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New Jersey Currents | Summer Update
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Continued on page 3
sizzlin’ summertime actionBy David Pringle and Jenny Vickers
Summer Update 2012 New Jersey currents
ACTION FOR CLEAN WATER
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF inside: Letter from the Director, p. 2
More Ways You Can Make a Difference, p. 3
Go Green Through Zero Waste, p. 4 Oyster Creek, p. 5 Save the
Date: Autumn Toast to a Healthy Environment, p. 5
The past year brought significant progress on the New Jersey
Environmental Federation’s top environmental campaigns. Those
campaigns are now gearing up to continue the momen-tum this summer
and fall.
In June, the NJ Environmental Federation held a successful lobby
day in Trenton with Environment New Jersey, Food & Water Watch,
the Delaware Riverkeeper, and the Sierra Club. More than two
hundred people turned out to spend the day lobbying legislators,
attending committee hearings and join-ing a clean energy rally.
More than fifty NJEF staff, canvassers, and members showed up on
lobby day. Participants delivered thousands of member letters, and
the New Jersey legislature seems to have heard their messages loud
and clear:
� Bills to keep New Jersey in the Regional Greenhouse Gas
Initiative (RGGI) and to ban the discharge of frack waste-water in
NJ waters are now on Governor Christie’s desk.
� The Assembly blocked the anti-environment “Waiver Rule.” The
pro-polluter “Permit Extension Act” was weakened.
� Legislation to protect children against toxic pesticide
exposure on ball field and playground won cosponsorship from a
majority of lawmakers.
Polluters and their allies are still hoping to shape the final
outcomes in their favor, and strong campaigning from the
grassroots will be needed to push these victories across the
finish line. Gov. Christie and your representatives in the State
Legislature need to hear from you. They need to know that New
Jerseyans support clean water and clean air, renewable energy and a
stronger economy emphasizing green jobs.
Stop the Permit Extension Act (S743/A1338): Despite some
positive amendments to limit its scope, this bill still threatens
the Pinelands, Barnegat Bay and the Highlands — source of
Kite Flying for Global Wind Day at Asbury Park beach.
Environmental Lobby Day at the Statehouse in Trenton, (NJ
Environmental Federation’s Jessica Titian with sign).
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2 New Jersey Currents | Summer Update 2012
www.CleanWaterAction.org/njef
Why Go Solar Today? 750 Good ReasonsElectricity costs skyrocket
each summer, whenever your air conditioning powers up to tackle the
heat. Our members in New Jersey have a great chance to do something
about this today. Our partnership with Sungevity makes it easier
than ever to go solar with a rooftop solar electric system.
Here’s the 750-reasons deal:1) Sungevity will give you $750 when
you sign up for a zero-down solar lease, and 2) they’ll also donate
$750 to Clean Water Fund.
ÒÒ Good for the planet. And for your budget!ÒÒ You’ll get $750.
And so will we.ÒÒ You’ll pay nothing up front. ÒÒ It’s the first
step towards energy independence.ÒÒ Installation and maintenance
are FREE, and your savings start on day one.
How It Works: Sungevity puts solar panels on your home for no
money down. You pay a monthly lease rate—usually the same or less
than your old electric bill. Best of all, you’ll get $750 for
signing up, and we’ll get the same amount for Clean Water.
Ready to Go Solar? Visit sungevity.org/clean-water-fund to
request your free iQuote and learn how much you could save.
From the Director
Amy Goldsmith
multiplying your money for a greener new jerseyNew Jersey
Environmental Federation members like you, together with charitable
foundations and other Clean Water Fund donors, have faithfully
supported our Newark-based environmental health, justice and green
jobs programs over the past several years. During that time, we
have worked together with community leaders and residents to
promote sound economic growth, innovative zero waste strategies
(see p. 4), sustainable and healthy communities and schools. We
have helped people develop and deploy tools to make democracy work
for the betterment of all.
Because of the way these programs build and train a growing base
of community volunteers and develop new local leadership for the
future, our environmental, economic and quality of life results
have grown exponentially. Along the way we’ve attracted new
partners for our work and additional grants and donations to help
the program grow even more. Thank you for your role in making all
this possible.
Now one of our foundation partners has stepped up with an
extraordinary offer. The Victoria Foundation has agreed to match
new donations for these programs, including larger gifts from
existing donors, additional foundation gifts and grants, or
donations from businesses.
That’s where you come in. Each tax-deductible donation you can
give or help Clean Water Fund raise will be doubled. Each $100 gift
becomes $200. Each $1,000 gift becomes $2,000. Our goal is to raise
at least $20,000 – the amount the Victoria Foundation has agreed to
match. That would mean $40,000 in new funding for these critically
important programs that are changing lives and improving
environmental conditions here in New Jersey.
