m not going to put my reputation on the line to do a halfway job.?

While admitting that McCabe comes to this task with an impressive history, Morris argues that in the end, it doesn?t really matter.

?A resume is not a cleanup plan,? he says. ?It?s neither here nor there.? He notes that former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli has done a ?very good job? as the court-appointed special master of the Honeywell site, despite having no experience in environmental cleanup.

For Garfield Avenue, Morris says the plan ? not the person administering it ? is what is important, and in its current form the plan is just too vague.

?You could have Barack Obama as the site administrator,? he says, ?and we don?t know if anything would happen.?

Despite Settlement, Chromium Concerns ? and Lawsuits ? Continue
By Jon Whiten ? Mar 20th, 2009 ? Category: Lead Story, News

On Feb. 19, the city and the state announced, to great fanfare, that it had reached a settlement with PPG Industries, Inc. to clean up chromium along Garfield Avenue. ?TOXINS BE GONE? screamed the headline on the next day?s Jersey Journal.

?This settlement will give residents the peace of mind and better quality of life that comes with a cleaner, healthier neighborhood,? acting Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) commissioner Mark Mauriello said in a press release.

But as the settlement entered a one-month public comment period this week, many community members and environmental advocates say it isn?t tough enough, and some are continuing their own fights against what they call a rogue polluter.

Chromium?s Dirty Legacy

The chromium plant located on Garfield Avenue began operation in 1924, refining raw chromium ore into paint pigment and other items 24 hours a day. PPG purchased the facility in 1954 and ran it until its closing in the fall of 1963. Since then, it has sat largely untouched, a toxic hazard for the Jersey City residents who live or work near it.

Nearly three million tons of chromium ore processing residue (COPR) was produced at Hudson County?s three plants (one was located in Kearny), according to the DEP. Much of this COPR was given away to developers to use as fill material during construction in the 1950s and 60s.

The COPR produced by the sites includes chromium of the trivalent and hexavalent kind. Hexavalent chromium is known to cause lung cancer in humans, and has been linked to other types of cancer, including nasal, stomach and blood, in a number of studies. Trivalent chromium is more common, and while many consider it ?safe,? many scientists say it can ? and does ? convert to hexavalent chromium in nature. A recent study by the state DEP found that the rate of lung cancer incidence near chromium sites was 7-17 percent higher than in other areas of Jersey City.

Joe Morris is a veteran of local battles over chromium. As the director of the chromium cleanup project for the Interfaith Community Organization (ICO), he has fought to implement strict environmental standards for chromium cleanups in Jersey City. Most notably, a lawsuit won by ICO in 2003 forced Honeywell International Corporation to commit $400 million to clean up a 34-acre site along the Hackensack River banks, where companies dumped the same toxic waste as on Garfield Avenue.

In early February, ICO, along with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a citizens? lawsuit against PPG in federal court to compel the cleanup of the Garfield Avenue site.

?We were really hoping that the city?s agreement would put [our lawsuit] out of business,? Morris says. ?It looks like it won?t.?

Calling the settlement ?toothless,? Morris says that ?other than a five-year goal, it has no timetable, no sanctions, no penalties.?

NRDC attorney Nancy Marks agrees.

?After 25 years of not cleaning up, there?s nothing in the settlement that shows us the cleanup will actually go forward,? she says.

Jersey City?s lead attorney Bill Matsikoudis says that notion is false, noting that a more detailed schedule will be put together once the settlement is formally adopted.

?This is not a remedial action work plan,? he says. ?It sets up a procedure.? He adds that any of the parties can also go to court if one is not holding up its end of the bargain.

The settlement, jointly negotiated by the city and the state, calls for PPG to remediate the Garfield Avenue contamination ?as expeditiously as possible with a five-year goal for completion? and pay $1 million into the city?s Environmental Trust Fund. In turn, that money must be used ?to fund an environmentally beneficial project, such as the acquisition of property for open space or the development and/or improvement of a public park.?

Both Marks and Morris say that the current proposed settlement is weaker than an agreement already in place.

?It actually weakens the environmental cleanup,? Morris says. A 1990 Administrative Consent Order (ACO) issued by the DEP had real enforcement measures, he notes. For example, if PPG fell behind in the cleanup, the DEP could assess penalties under the ACO.

So what happened?

According to Morris, PPG and the other chemical companies? intense lobbying efforts to change state cleanup standards, well-documented by the Star-Ledger five years ago, ?sapped the will of the DEP? to enforce the 1990 ACO. Former DEP case manager Frank Faranca told the Star-Ledger in 2004 that the companies used a variety of stalling tactics, like submitting flawed plans and dragging out cleanups while waiting for standards to become more lax.

Monday, March 30th, 2009
7:00 PM
City Hall, Jersey City
280 Grove St.

This is where we ask for oversight by the courts and not have PPG select the technical consultants whom decide when and how the clean-up is done.

Please join us!

