The cleanup agreement, which is estimated to cost PPG up to $600 million and remove an estimated 700,000 tons of chromium waste from the area around the company’s former chromium plant, stems from a citizens’ lawsuit filed in 2009 by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Interfaith Community Organization (ICO) and GRACO Community Organization (GRACO). PPG had twice previously tried to have the advocates’ suit tossed from court, to no avail.

The groups have long claimed that the city’s 2009 settlement with PPG and the state Department of Environmental Protection is not stringent enough.

“What could have been a Swiss cheese approach to the cleanup is now a comprehensive removal of the contamination — no holes to be found,” says NRDC senior attorney Nancy Marks. “This Jersey City community should never have been stuck living on top of someone else’s toxic waste in the first place. They’re finally receiving the justice they deserve and will be soon free from this poisonous legacy.”

Specifically, the new federal settlement calls for chromium levels to be reduced to 5 parts per million (ppm), a much stricter standard than New Jersey’s current standard of 20 ppm, which was guiding the existing cleanup plan.

In addition, PPG will fund a community-hired expert to monitor the cleanup process and test residential properties near the site upon request and clean up any contaminated properties to the 5 ppm level. And the advocates also note that the federal deadlines brought by this settlement add an extra layer of protection, since the state DEP has in the past failed to act on cleanup plans at the site.

However, the Healy administration, which brokered the 2009 settlement between Jersey City, PPG and the state, is choosing to frame this week’s federal settlement in quite a different light, in an attempt to reiterate its repeated claim that the current cleanup plan is stringent enough.

“We are pleased that the NRDC and GRACO are endorsing our settlement with PPG and the DEP that requires PPG to dig up and remove the chromium waste at Garfield Avenue at PPG’s expense,” Mayor Jerramiah Healy says in a statement. “We have no problem with another layer of review of PPG’s cleanup, as long as it does not delay our goal of finishing the cleanup by 2014.”

Like Healy, the state Department of Environmental Protection is downplaying the federal settlement, with a spokesperson telling the New York Times this week that “it doesn’t get much better” than the cleanup plan already in place.

The federal settlement was submitted to the court this week and will become final when signed by a judge. It does not prevent a class-action lawsuit against PPG from going forward.

The chromium plant located on Garfield Avenue began operation in 1924, refining raw chromium ore into paint pigment and other items 24 hours a day. PPG purchased the facility in 1954 and ran it until its closing in the fall of 1963. Until the past few years, it had sat largely untouched, a toxic hazard for the Jersey City residents who happened to live or work near it.

Nearly three million tons of chromium ore processing residue (COPR) was produced at Hudson County’s three plants (one was located in Kearny), according to the DEP. Much of this COPR was given away to developers to use as fill material during construction in the 1950s and ’60s.

The COPR produced by the sites includes chromium of the trivalent and hexavalent kind. Hexavalent chromium is known to cause lung cancer in humans, and has been linked to other types of cancer, including nasal, stomach and blood, in a number of studies. Trivalent chromium is more common, and while many consider it “safe,” many scientists say it can — and does — convert to hexavalent chromium in nature. One study by the state DEP found that the rate of lung cancer incidence near chromium sites was 7 to 17 percent higher than in other areas of Jersey City.

“This is a victory for public health, for environmental justice, and for the rebirth of an area that’s been a wasteland for a half century,” says Rev. Willard Ashley, pastor of Abundant Joy Community Church and co-chairperson of the Interfaith Community Organization. “This is a victory that will mean more jobs and less cancer in Jersey City.”

PPG’s Federal Settlement for Chromium Cleanup in Jersey City

Jersey City is one of 15 metropolitan regions selected by NRDC and the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) in the new study, which compares and profiles U.S. cities based on public transit availability and use; household automobile ownership and use; and innovative, sustainable and affordable transportation programs.

The study gives kudos to Jersey City for having “the lowest average household vehicle-miles-traveled for any metropolitan region in the country” and for being transit-accessible.

“More than 98 percent of households, a higher percentage than in anywhere else in the United States, have access to transportation, meaning that they are located within a quarter-mile of a bus stop or within a half-mile of a rail station,” according to the CNT.

With such access to transit, perhaps it is no surprise that car-ownership rates in Jersey City are lower than just about anywhere else in the country.

