The Jersey City Independent "

On Monday, a coalition of community and environmental groups filed petitions for rulemaking with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), asking the agency to adopt more stringent standards for hexavalent chromium cleanup.

The petitions, sent by the Interfaith Community Organization (ICO), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Jersey City community group GRACO, specifically call on the DEP to adopt the cleanup standard 1 of parts per million (ppm) recently recommended by the department’s own Division of Science, Research and Technology (DSRT).

The DSRT memo is based on a new federal National Toxicology Program (NTP) study that shows a clear link between ingesting hexavalent chromium and the development of cancer in mice and rats, and was sent to acting DEP commissioner Mark Mauriello on April 8 but was only made public by an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request. The memo and corresponding report have not yet been posted to any of the DEP’s chromium websites either.

DEP spokesperson Elaine Makatura says Mauriello has not yet reviewed the science behind the memo in full. She couldn’t give JCI an estimate of when that might happen, or how long it might take for the commissioner to decide whether or not to adopt the 1 ppm standards.

Critics say the DEP will continue to delay the adoption of the standards if not pressed by outside organizations.

“DEP can’t be trusted to handle these issues going forward,” Joe Morris, the ICO’s chromium cleanup project director, says. “At some point, DEP is going to have to start to do its job.”

In addition to calling on the department to issue new standards, the groups are asking DEP to “immediately adopt the 1 ppm soil standard on an interim basis” and to immediately suspend the use of other cleanup techniques like capping.

When asked about the petitions filed this week, Makatura said the department would not comment, saying it was too soon after it had received the notices.

“We feel like if we wait for the commissioner, the public loses,” Morris says, citing the history of non-action established by DEP on chromium issues.

Critics say emails released this week after another OPRA request provide the latest evidence of delay. The emails show that the federal study’s findings were known within the department two years ago.

“I have always thought of government as protecting public health, and erring on the side of precaution,” Zoe Kelman, a former DEP scientist who served on the agency’s Chromium Working Group, says. “It’s clear by the correspondences in these emails that isn’t the priority.”

The emails obtained by Kelman show that then-DEP commissioner Lisa Jackson asked in May 2007 what the federal study would mean for soil cleanup standards in New Jersey. She was told by the science division’s director that the study would result in “a more stringent soil clean-up number … somewhere between 2 and 20 ppm.”

Around the same time, ICO and NRDC sent Jackson a letter alerting them to the federal study and saying the findings “warrant prompt action [by DEP] to strengthen chromium cleanup standards in order to protect the public.” She never responded to that letter.

Earlier in 2007, Jackson, who now heads the federal Environmental Protection Agency, had issued a memo putting forth guidelines that hexavalent chromium be excavated to a 20 ppm standard down to a level of 20 feet.

After being told by her science director that 20 ppm would likely be the least stringent standard brought about by the federal study, Jackson did not tighten her guidelines or impose a moratorium on cleanup approvals while the department waited for the science department to examine the study.

Instead, she allowed a dust study on chromium exposure and heath effects in Jersey City that used the 20 ppm guideline as the acceptable threshold for household dust to proceed. The study, headed up by Paul Lioy, found that few households sampled breached the 20 ppm threshold, and concluded that “risks are low” for residents.

“I think the most irresponsible thing the DEP did between 2007 and now was let Paul Lioy’s study go forward,” Morris says. “[The federal study] fully discredits all of his conclusions.”

Any new DEP standards are likely to affect the proposed settlement between the city, the state and PPG Industries over the cleanup of a chromium-contaminated site along Garfield Avenue. Jersey City corporation counsel Bill Matsikoudis has said previously that if the state imposes more stringent standards, PPG will have to abide by them.

GRACO president Felicia Collis says her organization will be asking members of the City Council to endorse the petitions sent to the DEP.

“Every single Jersey City resident, especially Ward F residents, should have an insatiable desire to demand that Garfield Avenue and any other smaller contaminated sites be cleaned up to the highest of standards,” she says. “Unfortunately, elected officials need to be reminded that they are expected to acknowledge the voice of the people and execute any actions that would ensure the well being of all.”

The DEP has 60 days to respond to the petitions. It can either deny them, grant them, or refer the matter for further deliberations, which gives the department another 90 days to decide how to proceed.

Morris says the science in the federal study is “about as peer-reviewed and tested as a recommendation can get,” and Kelman concurs.

“I’m very confident [the scientists] did it in a way so that it couldn’t be challenged scientifically,” she says. “But that’s the science — now the politics can take over.”

Morris points out that the buck ultimately stops with Gov. Corzine, who has thus far been reluctant to get behind more stringent chromium cleanup standards.

“The governor is the person who could make this happen,” he says.

DOCUMENTS:

* The groups’ letter to DEP commissioner Mauriello

* The petition for rulemaking on a residential standard

* The petition for rulemaking on a non-residential standard

* The Division of Science, Research and Technology’s memo to commissioner Mauriello, and its full final report.

* The ICO/NRDC June 2007 letter to then-commissioner Jackson

* The emails provided to Zoe Kelman this week after an OPRA request

* The remainder of the studies and memos referred to in this story can be found on the DEP’s chromium website.

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