I invite you to contact me by e-mail with your questions and
suggestions — especially if you are interested in helping with a
gift or with additional fundraising to help us meet our goal.
Together, we can build New Jersey’s green economy — plus the good
jobs that come with that — and lead the way in making our
communities more livable.
Amy Goldsmith, State Director, NJEF & Clean Water
[email protected]
how to support this campaign:Donate online at
www.cleanwaterfund.org/matchChecks payable to Clean Water
Fund
may be mailed to me at:Clean Water Fund – NJ Funding Match
1002 Ocean Ave., Belmar, NJ 07719We are also able to accept
gifts of
stock or other appreciated assets, and you can support the
campaign through simple legacy-gift strategies (pledging support
through a bequest in your will, by designating Clean Water Fund as
a beneficiary of your life insurance or
qualified retirement plan, etc). Contact us at
[email protected] to
explore these other giving options. Contributions to Clean Water
Fund
are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
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Continued from page 1
more than half of New Jersey’s water supply. The bill is now on
the Governor’s desk; he should veto it.
Pass the Safe Playing Fields Act (S1143/A2412) to stop the use
of the most toxic pesticides where kids play. Kids should not be
playing in areas treated with pesticides linked to cancer, asthma,
and other respiratory and health problems. The bill has passed
three committees with overwhelming bi-partisan support and has more
than 60 sponsors. Senate President Sweeney and Assembly Speaker
Oliver must allow this bill to be heard.
Stop Raiding the Clean Energy Fund: In late June, for the 4th
year in a row, state lawmakers and the Governor agreed on another
raid. These funds provided by ratepayers for 2012-13 should go as
originally intended, toward green jobs, clean air, savings for
ratepayers and economic revival — not paying state buildings’
electric bills or the state’s General Fund.
Ban Frack Waste (A575/S3049): New Jersey needs to invest in
clean water and green energy, not more polluting fossil fuel
development. The moratorium on fracking is about to run out. The
Governor should sign this bill into law and continue the ban.
Reject NJDEP Waiver Rule on public health and safety
protec-tions (SCR59): The waiver rule undermines key environmen-tal
health protections, violates legislative intent and wrongly cedes
legislative power to the executive. The Assembly passed a
resolution to block the rule, but Senate President Sweeney has
stalled the resolution there. Senate passage is urgently
needed.
Keep New Jersey in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)
(S1322/A1998): Gov. Christie has decided to pull New Jersey out of
one of the nation’s strongest clean energy and clean air
initiatives, threatening public health, air quality, climate
change, and the state’s emerging green economy. With support from
NJEF members, the legislature passed the “No Clean Air Rollback”
bill to keep New Jersey in the program. The bill is now on the
governor’s desk — he should sign it into law.
Take action this summer to protect New Jersey’s beaches,
Highlands mountains, beautiful rivers, streams and ocean waters.
All are critical for New Jersey’s environmental and economic
future. www.CleanWater.org/action/summer2012
David Pringle is the New Jersey Environmental Federation’s
campaign and policy director. Jenny Vickers is communications
coordinator.
NJ Environmental Federation would like to give a special thanks
to
our 40th birthday conference sponsors.We couldn’t have done the
event without you, thank you so much!
Bayshore RecyclingBill & Sharon Finlayson
Clean Water Action Visa CardClean Water Fund
Delicious OrchardsExtreme Energy Solutions
Freedman’s BakeryGreen Mountain Coffee
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Port Division
Joe and Janet TauroMichael Gordon
NATH Sustainable SolutionsRamapo College of New Jersey
Robert Bernstein and Susan WolfThe Gotsch Family
Tom and Lynda FoteWendy Benchley
More Ways You Can Make A Difference For Clean Water:
• Online Actions: Join Clean Water Action online to hold
yourU.S. Reps and Senators accountable.
www.CleanWater.org/action
• Monthly Giving: Sustain your support for Clean Water
Actionwith an automatic recurring gift.
www.CleanWater.org/join/ways-to-give
• Internet Searches & Online Shopping:Generate donations for
Clean Water Action with every internet search. Use the “add to
search” link on this
page:http://cleanwateraction.we-care.com/search
Clean Water Action’s Online Shopping App makes donationsfor
every purchase you make at thousands of online stores. It’s free
and automatic. http://cleanwateraction.we-care.com/getstarted
• Make Your Opinions Count for Clean Water: Sign up for
SurveyMonkey Contribute and each survey you complete means a
donation for Clean Water.
https://contribute.surveymonkey.com/charity/clean-water-fund
New Jersey Currents | Summer Update 2012
3www.CleanWaterAction.org/njef
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go green through zero waste:Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!By Jenny
Vickers
Clean Water Fund and the New Jersey Environmental Fed-eration
are spearheading a “Zero Waste” initiative in Newark. The program
is part of our EJ VOICE efforts to improve air quality and public
health, reduce pollution and waste, and create green, sustainable
jobs. Zero Waste programs’ economic and environmental benefits are
significant and the Newark program is intended as a model for other
communities.