“Along with neighboring New York City, it’s one of only two metropolitan regions in the nation with an average car ownership of less than one per household,” NRDC’s Mary Logan Barmeyer writes. “In fact, only 60 percent of residents own or have access to a car.”

The other regions cited by the Smarter Cities team were Boston, Boulder, Bremerton (Washington), Champaign-Urbana (Illinois), Chicago, the District of Columbia, Honolulu, Lincoln (Nebraska), New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland (Oregon), San Francisco and Yolo (California).

“Jersey City is fast becoming a model of leadership, as Mayor Healy has set the tone and city policy that auto dependency is anti-growth,” city spokesperson Jennifer Morrill tells NRDC. “The city’s growth and development would clog the streets with traffic if it were not based on low auto utilization and high mass-transit use.”

For more information on the study, including city profiles and methodology, click here.

Elsewhere in local transportation news, Streetfilms recently highlighted the Jersey City’s use of Transit-Oriented Development in a short video:

Moving Beyond the Automobile: Transit Oriented Development from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Photo: Jon Whiten

PPG Industries has now agreed to excavate and remove an estimated 708,000 tons of chromium waste and contaminated soil from Garfield Avenue, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Jersey City announced today.

PPG and the DEP had previously left up in the air whether they would pursue a full excavation or instead implement targeted excavation and treatment, a process that was roundly criticized as insufficient by environmental groups and some area residents.

The new plan for the site is outlined in a progress report filed Tuesday by court-appointed site administrator W. Michael McCabe with Hudson County judge Thomas Olivieri.

“After months of first-hand experience at the site, it became even more clear that we should go straight to the cleanup approach most favored by the community and Jersey City: Simply stated, dig it all out and haul it away,” McCabe says in a statement. “I am very pleased that PPG has selected this approach and that DEP has approved it. This has the best chance of meeting our shared goal of a complete remediation by the Fall of 2014, and I look forward to discussing the details of this agreement with the community.”

The site had sat untouched for years despite a 1990 order to begin cleanup until Jersey City, the DEP and PPG entered into a settlement agreement in February 2009. Since then, interim remediation and capping has been put in place to remove the most toxic chromium and protect the area from being further exposed to contamination.

The full excavation phase is expected to begin in the fall of 2011, according to McCabe’s report.

The new plan calls for PPG to excavate and remove all chromate waste to a minimum depth of 20 feet, or until excavation reaches a natural barrier of clay-like material called a “meadow mat.” The company’s preliminary studies indicate that most of the contamination is above the meadow mat.

In addition, PPG will construct an on-site plant to treat contaminated water generated at the site, and will monitor dust and take suppression action with a goal of having no visible dust leaving the site at any time.

“We are pleased that the settlement agreement and cooperation of the DEP, site administrator McCabe and Judge Oliveri has led PPG directly to an excavation course of action,” Jersey City corporation counsel William Matsikoudis says. “[This] will lead to the thorough and expeditious remediation that the community deserves.”

His comments were echoed by DEP officials.

“This plan is a major step forward for people who live near the Garfield Avenue site who have had to live with these wastes buried in their midst for far too long,” DEP acting commissioner Bob Martin says in a statement. “The DEP has been working very hard toward a remediation plan that is mindful of residents’ concerns about this site.”

However, as we’ve reported, it was at least in part the DEP’s failure to enforce the initial order that allowed the site to languish for decades untouched.

The lack of action by state regulators was what spurred the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and local group the Interfaith Community Organization (ICO) to file a federal lawsuit in January 2009 to push for a stringent cleanup of the site. (They were later joined in the suit by the neighborhood group GRACO.)

Specifically, the groups have been pressing PPG to excavate and remove all of the chromium-contaminated industrial waste to a safe standard, identify and permanently remediate all the chromium-contaminated soil and groundwater in the area, to test all residential properties in the area and remediate them as needed, and to have a plan that could be enforced by a federal court.

“The PPG work plan announced today by New Jersey DEP would, if implemented, go a long way towards achieving our first goal,” ICO says in a statement. “We will continue to pursue all of these goals in order to protect the health of people in Jersey City.”

The groups have maintained since the beginning that if the cleanup plan were to address their concerns, they would see no need to continue with their own suit.

The new plan seems to be a step in that direction.

