The state needs to step up efforts to deal with the effects of climate change, a goal that might be achieved through the establishment of a statewide group to foster preparedness for the potential impacts of global warming, according to a new report…”Climate change is real; it’s happening now and it’s affecting New Jersey,” said Anthony Broccoli, professor of atmospheric science at Rutgers University at a forum held at Duke Farms.
Big Plans for NJ Water Infrastructure Will Mean Bigger Bills for Customers
With New Jersey facing an estimated $40 billion in costs over the next two or three decades to fix its aging water infrastructure, the state may need to set up a program to help lower income residents pay their escalating water and sewer bills…For po…
NJ’s Archaic Water System: The $40B Problem in Search of a Solution
Where the projected $40 billion needed to fix New Jersey’s aging water infrastructure is going to come from is a dilemma long recognized by the state’s policymakers and legislators. But no one has yet to offer any viable solutions…”We really don’t know what it will cost,” said Daniel Van Abs, a Rutgers professor, who recently wrote a study for New Jersey Future on the problem. Many of the most pressing issues confront the state’s 21 largest cities, according to the study.
Clean Drinking Water for New Jersey Residents Comes at Steep Price
Many of New Jersey’s 21 largest cities face, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to upgrade sewer systems that now pollute rivers and bays during heavy rains, according to a new report prepared by Rutgers University for New Jersey Future, a smart-growth organization. And time is running out for those communities to fix the problem…”One point is clear: With aging water infrastructure, what can go wrong at some point will, unless preemptive action is taken,” said Daniel Van Abs (associate research professor in Human Ecology), the principal investigator for the study, who works at Rutgers University. “Looking the other way does not make the system work any better.”
Long-Awaited DEP Study Says PFC Contamination Widespread in State’s Water
Two-thirds of New Jersey’s public water systems tested in a statewide survey were found to contain perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which have been linked to some cancers in humans and reproductive and developmental problems in animals, according to a …
Water-Contamination Watchdog Restarts Work With Focus on PFCs
A panel that advises state officials on the quality of New Jersey’s drinking water met for the first time since 2010 on Tuesday, and pledged to focus its work on contamination by a class of chemicals that has been linked with cancer and developmental p…
Housing Advocate Claims Sandy Recovery Grants Racially Biased
Black and Latino applicants for Sandy aid in New Jersey are more likely to be rejected for recovery grants than white applicants, according to data released Thursday by a New Jersey housing advocate. The rejection rate for whites who applied for New Je…
Rutgers Conference Questions What New Jersey Learned from Sandy
More extreme storms are likely, but what has state done to safeguard people and property? How well is New Jersey coping with the lessons taught by Hurricane Sandy — a superstorm that caused at least $30 billion in damage and took the lives of 34 peopl…
Board of Public Utilities Hopes to Get Into Garbage in a Big Way
Each year in New Jersey more than 8 million tons of waste – yard litter, trash from residents, and livestock manure, among other debris – is thrown away in garbage dumps, burned in incinerators, or disposed of elsewhere…If tapped, those 5.4 million t…
Revised FEMA Maps Cheered by Shore Residents, Criticized by Environmentalists
The outcry that greeted FEMA’s preliminary flood maps officially adopted by Gov. Chris Christie in the aftermath of Sandy began almost the moment they were introduced. Many residents would have to raise their homes and businesses several feet on piling…
