EPA and State of New Jersey Propose Settlement with Bank of America for Monmouth County, NJ Superfund Site Cleanup

On May 15, 2023 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed settlement with Bank of America to address the White Swan Cleaners/Sun Cleaners Area Groundwater Contamination Superfund Site in Wall Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Under the proposed agreement, Bank of America, the current owner of the White Swan property, will be required to fund and perform vapor intrusion and groundwater cleanup work at an estimated cost of $29 million.

"With this settlement EPA is holding Bank of America accountable for its share of the cleanup at the White Swan site," said Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia. " After years of investigation and cleanup efforts, this is a significant step towards resolving the contamination issues at the site for the benefit of the community, the environment, and public health."

“The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are committed to protecting the health of those who live and work in the vicinity of the White Swan Cleaners/Sun Cleaners site,” New Jersey Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn M. LaTourette said. “We have partnered together to test indoor air at hundreds of business and residential properties and installed ventilation systems on dozens with vapor intrusion concerns. This settlement with Bank of America ensures that long term cleanup, including remediation of contaminated groundwater and future vapor mitigation work, will be funded by the responsible party, not by the taxpayers.”

Bank of America became legally responsible for the site when it bought the White Swan property through a series of bank mergers and acquisitions in 2004.

Bank of America also will reimburse EPA for certain aspects of its cleanup work, paying $10.8 million, and pay up to $1.5 million for future EPA oversight costs. As part of the agreement, Bank of America will construct and then run the groundwater pump and treatment system for four years to capture and clean the most highly contaminated groundwater at the site.

The company will pay up to a total of $6.5 million to the State of New Jersey to settle its liability for cleanup and removal costs, to voluntarily resolve its liability for natural resource damages (NRD), and to address long-term operational needs of the treatment system. This amount includes $3.7 million for cleanup costs and $2.8 million set aside in an escrow account for any future groundwater system operation and maintenance or added vapor intrusion work needed after the State takes over the cleanup.

Vapor intrusion occurs when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from contaminated soil and groundwater seep into buildings, potentially exposing occupants to harmful chemicals. EPA has found that the former dry-cleaning operations of White Swan Cleaners and Sun Cleaners were the sources of soil and groundwater contamination. VOCs from the contamination can easily evaporate into the air and cause health hazards. EPA added the site to the National Priorities List (NPL) in 2004. In the course of the cleanup, EPA and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) have installed several indoor air ventilation systems after conducting indoor air testing on residential and commercial properties. In 2018, EPA also oversaw Bank of America’s removal of contaminated soil from the White Swan property. Cleanup of the Sun property, which is not related to the White Swan property, is being funded by EPA.

https://www.epa.gov/vaporintrusion/what-vapor-intrusion

The proposed consent decree, which has been lodged in the U.S. Federal District Court of New Jersey, is subject to a 60-day comment period. The Department of Justice and EPA will evaluate the comments and decide whether to proceed and then, if appropriate, seek final approval by the court.

For more information, to view the proposed consent decree and to give comments, please visit: https://www.justice.gov/enrd/consent-decrees

For additional background, please visit the White Swan Cleaners/Sun Cleaners Area Ground Water Contamination Superfund site profile page.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) www.EPA.gov
Press Release dated May 15, 2023
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-and-state-new-jersey-propose-settlement-bank-america-monmouth-county-nj-superfund

Lead in Drinking Water and Birth Outcomes: A Tale of Two Water Treatment Plants

Abstract

The recent drinking water crisis in Newark, New Jersey's largest city, has renewed concerns about the lead-in-water crisis becoming a persistent and widespread problem owing to the nation's aging infrastructure. We exploit a unique natural experiment in Newark, which exogenously exposed some women in the city to higher levels of lead in tap water but not others, to identify a causal effect of prenatal lead exposure on fetal health. Using birth data that contain information on mothers' exact residential addresses, we find robust and consistent evidence that prenatal exposure to lead significantly raises the probability of low birth weight or preterm births by approximately 1.4 to 1.9 percentage points (14-22 percent), and the adverse effects are largely concentrated among mothers of lower socioeconomic status. Our findings have important policy implications in light of the long-term impact of compromised health at birth and the substantial number of lead water pipes that remain in use as part of our aging infrastructure.