“We believe it is clear that our litigation is having a positive effect,” ICO says in its statement.

“This Thanksgiving, residents of Jersey City are grateful for the work of ICO, GRACO and especially the legal staff of the Natural Resources Defense Council for finally getting PPG Industries to begin taking its cleanup responsibilities seriously,” says Rev. Willard Ashley, co-chairperson of ICO and pastor of Abundant Joy Community Church.

The groups — national nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and local groups Interfaith Community Organization (ICO) and GRACO — are pushing for stricter cleanup standards than those called for in last year’s multi-party settlement and consent judgment between PPG, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Jersey City.

PPG, in arguing for reconsideration, claimed that there was new evidence available that might have changed the decision; namely the current implementation of the consent judgment at the Garfield Avenue chromium site.

But Judge Garrett E. Brown, Jr. wasn’t convinced, instead agreeing with the coalition of groups that, as he writes, “the evidence PPG advances is immaterial and is not new.”

While the cleanup effort is beginning its first phase this summer, it is expected to take several years. With the judge dismissing both PPG’s motion to reconsider and motion for interlocutory appeal of the earlier decision, it appears the federal case, barring any unforeseen developments, will likely get rolling in the next few months.

Memo Denying Motion for Reconsideration in PPG Federal Case

A federal judge has ruled that a coalition of local groups and environmentalists can continue a federal lawsuit to push for stricter cleanup of chromium contamination in Jersey City than the cleanup called for in last year’s multi-party settlement and consent judgment.

PPG Industries, the Pittsburgh-based company that left behind toxic hexavalent chromium at its former manufacturing site at 880 Garfield Ave., had asked the judge to dismiss the federal suit, arguing that the company’s settlement with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Jersey City was good enough and preempted any other cleanup efforts.

But the parties to the federal suit — the national nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and local groups Interfaith Community Organization (ICO) and GRACO — argued all along that they had the right under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to pursue stricter cleanup standards than the consent judgment called for.

The judge agreed.

“Although the Consent Judgment addresses the same concern which underlies Plaintiffs’ suit here — hazardous waste at the Garfield Site — it does not provide for all of the remedies that Plaintiffs seek, or that this Court may provide,” U.S. District Judge Joseph Greenaway wrote in a 33-page ruling handed down Friday.

The judge also declined to grant PPG a stay in this matter until the cleanup governed by the consent judgment is complete; a process that will take at least five years, according to all involved.

“Such a lengthy stay would defeat the purpose of an environmental provision seeking to remediate imminent and substantial endangerment and run contrary to this Court’s unflagging obligation to exercise its jurisdiction,” the opinion reads.

“He recognizes that a federal court could call for a broader cleanup, and that state standards might be insufficiently protective,” NRDC attorney Nancy Marks says, adding that the latter is the point her coalition has been making all along.

“If the state remedy were good enough, we wouldn’t have brought the lawsuit,” she says.

Her point is echoed by GRACO’s Felicia Collis.

“The settlement agreement between PPG and Jersey City fails to guarantee adequate cleanup with high protective standards,” she says, adding that the neighborhood group appreciates the judge’s decision and the support of the NRDC. “This is an opportunity for our concerns to undergo judicial review.”

A Question of Standards

Under the consent agreement, PPG agreed to clean up the hexavalent chromium to standards set by the DEP. The agency’s current standard is 20 parts per million (ppm) or less of chromium, at levels down to 20 feet.

“The Consent Judgment requires that PPG remediate chromium levels to DEP’s current standard of 20 ppm, but this Court could potentially, for instance, order remediation to a standard lower than 20 ppm,” Greenaway’s ruling reads.

The judge specifically points to a recommendation from the DEP’s own Division of Science, Research and Technology (DSRT), which argues that the standard be much more stringent, to a level of 1 ppm.

While Jersey City corporation counsel Bill Matsikoudis, a key negotiator in the PPG settlement, has repeatedly stressed that the 1 ppm standard will govern the cleanup if adopted, critics say the DEP’s track record — and its apparent attempt to prevent the 1 ppm recommendation report from being publicly released — casts serious doubt that the standards will ever be strengthened. (In June of last year, the DEP announced it would develop “final standards” for chromium cleanups by 2011.)