Incinerators and landfills emit toxic air pollutants which are
linked to climate change and health disorders such as asthma and
cancer. Zero Waste programs aim to reduce the waste that ends up in
landfills and incinerators, thereby improv-ing air quality and
greenhouse gas emissions while spurring green jobs and renewable
energy development. According to the Institute for Local Self
Reliance, recycling, reduction, and product reuse accounts for more
jobs at higher wages than traditional waste management
(www.ilsr.org).
Zero Waste programs also promote local sustainability (by
promoting the concept of buying, eating and shopping local and
organic) and environmental awareness (by promoting the concept of
reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost).
To help in these efforts, Clean Water Fund and the NJ
Envi-ronmental Federation have:
� held successful composting and recycling trainings for local
residents,
� produced a new Backyard Composting
Guide(www.CleanWater.org/ejvoice), and
� launched new waste reduction programs at Newark’s Beth Israel
Medical Center (NBIMC), Children’s Hospital of New Jersey (CHoNJ)
and Weequahic High School.
In May, NBIMC and CHoNJ became home to a new food waste
liquefier, an eco-friendly solution to food waste disposal. The
liquefier, produced by Food2Water, uses the company’s blend of
microorganisms mixed with food waste to break down waste
immediately (within 24 hours). This Zero Waste project will not
only help reduce the hospital’s garbage hauling costs, it will also
reduce truck traffic, air pollution, and the amount of waste going
to the local incinerator.
“As a major healthcare organization that produces large amounts
of food waste, it is important for us to explore alter-natives to
traditional disposal,” said John A. Brennan, MD, MPH, of NBIMC and
CHoNJ. “By using the food waste lique-
fier we are extending our commitment beyond our current green
environmental investments — making Newark Beth Israel Medical
Center and Children’s Hospital of New Jersey a greener place to
work and serve our (patient) community.”
Weequaic High School was the spot of the second Zero Waste
project. In June, the school became the first urban site in New
Jersey to incorporate a Rocket® composter. The com-poster is an
on-site aerobic system to recycle the school’s food waste into a
useful soil amendment for landscaping, horticul-tural needs and for
science projects.
“This is a great example of creative partnerships among a state,
a not-for-profit, and a public school,” said Gerardo Soto, of NATH
Sustainable Solutions, which provided the Rocket composter.
“Weequahic High School will incorporate the Rocket into the
school’s curriculum. We are very excited about this unique project
which will continue to revolutionize the way we treat food waste
on-site in the U.S.”
“The Newark Sustainability Office is proud to support this
project as an example of strategies that move us closer to our Zero
Waste goal,” said Adam Zipkin, Newark’s Deputy Mayor and Director
of Economic and Housing Development. “Weequahic High School’s
success in launching this pilot project with the help of Clean
Water Fund is a challenge to all school districts to find creative
ways to reduce and re-use their waste.”
Clean Water Fund’s Zero Waste initiative is part of the City of
Newark’s larger Sustainability Action Plan and is one of Newark’s
several “Green Neighborhoods Pilot Programs.” Clean Water Fund is
coordinating this program with sup-port from the City of Newark
through federal stimulus funds from the U.S. Department of Energy’s
Energy Effi-ciency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program.
Learn more at www.CleanWater.org/ejvoice.
4 New Jersey Currents | Summer Update 2012
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“Rocket Composter” installation at Weequahic High School. Left
to right: Andrea Vincent,Custodial Staff, Weequahic High School,
Gerardo Soto, NATH Solutions, Najala Fareed, Recycling Coordinator,
Newark Public Schools, Kim Gaddy, NJ Environmental Federation
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New Jersey Currents | Summer Update 2012
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oyster creekBy Peggi Sturmfels, Program Organizer
Since 2004, the New Jersey Environmental Federation and GRAMMES
(Grandmother, Mothers and More for Energy Safety) have led a
coalition seeking to close nation’s oldest nuclear power plant,
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Sta-tion. The coalition’s
campaigning led the plant’s operator to promise to close it early,
in 2019. Otherwise it would remain open at least until 2029, the
plant’s scheduled relicense date. The groups continue to monitor,
access, and comment on the operations. The recent horrific
meltdowns at Japan’s Fuku-shima Daiichi plant, another Mark l
design of the same age as Oyster Creek add urgency to this
mission.
