EPA Says New Jersey Needs $8 Billion For Sewer Improvements

New Jersey's infrastructure is a mess, and it goes beyond the bridges, roads, and rail system. Water delivery and sewer systems require maintenance and upgrades, and the sewage treatment across the state is insufficient and threatens safety of those who ply the waters around the state.

The EPA says that the cost would be about $8 billion to upgrade sewer treatment plants and to deal with stormwater runoff.

At more than 200 spots like this in New Jersey, outdated sewer systems pour more than 23 billion gallons of raw sewage into the water each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

And residents — including those who boat, kayak and fish these waterways — are usually never told when the sewage is flowing, officials say.

It doesn’t take a hurricane for the sewers to surge. Even small rainfalls can cause a dirty cocktail of bacteria to spew from 224 nondescript pipes that are mostly in northern New Jersey, EPA says, posing a serious health risk to anyone who touches the water.

Frustrated by the state’s lack of progress, the federal agency is pressuring the Christie administration to fix the long-standing problem, which EPA estimates could cost more than $8 billion.

And environmentalists say they will soon take the state to court, arguing the permit it issues that allows municipalities to dump the sewage violates the federal Clean Water Act.

"New Jersey has the worst program in the country to deal with this problem," said Christopher Len, staff attorney for the nonprofit NY/NJ Baykeeper, which is challenging the permit with Sheehan and others. "It’s laughable."

The state Department of Environmental Protection has rejected NY/NJ Baykeeper’s claims and said it plans to unveil revised rules in six months that would require better public notification and other basic and less expensive improvements. The state says nine of the 224 spill points have been eliminated since EPA’s last count.

But the DEP said it will not yet require cities to implement long-term plans to fix the problem. Instead, it intends to hold another round of meetings and ask cities and towns to again study what changes they can afford.

Federal officials said in a recent letter to DEP that the state "has all the data it needs to tackle this long-term challenge."

Jeffrey Gratz, chief of EPA’s clean water regulatory branch overseeing New Jersey, said in an interview that unless the state’s next set of rules puts municipalities on a schedule to address the problem, EPA will have a "serious issue with it."

Lisa Jackson, the current head of the EPA, used to be the head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection under Gov. Jon Corzine. As such, she was in a position to try and get municipalities funding to make the necessary improvements.

She failed at that job, and now the agency is pushing for what amounts to an unfunded mandate to try and get New Jersey to comply with federal and state clean water acts.

Thing is - the agency is right that something needs to be done here. Many municipalities in New Jersey have combined sewer systems - where runoff and sanitary sewage systems mingle and can overwhelm sewage treatment systems. A separated system would allow sewage to be properly treated and allow runoff to flow into waterways without the same impact.

New Jersey and other states have underfunded this kind of infrastructure for far too long and our waterways have suffered from a failure of foresight and forethought.

Yet Another Unfunded EPA Mandate

The EPA is once again pursuing the route of unfunded mandates in demanding states and localities curb smog emissions. In 2008, the Bush Administration lowered the then allowable level of 85 ppm (set by the Clinton Administration in 1999) to 75ppm. This week, the EPA has lowered the allowable level to somewhere between 60 and 70 ppm; the actual level will be set by the Administration after hearings later this year.

The goal is cleaner air, but there's no money anywhere to make it happen.

New Jersey is particularly hard hit by the new regulations because it was already struggling to try and meet the Bush limit and the new levels will mean still more counties will be unable to meet the standards. The EPA chief, Lisa Jackson, was the head of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, and under her watch, 11 counties were incapable of meeting the Bush era targets.

The EPA announced the stricter limits on ground-level ozone on Thursday, a move it says will save lives from lung-damaging pollution. Implementing measures to achieve the standard would cost $19 billion to $90 billion, officials said.

The 11 New Jersey counties monitored for ozone are already in violation of the current, more lenient limits. State officials see the new rules as an opportunity.

"This just means we have to keep working harder," said Nancy Wittenberg, assistant commissioner for environmental regulation at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. "But these new standards are a good thing because they will bring real health benefits."

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency is "stepping up to protect Americans from one of the most persistent and widespread pollutants we face. Smog poses a serious health threat, especially to children and individuals suffering from asthma and lung disease.

"It dirties our air, clouds our cities, and drives up our health care costs across the country," Jackson said.

Yet, she now thinks that the state can meet the more stringent levels? Where is the money coming from to make that happen?

Her efforts while at the state level were incapable of reducing the number of counties in violation of the more lenient levels, and yet we're going to see an improvement when there's less money to spend and a more stringent (and amorphous) level?

This is a classic definition of an unfunded mandate where the compliance costs are heaped upon states and localities to clean up the mess, some of which may not actually be locally created - since prevailing winds often carry particulates and pollution from elsewhere upwind.

Meanwhile, many reports spin the latest change as that the Bush Administration was somehow lax on the environment, even though the Bush Administration actually lowered the allowable limit that was previously set by the Clinton Administration. These reports leave out the context.

