Last month the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) announced a series of meetings it calls “listening sessions” to its recently published “Environmental Justice Draft Plan”. The purpose is to talk public comments and respond to those comments in a thoughtful organized process with the end results published in official state records.
Some local government officials who regularly battle with NJDEP call these “feel good bullshitting sessions”. They may be right. Even so, I think that participation in the process is important. The tension between NJDEP and its rural southwest communities cannot be overstated; the NJDEP is viewed by many as a step below the Jersey Devil for the Department’s history of corruption
, bribery and slighting of rural communities.
The local meeting planned last week in Bridgeton was cancelled due to threatening weather. No rescheduled date has been announced. There is an alternate way to submit public comments. Written comments may be submitted through email until Friday, March 22 to eo23@dep.nj.gov.
I recommend that anyone with interest in NJ environmental issues may want to read the plan and take advantage of this opportunity to offer feedback. I expect that my strongly worded feedback will be published separately here on this blog in the next several postings.