As one of several angles PPG took to get the case tossed, the company also argued that NRDC, ICO and GRACO were, in essence, suing for the wrong reasons, and simply trying to attack the DEP and the consent decree.

But the judge ruled that argument “merely seeks an ‘end run’ around the RCRA citizen suit.”

Greenaway acknowledged that PPG is in part correct when it argued that the groups were attacking the DEP’s past actions and cleanup standards, but said that, in some ways, that is the whole point of the federal law.

“This [is] the very nature of an imminent and substantial endangerment citizen suit: it allows citizens to seek judicial remedies where, allegedly, an agency has failed to protect people or the environment from danger,” the ruling reads. “To abstain on the basis of collateral attack here would defeat Plaintiffs’ statutory right to a citizen suit.”

Going Forward

PPG now finds itself in a sticky situation. It is obligated under the consent order to clean the chromium sites, but it could potentially be on the hook for additional remediation — at what would likely be a steep cost — down the road if it loses the federal suit.

A spokesman for PPG says the company “has received and is evaluating” the decision, and that it “will continue to satisfy its remedial obligations” in Jersey City.

The Healy administration, meanwhile, says it is “not surprised” by the ruling, but stands by the judgment it negotiated as the best path forward.

“We are absolutely convinced that with the guidance of the site administrator and the DEP, that the consent judgment is the best way to provide for an expeditious and thorough cleanup of the Garfield Avenue site and the other PPG sites,” says Mayor Healy spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill. “While we are still digesting the court’s opinion, the survival of the NRDC lawsuit may have a positive role in providing a greater sense of urgency in the chromium cleanup.”

While the NRDC’s Marks is pleased with the judge’s decision, she acknowledges that it is “just round one of many, many rounds” in their legal battle, which could still stretch out for several years.

Still, she says that with this ruling now forming the baseline of how the case will proceed, a tide may be turning.

“It feels like justice to me,” she says.

To read the judgment, click here.

“Fighting Oil Addiction: Ranking States’ Oil Vulnerability and Solutions for Change,” a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, ranks New Jersey in the top ten states in America “that are doing the most to promote clean energy technologies and reduce their dependence on oil.” The Garden State lands at number seven, between neighbors New York and Pennsylvania.

The report singles out New Jersey for prioritizing public transit funding through the allocation of state funds and by transferring some federal highway money to transit; for its Clean Car program, which requires automakers to reduce fleet-wide greenhouse gas emissions from the vehicles they sell in the state by 30 percent by 2016; and also for providing financial and travel incentives for hybrid cars.

“Especially with today’s economic challenges, Americans face a growing threat from our nation’s dangerous addiction to oil,” NRDC transportation policy director Deron Lovaas says. “This report shows how important it is for states to promote clean energy policies that will reduce our dependence on oil, while also reducing global warming pollution.”

Speaking of cost, the NRDC report also identifies New Jersey as one of 16 states where the percent of income spent on gasoline by the average driver is less than 5 percent, at 4.49 percent. Still, the annual dollar figure spent by the average Jersey driver on gas is disturbingly high, at least to the eyes of a non-driver: $2286.44.

You can read the full report here.

GRACO’s members had hoped the settlement would quell its concerns about the cleanup, and the group’s leaders and attorneys worked with city and state officials through the settlement process to ask that specific measures be included in the final document. But they remain unconvinced that the settlement is the best way to protect public health.

“GRACO has concluded that the best and fastest way to protect the health of residents in this neighborhood is to join ICO and NRDC in their federal lawsuit,” Felicia Collis, the group’s president, says. “State and local government have allowed our rights to be violated by PPG. Through this lawsuit, we are demanding that those rights be assured.”

The lawsuit, filed this February in federal district court in Newark, is brought under the citizens’ suit provision of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The court is slated to receive PPG’s response to the suit tomorrow.

Jersey City corporation counsel Bill Matsikoudis stands by the settlement he helped negotiate, and says there’s no reason to think ICO and NRDC are the only groups who can force PPG to implement a proper and thorough cleanup.

“[They're] saying they are the only entities to trust to ensure the cleanup, as if the city, [state] attorney general, DEP, [site administrator] Mike McCabe and Judge Olivieri should not be trusted,” he says. “Our agreement is now a court order that requires PPG to remediate the 20 sites to the strictest standards in the country pursuant to a five-year schedule.”