About That EPA Statement On Dirty Drinking Water

The New York Times reported that drinking water in municipalities around the nation are suffering from too many contaminants and have all too frequently ignored rules on filtration.

That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.

Regulators were informed of each of those violations as they occurred. But regulatory records show that fewer than 6 percent of the water systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials, including those at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has ultimate responsibility for enforcing standards.

Studies indicate that drinking water contaminants are linked to millions of instances of illness within the United States each year.

In some instances, drinking water violations were one-time events, and probably posed little risk. But for hundreds of other systems, illegal contamination persisted for years, records show.

On Tuesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee will question a high-ranking E.P.A. official about the agency’s enforcement of drinking-water safety laws. The E.P.A. is expected to announce a new policy for how it polices the nation’s 54,700 water systems.

“This administration has made it clear that clean water is a top priority,” said an E.P.A. spokeswoman, Adora Andy, in response to questions regarding the agency’s drinking water enforcement. The E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, this year announced a wide-ranging overhaul of enforcement of the Clean Water Act, which regulates pollution into waterways.

“The previous eight years provide a perfect example of what happens when political leadership fails to act to protect our health and the environment,” Ms. Andy added.

EPA Chief Lisa Jackson and her staff takes to blaming the prior Administration for not doing enough to curb the problem. That's a common occurrence with the Obama Administration.

However, scratching the surface unveils a far more disturbing picture - and one that isn't kind to Jackson, and shows that her staff is politicizing the agency's actions.

Under President Bush, allowable levels of arsenic in drinking water was reduced from 50 ppb to 10 ppb. That means municipalities that complied with the prior standard may now face requirements to reduce arsenic levels. The reduction was expected to reduce certain incidences of cancer. 4,000 out of 74,000 regulated municipalities were required to act on the new lower levels. The cost per household annually was going to run around $32, but smaller municipalities could see a far higher annual cost to comply - anywhere from $58 to $327.

$20 million was set aside for assisting municipalities in complying, but that turned out to be little more than an unfunded mandate.

Closer to home, Jackson was previously responsible heading the New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection under Jon Corzine, and she failed miserably to do her job in state. After all, she was responsible for enforcing the drinking water standards in the state, and she and her staff didn't bring the state's municipalities into compliance, including Ramsey, New Jersey. As the Times reports:

An analysis of E.P.A. data shows that Safe Drinking Water Act violations have occurred in parts of every state. In the prosperous town of Ramsey, N.J., for instance, drinking water tests since 2004 have detected illegal concentrations of arsenic, a carcinogen, and the dry cleaning solvent tetrachloroethylene, which has also been linked to cancer.

(snip)

However, almost none of those systems were ever punished. Ramsey was not fined for its water violations, for example, though a Ramsey official said that filtration systems have been installed since then. In New York, only three water systems were penalized for bacteria violations, according to federal data.

The EPA lacks the money to go after the municipalities. States lack the money to assist municipalities implement the filtration necessary. The municipalities lack the money to make the changes, and foot dragging goes on all around the country.

NYC was mandated to build a filtration plant for the Croton reservoir system because of suspended particulates. The original cost for the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park was supposed to be $1 billion or so, but it now looks like it will top $3 billion and wont be ready for another couple of years. The City fought the filtration requirement because of the cost, and now that the City is finally building it, it's costing far more than ever anticipated. Those costs get passed on to everyone.

And EPA regulators are now looking at additional filtration on NYC water for other reservoirs. Watershed protection costs have gone through the roof, but what is the alternative? The money has to be spent to keep the quality up, but what about those municipalities who lack the resources to make it happen.

Increasing the standards means the water is cleaner, but it comes at an ever greater cost that gets passed on to the end users in higher taxes and fees.

California, New Jersey and 12 Other States Get Clearance For New Car Emission Standard

New Jersey, California and 12 other states were approved to enact new emissions standards for motor vehicles by the EPA today. The waiver had been sitting at the EPA since December 2005, and which was denied in March 2008. The idea is to reduce emissions levels to 1990 levels by 2020.

EPA Director Lisa Jackson (former NJ flunky for Gov. Jon Corzine) says that this is a victory for law and science. Really?

How is it a victory for the science given that the EPA has been playing games with the science? Science has been politicized at the EPA pretty much since the EPA came into existence, and the Obama Administration is pushing in this direction without regard to the cost to taxpayers and the economy on unsettled science.

More to the point, what will all of this cost? There is a cost associated with this since nothing the government does is without cost. The EPA estimates that it will add another $1,300 to the cost of every vehicle. That's an optimistic view, since the government isn't exactly good in the prediction business.

No one is saying what this would do to the car makers and whether people are going to want to pay that much more for these vehicles since it means the automakers will have to choose what items have to be sacrificed to maintain pricing points. Will people simply choose to forgo buying new cars and opt for used cars? Will they delay purchases, further compounding the difficulties in the business sector (and which could mean that older gas guzzlers and less efficient vehicles stay on the road longer)?

These higher costs can't come at a worse time for an industry already reeling from sagging sales, and yet the government expects people to happily accept a vehicle that now $1,300 more than previously.