Stink raised over N.J. toxic-waste overhaul

As New Jersey stands on the verge of overhauling a broken program to clean up 20,000 toxic-waste sites, environmentalists warn the proposed fix has gone from bad to worse and could leave the door open for another Kiddie Kollege.

Last month, both houses of the Legislature overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow the parties responsible for cleaning up polluted sites to hire licensed consultants to determine how to remediate the sites and then certify that they are safe.

The issue touches every corner of the state: Most New Jerseyans live within two miles of a contaminated site, according to the Sierra Club. The targets range from leaky residential oil tanks to Superfund sites.

Gov. Corzine, whose administration crafted the legislation to clean up sites more efficiently and return properties to tax rolls while limiting taxpayers' expense, is expected to sign the bill within weeks. More than two years in the making, the bill is roughly modeled on a program in Massachusetts.

Proponents say the legislation would allow more sites to be cleaned up faster and, in some cases, to higher standards. They say the bill would set mandatory time frames for cleanups for the first time and hold environmental consultants to higher standards. The bill also would allow enforcement action against consultants who violated the state's site-remediation rules.

"This bill will substantially enhance the cleanup of brownfields in New Jersey," said Sen. Bob Smith (D., Middlesex), a sponsor of the legislation. "The question is, do you want to try to get these sites cleaned up in an expeditious manner with tougher standards? We think this is just a grand slam out of the park, environmentally speaking."

But environmental advocates and a handful of lawmakers strongly disagree. They argue that the arrangement would pose a conflict of interest to the consultants.

"I want these people to know legally and psychologically that their clients are really the residents of New Jersey and not anybody else," said Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D., Bergen), who voted against the bill. "I don't think that's clear enough."

Critics also say the bill lacks many measures that were suggested to protect the environment and public safety. Some of those measures were included in earlier drafts but edited out.

"Each version of the bill got worse," said Dave Pringle, campaign director for the New Jersey Environmental Federation.

Among the critics' concerns:

Environmentalists called for the state to maintain control over the 2,000 to 4,000 most toxic sites. Department of Environmental Protection officials estimate the state would maintain control over several hundred sites.

An early draft of the bill would have required anyone cleaning up sites less than completely - for example, by placing a protective cap over the contamination instead of removing all of it - to pay 5 percent of the cost of the cleanup into a state fund. The provision was intended as an incentive to clean to higher standards and to give the DEP funding for sites where a polluter could not be identified, for example.

The bill calls for a 13-member board to issue licenses to the remediation professionals and would give the board the power to discipline them, such as by revoking their licenses. Six members are to be licensed site professionals, and a seventh would represent industry. Critics say a board majority would be working for the responsible parties.

The result, environmentalists say, is legislation that relies too heavily on the good intentions of the polluters and the consultants they hire.

"I think it will result in a lot of private engineers making a lot of money contributing to a lot of Democrats' campaigns and a real serious risk of more Kiddie Kolleges and EnCaps putting the public at risk," Pringle said.

"If private engineers and polluters act responsibly, this would work, but we have decades of experience to demonstrate that it won't," he said. "It defies comprehension as to why we would trust the polluters to do it right the fourth time."

While state officials have long acknowledged problems in the site-remediation program, Kiddie Kollege made the need for change urgently clear.

The Franklin Township day-care center was shut down in 2006 after more than 60 children and babies had been exposed to dangerous levels of mercury vapors in a former thermometer factory. The building had been on the state's list of contaminated sites but was removed in 2005 with about 1,800 other still-contaminated sites.

Afterward, DEP officials vowed to fix the site-remediation program, resulting in the current bill.

In a February hearing before the Senate and Assembly environment committees, DEP Assistant Commissioner Irene Kropp said the bill "strengthens DEP's enforcement capabilities" and "provides for greater protection at schools, child-care facilities, and residential housing."

Responding to critics, she continued, "It does not privatize. It does not deregulate. It does not eliminate DEP enforcement."

Kropp concluded her testimony by urging lawmakers to act quickly. "We need to get the money out the door, into contractors' hands, and spent quickly," she said.

Developers and representatives of business, many of whom say the DEP takes too long to process site-remediation paperwork, also testified in favor of the bill.

"We strongly support the bill because our goal all along has been to get a system that works," said Andrew Robins of the New Jersey Builders Association. "It's not a question of pro-development or pro-industry. It's either pro it works or pro it doesn't . . . and the changes that have been put in to this date have made that plan much more workable."

David Brogan, vice president of environmental policy at the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, said: "The only viable solution is to basically harness the power of the private sector and provide more authority for them to process those sites."

But Richard Katz, an environmental consultant who works on remediation projects and worked for the DEP for 13 years, called the proposal "inherently unworkable."

"It attempts to squeeze the square peg of the Massachusetts model into the round hole of the New Jersey regulatory structure," Katz said. "There are simply too many differences between the two frameworks for the program to be an effective solution."

Massachusetts officials say their program has vastly improved the efficiency of site remediations. Janine Commerford, an assistant commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, said most licensed site professionals there were "very, very good at what they do."

But Mike Pisauro, legislative director for the New Jersey Environmental Lobby, said Massachusetts should serve as a warning rather than a model.

One study of the program found that audits indicate consultants "routinely permit deviations from state regulations, sometimes creating serious risks to health and the environment," Pisauro said. According to the study, one level of audits found violations at 75 percent of sites.

Sen. Bill Baroni (R., Mercer), who voted against the bill, said cleaning up the sites was a "critical responsibility" of government.

"We're talking about our drinking water, the health of our families," he said. "To turn that over to the very entities that may have caused the problem and let them decide whether the cleanup is good enough and clean enough? It's unprecedented in New Jersey environmental history."