...

With infant health being an important predictor of later-life outcomes, these estimates are critical towards evaluating the cost-benefit calculus of infrastructure investments, including replacing all of the nation’s lead service lines, an initiative supported by the EPA as well as many states and communities at a potential cost of between $29 to $47 billion (EPA, 2019)... The EPA (2019) noted 6.1–10 million lead service lines (LSL) nationally, with an average estimated replacement cost of $4,700 per LSL

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/nrdc/groups-plan-lawsuit-response-high-lead-levels-newark-drinking-water

...

In March 2019, Newark commenced a program to remove and replace all of the city’s lead service lines in the water system at no cost to the homeowner, at a projected public cost of $90–$180 million. With the lifetime societal economic burden of a preterm birth estimated to be approximately $66,331 2018 dollars. The Institute of Medicine (2007) estimated the societal burden of a preterm birth to be $51,589 in 2005 dollars. The societal cost of the lead crisis in Newark could amount to $1.99–$2.65 million per year, just from an estimated increase of 30 to 40 preterm births linked to the heightened lead exposure each year. [30 (or 40) preterm births×66,331 per preterm births = $1.99 million (or $2.65 million)],

Assuming a discount rate for public policy of 2 percent based on the social rate of time preference (Council of Economic Advisers, 2017), societal cost savings from averting this adverse fetal health could be between $100 and $133 million, significantly offsetting the cost of public infrastructure investment. [There is ... debate as to the appropriate discount rate to apply for public policy (see for instance, Council of Economic Advisers,2017; Li and Pizer, 2018) depending on the social rate of time preference or the social opportunity cost of capital, and the length of the time horizon under consideration. The U.S. federal guidance requires agencies to use both a 3% and a 7% real discount rate in regulatory cost-benefit analyses. Under this guidance, the societal cost savings of averting the adverse fetal health would be between $66.3 million and $88.3 million (social discount rate of 0.03) and between $28.4 million and $37.9 million (social discount rate of 0.07). Clearly, the cost implications are sensitive to the discount rate employed. With long-term real interest rates decreasing substantially over the past decade, a recent issue brief by the Council of Economic Advisers (2017) recommends lowering the estimate of the social discount rate in applications to public policy cost-benefit calculus.

...

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27996

by Dhaval M. Dave & Muzhe Yang

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) www.NBER.org

Working Paper 27996; October 2020

1st Part of Offshore Wind Power Line Moves Ahead

http://tinyurl.com/bfrdly3

An "audacious" plan to lay a multibillion-dollar wind power transmission spine under the seabed from southern Virginia to the New York City area took a step forward in January with an announcement of plans for the first leg, a 189-mile segment running from Jersey City to a spot south of Atlantic City.

 

The proposed backbone ... is intended to link future wind farms far offshore, sparing them the expense and regulatory problems of bringing power lines all the way to shore individually, and to move power to land-based sources. The project’s backers, which include Google and other prominent investors, argue that the buried offshore spine, impervious to storms, could also come in handy in an emergency, providing a backup for hospitals and police stations and restarting power plants in blacked-out areas. 

 

The latter selling point has gained importance for the line’s promoters as interest in offshore wind has suffered setbacks, including the declining price of natural gas, a competing energy source. 

The Atlantic Wind Connection, the project’s sponsor, says the first segment would run from a substation called Cardiff, near Pomona, N.J., operated by Atlantic City Electric, out into the ocean 12 to 14 miles....

Executives at Atlantic Wind say they chose to begin with a segment solely in New Jersey because the project could level the big price differences for electricity within the state, yielding an economic benefit that could justify at least some of the first leg’s $1.3 billion construction cost. Remaining within one state simplifies the regulatory process, they added, and political support for offshore wind farms is relatively strong in New Jersey. 