Graco - Chromium Clean-Up - Community Meeting with DEP, PPG and Jersey City.

INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM
TO: COMMISSIONER CAMPBELL
FROM: ZOE KELMAN, SITE REMEDIATION AND WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
SUBJECT: NEW JERSEY CHROMIUM WORKGROUP REPORT
DATE: 11/11/2005
CC: JEANNE HERB, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER FOR POLICY, PLANNING AND SCIENCE
JOSEPH SEEBODE, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER FOR SITE REMEDIATION AND WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
EILEEN MURPHY, DIVISION OF SCIENCE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOY
MARK ROBSON, NEW JERSEY SCHOOL OF PUBIC HEALTH
THOMAS COZZI, SITE REMEDIATION AND WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
RONALD CORCORY, SITE REMEDIATION AND WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
ROBERT HAZEN, DIVISION OF SCIENCE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOY
JULIA BARRINGER, US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
ROGER PAGE, SITE REMEDIATION AND WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
THEODORE HAYES, SITE REMEDIATION AND WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
I have authored the attached report to inform you in detail of the serious problems related to the recommendations contained in the New Jersey Chromium Workgroup Report. In your March 23, 2004 memorandum, you empanelled this workgroup to review the Department?s current clean-up criteria for chromium and their application.1
Although many members of the workgroup sought diligently to respond to your charge they were frustrated in their efforts. In fact, as I document in the attached report, the workgroup members were specifically forbidden reviewing the current chromium standards or past remedial decisions. While much of the discussion in my report is technical and finds fault with the workgroup report?s reasoning and conclusions, my motivation is simply to protect public health. As we discussed in our previous e-mail correspondence, the New Jersey Chromium Workgroup Report does not reflect the consensus of the Workgroup members and was written largely by NJDEP management with a clear bias for preserving the status quo and leaving the chromium cleanup criteria and remediation program unchanged.



REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
RECOMMENDATIONS ON CHROMIUM
A Counter ? Argument to the New Jersey Chromium Workgroup?s Recommendations
By
Zoe Kelman
Hazardous Site Mitigation Engineer
October 2005


See full text:
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/05_10_11_report.pdf

Controversy about overseer for Jersey City chromium cleanup

by Amy Sara Clark
Wednesday March 18, 2009

Jersey City is asking a former deputy administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton to oversee the cleanup of a chromium site in Jersey City.

But while community and environmental groups praise W. Michael McCabe's experience, they are criticizing the cleanup plan he would manage.

"We're pleased that someone with this background, knowledge and passion is considering overseeing this remediation," Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy said about McCabe, who would monitor the cleanup of a 16-acre site along Garfield Avenue.

The site, owned by PPG Industries, once housed a factory that produced hexavalent chromium, which can cause cancer, respiratory problems and organ damage. McCabe recently led the Obama transition team's committee on environmental appointments and also headed the EPA's Mid-Atlantic Region.

"I'm leaning toward it," McCabe said in an interview Monday about taking on the job. But he wants to see how much community support there is for the cleanup plan.

"If you have a community that is not supportive, that feels like its concerns have not been heard, it makes it very difficult to go forward and complete a project," he said.

And community groups have raised eyebrows about a settlement agreement between the city and PPG.

"I guess our feeling is that a resume is no substitute for a (detailed) cleanup agreement," said Joe Morris, an organizer for Interfaith Community Organization, a Hoboken-based group that last month filed its own lawsuit against PPG in federal court.
Nancy Marks, senior attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, which joined ICO in the federal lawsuit, agreed.

"There's no schedule, there's no standards, it's a proposed structure for devising a cleanup plan. But it's not a cleanup plan," she said.
After praising McCabe, as well as Mayor Healy and the state DEP for pushing for a settlement, Stuart Lieberman, an attorney for the neighborhood group GRACO, said the settlement needs a stricter timeline, provisions for medical monitoring for area residents exposed to the chromium and greater decision making power for the site administrator.

Bill Matsikoudis, the city's top attorney, defended the settlement. "We look forward to hearing recommendations during the comment period," he said. "However, we believe that it provides the best mechanism for (a) thorough and expeditious remediation."

The plan is available online at www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases09/ ... PPG-Consent-Judgment.pdf.

The public can submit comments through April 15 to Thomas Cozzi at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, P.O. Box 028, Trenton, NJ 08625, or at a public meeting on Monday, March 30 at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 280 Grove St.After the public comment period, city officials will amend the plan as needed and present it to the City Council for a vote.

The agreement, including McCabe's appointment, would go to Hudson County Superior Court for approval.

TOXIC CLEAN-UP DEAL
PPG to remediate chromium sites

Friday, February 20, 2009
By BRIAN T. MURRAY

THE STAR-LEDGER

New Jersey authorities and a Pittsburgh corporation blamed for chromium pollution throughout Hudson County reached an agreement yesterday for cleaning up a Jersey City site within five years.

