Stop Paying Lobbyists to Fight the Return of the Passaic River to the People of NJ
February 12, 2014Benjamin Moore, General Electric, Goodrich, Lucent Technologies, Pfizer, Tiffany, PSE&G and Others, Stop Paying Lobbyists to Fight the Return of the Passaic River to the People of New Jersey!!
[emailpetition id="2" class="alignright"]The Lower Passaic River was stolen from the people of New Jersey by industrial pollution. The entire lower 17 miles of the Passaic River (running through Newark, Harrison, Kearny, Belleville, Nutley, and Lyndhurst) and all of Newark Bay are declared a Superfund site. As a result you can’t swim or fish in the river without risking your health and you can’t build piers or docks or businesses on the river because of the poisonous sediment.
The US EPA determined that 70 companies https://www.lowerpr.com/parties.htm are responsible for causing the pollution and paying to clean it up. The companies responded by forming the Cooperating Parties Group (CPG).
In an effort to remediate the used and abused Passaic River, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a historic cleanup plan (the Focused Feasibility Study) on April 11, 2014. The EPA’s preferred cleanup method consists of bank to bank dredging of 4.3 million cubic yards of the lower 8.3 miles of the River, with a two foot cap. EPA’s plan, with off-site disposal of contaminants, will be beneficial in long term effectiveness, will reduce toxicity, ecological impacts, and risk to human health.
The CPG claims to have a plan for cleanup that is better than the EPA's plan. The polluters' cleanup idea saves them money by only cleaning up a small part of the area that needs it.
The companies hired lobbyists and a PR firm to offer towns along the river money as "grants" and then they ask them to oppose the EPA's plan to clean the river. https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/passaic_river_cleanup_epa_plan.html
Tell these companies they should pay to clean the river, not pay lobbyists to ask politicians, business groups, and universities to oppose the EPA properly cleaning the river. These companies made money polluting the river and--no matter the cost--must pay to clean the Passaic River so that all citizens can enjoy its natural beauty and recreational benefits.
In addition, to support EPA's cleanup plan, make your voices heard during the public comment period: April 21 – June 20, 2014. Submit comments to [email protected]
Additional reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/opinion/a-cleanup-plan-for-a-toxic-river.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
https://blog.nj.com/njv_tom_moran/2013/04/the_attempted_murder_of_the_pa.html
https://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2013/04/five_reasons_to_clean_up_the_p.html