The state has mandated that 22.5 percent of its electricity must come from renewable sources by 2021, and the bulk of that is expected to come from wind, some of which may come from outside New Jersey. Very few onshore sites in the state are suitable for wind, however. New Jersey’s Offshore Wind Economic Development Act calls for at least 1,100 megawatts of offshore wind, but backers say it could go as high as 3,000 megawatts. Atlantic Wind hopes to secure regulatory approval and get the financing in place by mid-2015 and to start construction at the end of that year.... In 2011, 11 companies expressed interest in building wind farms, although progress all over the East Coast has been quite slow. 

Even if those farms do not materialize as fast as was once imagined, the sponsors argue that the transmission line is justified because it would allow faster recovery from crippling storms like Hurricane Sandy.

...

For the project to be built, New Jersey would have to submit a request to the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection. 

The first step for PJM would be to determine how much money the line would save by importing cheap power from southern New Jersey into northern New Jersey. Another factor is how much prices in southern New Jersey would rise as a result of its exports. Such transfers are now limited by congestion on the grid. Once the economic value of the line had been established, a sum related to that value would be charged to all PJM customers, including those in New Jersey. If the estimated construction cost of an estimated $1.3 billion exceeded that, which seems likely, the balance would be charged to New Jersey ratepayers as an environmental project, to meet the state’s renewable energy goals.

By MATTHEW L. WALD

The New York Times www.NYTimes.com 

FOR FULL STORY GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/bfrdly3

Published January 14, 2014

Multiple function benefit – Cost comparison of conservation buffer placement strategies

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2012.05.001

Abstract: Conservation buffers are considered to be effective practices for repairing impaired streams and restoring multiple ecosystem functions in degraded agricultural watersheds. Six different planning strategies for targeting their placement within watersheds were compared in terms of cost-effectiveness for environmental improvement in the 144 km² Neshanic River Watershed in New Jersey, USA. The strategies included two riparian-focused strategies, two soil survey-based strategies and two topography-based strategies that focus traditionally on water quality benefits. Each strategy was used to prioritize locations to install conservation buffers. An analytical methodology was employed to evaluate the level of multiple benefits (water quality improvement, erosion control, wildlife habitat improvement, and stormwater mitigation) and buffer establishment and maintenance costs provided by each strategy. The comparison results showed that the riparian-focused strategies were least cost-effective (their cost-effectiveness measure ranges from 0.17 to 0.18) compared to both soil survey-based and topography-based buffer targeting strategies (from 0.21 to 0.31). Although the riparian-focused strategies are popular and simple to administer, alternative placement strategies should be considered when riparian-focused strategies cannot meet the environmental goals, additional environmental concerns are involved and the program cost is of a great concern. The appropriate strategies to compare, the specific evaluation criteria, and the proper scoring system depend upon specific land characteristics and issues that are important in a given watershed. Specific comparative results may not be directly transferable to other watersheds or planning areas, but the methodological framework developed can be a useful tool for planners to compare alternative multiple-function buffer strategies.

Figure 1. The land use distribution in 2002 in Neshanic River Watershed, New Jersey

---

Highlights

► Integrate multiple environmental benefits to compare six conservation buffer targeting strategies.
► Two riparian-focused buffer strategies have the lowest cost-effectiveness of 0.18.
► Soil survey-based strategy focusing on sediment movement has the highest cost-effectiveness of 0.31.
► Two topography-based strategies and soil survey-based strategy on water movement have cost-effectiveness around 0.22.
► The alternative buffer targeting strategies should be used when considering multiple environmental benefits and cost.

by Z. Qiu^a , and M.G. Dosskey^b

• ^a New Jersey Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science, Newark, NJ, 07102, United States. Tel.: +1 973 596 5357; fax: +1 973 596 3586.
• ^b USDA Forest Service, National Agroforestry Center, Lincoln, NE, United States

Landscape and Urban Planning

Available online 31 May 2012

In Press, Corrected Proof 

Keywords: Conservation buffers; Multiple criteria; Soil erodibility; Hydrological sensitivity; Wildlife habitat; Impervious surface