But the parties to the federal suit maintain that the settlement still fails to guarantee a permanent and protective cleanup of the site.

“This settlement is an attempt to put a new sell-by date on a package that spoiled years ago,” ICO chromium cleanup project director Joe Morris says.

“New Jersey already has the nation’s most protective policy in place for the cleanup of soil contaminated with hexavalent chromium, but we need permanent standards,” acting DEP commissioner Mark Mauriello says in a release. “The principles of sound science as well as state law dictate that we conduct a full evaluation before adopting final standards. We will begin the process of setting final cleanup standards for chromium at the start of next year.”

The press release issued today continues the DEP’s blackout of recommendations made by its own scientists, who said in April that the cleanup standard for hexavalent chromium in soil should be to 1 parts per million (ppm). The scientists’ report, which was based on a federal toxicology study of mice and rats, has not yet been posted on any DEP chromium website. As we reported today, under the department’s new guidelines regarding public information, the recommendations would also no longer be publicly available. The DEP’s current standard for cleanup is 20 ppm down to 20 feet.

NJ Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel was quick to criticize the DEP’s “decision,” calling it a “shameful act” that sells out Jersey City residents.

“The DEP is taking the side of special interests over the public health and safety of the people of Jersey City and Hudson County. More studies and delays mean more toxic chromium getting into out communities and families,” he says. “The Gold Coast is really the chrome coast, and DEP decision is toxic to all of us.”

The revised settlement between Jersey City, the state of New Jersey and PPG Industries regarding the cleanup of hexavalent chromium along Garfield Avenue was finalized this week, and the Jersey City Independent has obtained a copy.

The settlement, which was originally announced in February, underwent a public hearing process, where residents and environmental advocates raised a number of concerns. Jersey City corporation counsel Bill Matsikoudis says that many of the issues that arose during the public comment period are addressed in the revised settlement.

So what’s new in the settlement?

* If PPG fails to comply with the cleanup schedule to be laid out by potential site administrator W. Michael McCabe, it is now subject to stipulated financial penalties, as laid out in the 1990 ACO.

* The schedule that the site administrator comes up with will be judicially enforceable.

* The site administrator will create a telephone hotline that any resident within 200 feet of a PPG site can call if the resident suspects chromium contamination on her property. This will lead to an inspection of the site and possibly testing to determine if chromium is present. If it is, PPG will undertake remedial measures as dictated by the site administrator.

* The site administrator is now also tasked with reviewing all the previous and current medical studies regarding chromium exposure in Hudson County, and, if he deems it necessary, recommending a new medical monitoring study for residents near the Garfield Avenue site.

* The amount that PPG will be forced to pay into the city’s Environmental Trust Fund is increased from $1 million to $1.15 million.

* PPG will be forced to “make all reasonable efforts” to make sure that all contractors and subcontractors working on the remediation give 20 percent of its job opportunities to Jersey City residents.

* All PPG sites, not just the Garfield Avenue site, will now fall under the “5-year goal for completion.”

“This is by far the best way to go,” Matsikoudis says. But the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Nancy Marks, who is the lead attorney in a federal citizens’ lawsuit brought by the NRDC and the Interfaith Community Organization (ICO) against PPG, says not so fast.

“The real problem [with the revised settlement] is all tied in with the cleanup standards, or lack thereof,” she says. Marks says that, as it stands now, the settlement would use the excavation standard of 20 parts per million (ppm) down to 20 feet, as set by former Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) commissioner Lisa Jackson.

While Matsikoudis has consistently pointed out that the Jackson standard is the most stringent in the nation, some of the DEP’s own scientists recently recommended the standard be more stringent (to 1 ppm). If the DEP adopts the new standards, PPG would have to clean up to that level, but Marks and others aren’t convinced the department will enact those recommendations due to political pressure. She says that could potentially mean that residents’ health would continue to be in jeopardy.

“We don’t have any confidence that they’re going to eliminate the endangerment,” Marks says, adding that the NRDC and ICO will continue pursuing their litigation.

There will be a public hearing on the revised settlement on Monday, June 15, at 7 pm at City Hall in the City Council chambers. The City Council is slated to vote at Wednesday’s meeting on an resolution authorizing the settlement.

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.