PPG Industries will remediate soil and other sources of chromium contamination on 16.6 acres on Garfield Avenue - the site of a chromite ore refinement plant from 1924 to 1963 - under a partial Superior Court settlement announced by the state's attorney general and Department of Environmental Protection. The deal will not be finalized until after a 30-day public comment period.

PPG also agreed to complete remediation operations at 13 other contaminated sites in Jersey City, Weehawken and Bayonne, pay $1 million to Jersey City for a park and pay another $250,000 to oversee the settlement plan.

"We are happy the attorney general has approved this settlement, but this is not done. We need to have a public comment period. We have community groups we have to hear from," said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy, whose city was a party to the lawsuit.

The public comment process will begin March 16.

The agreement comes just weeks after the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York and the Interfaith Community Organization of Hoboken filed a federal lawsuit claiming the cleanups were taking too long. PPG has accepted responsibility for 61 chromium-contaminated sites, has remediated 47 of them and has promised to resolve the rest under the settlement.

The highly toxic hexavalent chromium was a byproduct of chromite ore refinement conducted by the predecessors of three companies - Honeywell International, PPG Industries Inc. and Tierra Solutions Inc. - between 1895 and the last plant closure in 1976.

Tons of contaminated industrial waste were distributed as fill for construction sites throughout the county and neighboring Essex County, and by the 1980s, the state recognized about 200 contaminated parcels.

All three companies were sued by the DEP in 2005, after cleanups promised in the 1980s and 1990s failed to materialize.

The DEP contends the companies have been individually linked to most of the sites.

"I grew up in Jersey City and know first-hand the frustration felt by people who have had to live with chromium contamination," acting DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello said.

"It's been a long time coming, but this settlement will give residents the peace of mind and better quality of life that comes with a clean, healthier neighborhood."

CLEANUP KEY TO PROJECT
City, PPG negotiate to remove chromium

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
By PAUL KOEPP
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City's planners have grand designs for an 111-acre swath of industrial land to the east of Garfield Avenue. But there is an obstacle: chromium contamination.

As plans for the "Canal Crossing Redevelopment Area" take shape, the city is trying to wrap up negotiations with PPG Industries on a cleanup plan for the site of the company's old factory on Garfield Avenue.

Jersey City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis said the city has set a deadline of Dec. 31 to reach a resolution with PPG for the remediation of these 18 acres. If no agreement is made, the city will take legal action, either in federal court or through pending litigation in state Superior Court, to force the process forward, he said.

The city could push for the appointment of a special master and technical consultants to oversee the cleanup and evaluate any paperwork filed by PPG, Matsikoudis said, adding the city would push for a five-year time frame for the remediation.

The cost, expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, will be borne completely by PPG, he said.

The site is about half the size of the chromium area being cleaned up by Honeywell International across town along Route 440. PPG and its predecessors produced more than 300,000 tons of chromium waste over several decades, officials said.

"Clearly there has to be a lot of excavation," Matsikoudis said.

The company is "awaiting the review and approval of several documents" on file with the state Department of Environmental Protection, according to a spokesman. PPG said it cannot do more "until the Department completes its review of various reports and authorizes PPG to do further work."

In a statement, the NJDEP said it expects to "issue a formal response to the company's remedial investigation reports, which contain results of extensive soil and ground water testing, at the beginning of the year."

The property is controlled by a group of developers including former DEP Commissioner Christopher Daggett, officials said.

"We want a gold standard remediation for the PPG site," said Robert Harper of the Garfield Avenue Chromium Coalition, referring to a chromium concentration below three parts per million.

If you're willing to wade through statistics and get up to your elbows in data, you can start with the SEER database.

Established by the National Cancer Institute, SEER collects information on incidence, survival, and prevalence from specific geographic areas representing 26 percent of the US population and compiles reports on all of these plus cancer mortality for the entire US. This site is intended for anyone interested in US cancer statistics or cancer surveillance methods.

SEER SITE

The UMDNJ physician that compiled the study mentioned in the NY Times many years ago is still at the facility (I posted that article in this thread). Google his name and you'll find his email address on the UMDNJ website. I'm sure he could send you the study.

There's a thread on the NJ.COM Jersey City forum (go to NJ.com, click on FORUMS, access Hudson County, then visit the JC forum group - you can lurk - certainly not as good as JCLIST posts, though!) either today or yesterday about toxic waste. One of the posters did his thesis on the subject locally. I would get in touch with him/her, too.

In terms of maps and a whole bunch of good data, Google this term: "EPA SUPERFUND HUDSON COUNTY."

Start here for a great collection of maps, types of area pollutants, our overall ranking nationally for pollution and superfund sites, etc:

Hudson County Toxic Scorecard

This site below shows cancer incidence in New Jersey (you can search any state actually) by the type of disease, and the trends for that specific cancer:

NJ CANCER TRENDS - VERY INTERESTING

Good luck and let us know what you discover!