Japanese government officials and the Fukushima plant’s
operators continued to downplay the dangers, even as unac-ceptable
radiation levels were reaching Washington and Cali-fornia,
thousands of miles and months away from the event. Warnings from
nuclear experts about the need for hardened filtered vent systems
on these types of reactors — based on lessons from the earlier
Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters — were ignored.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) remains reluctant
to retire older Mark I reactors like Oyster Creek or even to
require immediate use of hardened, filtered vents. The result is
continuing threats to public health and safety. Despite the
threats, the NRC’s plan is to allow nuclear power plants to wait up
to five years to implement public safety plans that are needed now.
The coalition is calling for strict and immediate enforcement of
all safety recommendations for Oyster Creek.
Since Fukushima, the nuclear industry and its support-ers among
government regulators have focused relentlessly on rescuing their
bottom line. Their attempts to save this outdated 1950’s technology
hinges on convincing people that nuclear remains the best way to
boil water to turn electric turbines. For this reason, they view as
acceptable: poisoning the food chain without regard for future
generations; endan-gering nuclear workers’ health; piling on more
tons of deadly nuclear wastes without any means for safe disposal;
relying on iodine pill handouts and inadequate evacuation plans as
the main emergency responses to possible future disasters.
The Fukushima disaster proved that industry’s theoretical
“containment venting” remedy for reactors like Oyster Creek which
suffer from weak containment design will most likely fail again the
next time it is put to the test. In the case of Oys-ter Creek, that
already-weak system is further compromised by severe corrosion.
Oyster Creek installed such a containment venting system, but
since it was done voluntarily, it was done without any inspection,
safety evaluation or license review process involv-ing NRC staff or
public hearings. The Oyster Creek vent and containment are
therefore believed to be highly unreliable and likely to fail under
severe accident conditions.
A comprehensive review and an action plan for retiring all Mark
I reactors, including Oyster Creek, are needed immedi-ately.
Official reviews so far have given greater consideration to the
plant operators’ profitability than to protecting the public’s
health and safety and the economic risks associated with a
Fukushima-scale disaster in the U.S.
Wine & Chocolate Tastings, Hors d’oeuvres • Charity Auction
and Live Music Proceeds benefit clean water and environmental
programs
Bring a date, family member or friend!To become a sponsor,
donate an auction item, or buy a ticket, contact Jenny at
732-280-8988 or [email protected]
www.CleanWater.org/autumntoast
Autumn Toast to a Healthy EnvironmentClean Water Fund and NJ
Environmental Federation’s
40th Birthday Wine & Chocolate Tasting and Charity
Auction
Sunday, September 30 • 1:00 – 4:00pmPine Barrens Golf Club
540 South Hope Chapel Road, Jackson, NJTickets are $75 per
person and $125 per couple.
Special Member Rate! $50 per person and $100 per couple
SAVE THE DATE!
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New Jersey CurrentsSUMMER UPDATE 2012
Clean Water Action is a national citizens’ organization working
for clean, safe and affordable water, prevention of
health-threatening pollution, creation of environmentally-safe jobs
and businesses, and empowerment of people to make democracy
work.
The New Jersey Environmental Federation is the Garden State
chapter of Clean Water Action. NJEF has 150,000 individual members
and an additional 100 member groups.
NJEF and Clean Water Action organize strong grassroots groups,
coalitions and campaigns to protect our environment, health,
economic well-being and community quality of life.
Managing Editor: Jonathan ScottPresident and CEO: Robert
WendelgassWriters: Amy Goldsmith, David Pringle, Peggi
Sturmfels,and Jenny VickersDesign: ES DesignReproduction in whole
or part is permitted with proper credit.© Copyright 2012 All rights
reserved.
National: 1010 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC
20005-4918 | Phone 202.895.0420 | Fax 202.895.0438 |
[email protected] New Jersey: 1002 Ocean Ave, Belmar, NJ 07719 |
Phone 732.280.8988 | www.CleanWaterAction.org/njef
PUT EVERYDAY PURCHASES TO WORK FOR CLEAN WATER ACTION.Support
Clean Water Action, and get the benefits of this Capital One® Visa®
Rewards Card. Giving has never been easier, or more rewarding.
Learn more about this and other card options at
www.CleanWaterCard.org
6 New Jersey Currents | Summer Update 2012
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