Commercial energy efficiency retrofits in the Greater Philadelphia region could spur $618 million in local spending, support 23,500 jobs

http://gpichub.org/hublog/commercial-energy-efficiency-retrofits-in-region-could-spur-618-million-in-local-spending-support-23-500-jobs
A report released on November 6, 2011 estimates that nearly half of the commercial buildings in the Greater Philadelphia region are good candidates for energy efficiency retrofits, and that undertaking these retrofits could spur $618 million in local spending and support 23,500 jobs. Another report details the policies and programs already undertaken in the region to encourage retrofits, and outlines additional proven steps that could help the region take advantage of this economic opportunity.

“These reports provide ample evidence that the Philadelphia region is well-situated to take advantage of the economic opportunities inherent in energy efficiency retrofits. Removing barriers and employing new policy tools to spur retrofits will not only save energy, but also grow jobs and stimulate the regional economy” said Dr. Mark Alan Hughes of the University of Pennsylvania, and leader of the Policy, Markets and Behavior task team for the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC) for Energy-Efficient Buildings, which commissioned the reports.

GPIC is a consortium of 24 institutions funded by $129 million in U.S. Department of Energy and other federal funds to create an Energy Innovation Hub at The Navy Yard. GPIC’s goals are to transform the building retrofit industry toward an integrated systems approach, to improve design tools, building systems, public policies, market incentives, and workforce skills needed to achieve a 50 percent reduction of energy use in buildings, and to stimulate private investment and quality job creation in Greater Philadelphia and beyond.

“The Market for Commercial Property Energy Retrofits in the Philadelphia Region”, conducted by Econsult Corporation, identifies 47 percent of the commercial and flex-industrial space between 20,000 and 100,000 square feet in the Philadelphia area for which data is available as potential candidates for energy retrofits. The eligible space includes 4,201 buildings with 154m square feet of space. The report compiled information on commercial building age, type, enclosure, materials, energy load, and owner concentration in the region.

The second report, authored by Cozen O’Connor staff, is entitled “Policy and Process Factors Impacting Commercial Building Energy Efficiency in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.”. The factors examined include laws, regulations, financial incentives, contracts, public bidding requirements and more. The study concluded that while Pennsylvania and New Jersey have enacted many of the available policy levers that could help encourage energy efficiency retrofits, there are still numerous direct and indirect barriers in place.

Additionally, the study found that processes necessary for full valuation of energy efficiency improvements are immature, causing increased transaction costs and making investments less valuable.
...
The typical Philadelphia commercial property spends $2.84/ft per foot per year on energy costs. By contrast, the average U.S. commercial property spends $2.21 per foot per year. Thus, Philadelphia’s energy expenditures are 29% above than the national average, and the fourth highest among 14 large cities studied as shown in the table below.

To narrow the universe to identify the "lowest hanging fruit," the study filtered properties by their end use, construction materials, and shape. The optimal candidate for energy improvements would be an older, low-rise brick building.

Not all buildings consume energy equally. Flex-industrial buildings, including warehouses, account for about 53 percent of the structures studied. But they consume about half the energy per square foot as the average commercial building, such as an office.

The study identified 2,047 buildings as retail, hospitality, or health-care businesses, which consume more energy, according to federal statistics cited by Econsult.

The authors said that lower-rise buildings - with fewer than six floors - are more cost-effective candidates for improvements.  Using data and findings from Emmerich, et al that suggest primary energy savings (HVAC) from reducing air infiltration averages 20-30% is only cost-effective for low-to-mid-rise buildings of five stories or less, the authors determined that buildings five stories or below in height are likely candidates for envelope or enclosure improvements, irrespective of age.

Buildings that depend on electric lighting rather than daylight for interior illumination are good candidates for improvements.  According to the Energy Star building manual (2006), electric lighting accounts for upwards of 35% of electricity use in commercial buildings.  If more than 50% of a building’s floor area is not daylit, then the building must necessarily utilize an above-average amount of synthetic lighting as a necessary substitute, and hence it is likely to cost-effectively benefit from an energy load retrofit.

Masonry buildings are likelier to have more exterior gaps and benefit from improvements rather than steel-and-glass buildings.

The authors narrowed the focus to those buildings owned by the 25 largest commercial landlords for the "purely practical" reason that it will be easier for GPIC to deal with a few owners of multiple properties if its goal is to maximize its impact.

It whittled the prime list down to 232 larger buildings totaling about 50 million square feet, mostly in the commercial corridors of inner-ring suburbs such as Pennsauken, Valley Forge, Plymouth Meeting, Malvern, and Mount Laurel. The buildings were also concentrated in industrial corridors in Thorofare, Bridgeport, Hamilton, Bristol, Northeast Philadelphia near Philadelphia International Airport, and at the Navy Yard.

The reports and supporting materials can be found at https://gpichub.org/activities/policy/gpic-reports.

Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC) http://gpichub.org 

November 6, 2011

Valuing pollination services to agriculture

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180091100334X
Abstract: Crop pollination by animal pollinators is an important ecosystem service for which there is no generally accepted valuation method. Here, we show that two existing valuation methods, previously thought to be unrelated, are each a special case of a more general equation. We then present a new method, termed attributable net income, for valuing insect pollination of crops. The attributable net income method improves upon previous methods in three ways: (1) it subtracts the cost of inputs to crop production from the value of pollination, thereby not attributing the value of these inputs to pollinators; (2) it values only the pollination that would be utilized by the crop plant for fruit production, thereby not valuing pollen deposited in excess of the plants’ requirements; and (3) it can attribute value separately to different pollinator taxa, for example to native vs. managed pollinators. We demonstrate all three methods using a data set on watermelon pollination by native bees and honey bees in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, USA. We discuss the reasons why different methods produce disparate values, and why the attributable net income method most accurately reflects the actual ecosystem service that is being valued, marketable fruit production.

Highlights
► Multiple methods are currently used to value pollination services, with divergent results.
► We show that these methods are special cases of the same general equation.
► We introduce a new valuation method, which improves on previous methods.
► All methods are demonstrated using the same data set on pollination services to watermelon.
► The reasons why the different methods produce divergent results are discussed.
...
A replacement value for native bee pollination is what it would cost farmers to rent enough honey bees to replace the pollination currently provided by native bees. We calculated this value by multiplying the area in watermelon production (746 ha)2 by the industry-wide recommended honey bee stocking rate (4.5 hives ha-1; Delaplane and Mayer, 2000) by the annual rental cost of a honey bee hive in the study area ($60-$75 hive-1)7 by the fraction of farms at which native bees alone are fully pollinating the crop (91%). We used the same method to estimate the replacement value of honey bee pollination, substituting the fraction of farms fully pollinated by honey bees (78%) for the fraction fully pollinated by native bees (91%).
...
The value of native bee pollination based on the replacement value of renting enough honey bee hives to replace native bees is $0.21 million year-1 (range, $0.20 - $0.21 million year-1) and the replacement value of honey bee pollination is $0.18 million year-1 (range, $0.17 - $0.18 million year-1).
 ...
The production value method provides a higher estimate. The estimated annual production value of watermelon in New Jersey and Pennsylvania combined (P⋅Y), before subtracting the costs of inputs to production, is $7.64 million year-1. Multiplying this production value by the 62%±5% (SE) of all pollen deposition done by native bees provides an annual value of $4.74±0.38 (SE) million for the pollination service provided by native bees. For honey bees, the corresponding value is $2.90±0.38 (SE) million year-1.... After subtracting the costs of variable inputs to production, the estimated annual net income value (Eq. (4)) of watermelon in New Jersey and Pennsylvania combined is $3.63 million year-1, leading to estimates of $2.25 0.18 (SE) million for the pollination services provided by native bees and $1.38 0.18 (SE) million year-1 for honey bees
...
The annual attributable net income value of native bee pollination, when native bees are considered primary pollinators (Eq. (5)), is $3.40±0.16 (SE) million year-1. The value of honey bee pollination, when honey bee pollination is valued residually (Eq. (6)), is $0.24± 0.16 (SE) million year-1 (Fig. B.2). When honey bee pollination is valued as primary (Eq. (5)), its value is $3.07±0.25 (SE) million year-1. When native bee pollination is valued residually (Eq. (6)), its value is $0.56±0.25 (SE) million year-1
...
The cost of renting a single honey bee colony for almond pollination increased from $35 in the early 1990s to $150 in 2007.
...
A free version of the paper  is currently available at http://winfreelab.rutgers.edu/documents/WinfreeGross2011_EcologicalEconomics.pdf.

by Rachael Winfree 1, Brian J. Gross 2 and Claire Kremen 3
1. Department of Entomology, 93 Lipman Dr., Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA; Tel.: + 1 848 732 8315.
2. Food and Resource Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, BC V6T1Z4
3. Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Ecological Economics via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com
Volume 71; 15 November 2011; Pages 80-88
Keywords: Apis mellifera; biodiversity-ecosystem function; ecosystem services; native bee; pollinator; valuation; ecosystem service valuation; wild bee

Despite Fears of a Crash, Solar Sector Remains White Hot in New Jersey - State fields 700 installation applications a month, even as solar certificates lose half their value

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/11/1103/0223/ 
New Jersey's solar market is continuing its rapid pace of growth—even amid warnings by some the sector could be headed for a crash.

In October, more than 44 megawatts of new solar systems were installed in the state, bringing the total to more than 447 megawatts of installed capacity, according to information compiled by a state contractor who helps administer the solar program. That amount could be more than doubled (1,017 megawatts) if all of the projects in the pipeline are built.

In fact, so much solar is being built that New Jersey is more than a year ahead of meeting a state-mandated requirement that specifies how much of the its electricity comes from solar energy. For most, that would be viewed as good news, but some say the explosive growth has created an oversupply of solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs), the primary means of financing solar projects.

The result has been prices for the certificates have dropped by more than half since this past June, creating widespread uncertainty among investors as to whether to pump new money into building additional systems in New Jersey. It also has led the state and industry executives to begin looking for ways to stabilize the sector.
...
While industry executives are pushing to extend the utility-run programs, the state Division of Rate Counsel, which represents the interests of ratepayers, remains unconvinced it is the best way to go. "I still want to see why it is beneficial to ratepayers to extend this program," said Paul Flanagan, an attorney with the division.

Under New Jersey's system, power suppliers have to buy a certain amount of their electricity from solar systems. The primary means of meeting that requirement, known as the renewable portfolio standard (RPS), is by purchasing the certificates, which are factored into electricity costs.

Those costs have not been cheap. According to data compiled by Honeywell, a contractor for the state to run the program, the cost to ratepayers is approaching $1 billion, with the current spending at about $872 million. Of that, $267 million was spent in meeting the RPS requirements, $272 million on the utility loan programs, and $342 million through rebates.

With the state incentives, combined with a federal tax cash grant of 30 percent, the solar sector has been so inviting to investors that New Jersey ranks second nationwide in the number of solar installations with more than 11,000, behind only California.
...
By Tom Johnson
NJ Spotlight www.NJSpotlight.com
FOR FULL STORY GO TO:
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/11/1103/0223/
November 3, 2011

With Post-Its and Checklists, Schools Cut Their Energy Bills

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/education/15energy.html

Simple yellow Post-it notes with the message “When not in use, turn off the juice,” pointedly left on classroom computers, printers and air-conditioners, have helped the Mount Sinai School District on Long Island save $350,000 annually on utility bills.

Energy consumption in New York City’s 1,245 school buildings is down roughly 11 percent since 2008, as motion detectors have been installed on classroom lights and unused refrigerators and freezers have been unplugged for the summer.

In Yonkers, energy savings have financed $18 million in new boilers, windows and other capital improvements that the Westchester County district could not otherwise afford.

Schools, once known as energy wasters, are embracing conservation in increasing numbers. A desire to practice the environmentally friendly principles discussed in classrooms has been heightened by soaring energy costs and tighter budgets. With the help of a growing industry of energy consultants, school officials are evaluating every detail of their daily operations, like the temperature of the swimming pool and the amount of electricity the cafeteria ovens use, and are replacing energy-guzzling equipment with more efficient models.

Supporters say that even small adjustments can pay off almost immediately. “If we tested schools in efficient use of energy, many of them wouldn’t get a passing grade,” said C. David Myers, president of building efficiency for Johnson Controls, which has joined with 60 of the 125 school districts on Long Island to reduce energy use by 20 to 40 percent annually.

... More than two dozen states ... have used millions in federal stimulus money since 2009 to pay for energy programs and upgrades in school buildings, said Judy Marks, director of the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities in Washington. These efforts include replacing light fixtures, adding solar panels and building geothermal heating and cooling systems.

Some states have also started programs to finance school conservation efforts and to create local contracting jobs....  Oregon passed legislation in June to provide school districts with low-interest loans and grants for school efficiency improvements; Washington State started a similar grant-based program in 2009.

In some instances, districts like Mount Sinai have appointed an official energy manager — in its case, Chris Heil, ... to police hallways and classrooms to root out energy waste. Armed with yellow notes, he inspects 100 classrooms a day and “tickets” violators. Teachers have been known to run back to their classrooms when they see him coming. When one instructor refused to shut down his classroom computers at night, Mr. Heil sent him an e-mail calculating how much money was being wasted, and promised to share the next message with the superintendent.... Mr. Heil sometimes shows up at schools at 4 a.m. to make sure the custodial staff remembered to turn off the lights. He has rummaged through storage closets to locate switches to shut down rooftop exhaust fans that ran nonstop. Such vigilance has reduced the district’s utility costs by 30 percent since 2007, Mr. Heil said.

As part of the Bloomberg administration’s campaign to reduce the municipal government’s energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2017, the city awarded $100,000 in May to schools that voluntarily decreased their energy use in a monthlong competition. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Campus in Manhattan won top honors with a 35 percent reduction. And this fall, rooftop solar panels are being installed on three school buildings.... Dennis M. Walcott, the city’s schools chancellor ... regularly checks on schools that he sees lighted up at night.

Many districts across the country have financed conservation efforts through so-called energy performance contracts with companies that advise them on how to be more energy-efficient and guarantee them specific savings, either in dollars or kilowatts. If the district’s actual savings fall short, the company writes a check to make up the difference.

With contracts involving equipment investments — which can be $50,000 to tens of millions of dollars ... districts typically use existing utility budgets or borrow money through third-party lenders, and then pay it back out of their immediate energy savings so that no budget increase is needed.

In Yonkers, the improvements included replacing Lincoln High School’s 60-year-old boilers, which guzzled 137,500 gallons of heating oil a year.... The new boilers burn only 80,000 gallons.

Three consultants — Johnson Controls, Trane and Energy Education — have reported that their school business has grown by at least a third since 2006. The companies send in engineers and specialists to conduct extensive audits of each district — Energy Education uses a checklist of 1,200 items — and then custom-design conservation programs. “Anything that consumes energy, natural gas or water is going to get evaluated,” said Larry Wash, Trane’s president of global services.

In New Jersey, the schools in Holmdel Township have lowered their electric and gas bills by about half since 2009, to $1 million annually..... That breaks down to 3.5 million fewer kilowatts of power and 240,000 fewer therms of heat a year.

William Balicki, Holmdel’s energy manager, said he kept a tight check on thermostats, and installed automatic timers on outdoor lights in bus yards and parking lots that once stayed on long after the drivers left.
Mr. Balicki also considered placing motion sensors on classroom lights, but instead settled for $75 worth of stickers to post above light switches as a reminder to flip them off.

...
by Winnie Hu
FOR FULL STORY GO TO:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/education/15energy.html
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
August 15, 2011

The Net Cost and Economic Impact of New Jersey’s Offshore Wind Initiative

http://www.beaconhill.org/BHIStudies/NJ-Wind-2011/NJWindReport2011-06.pdf
Executive Summary
On August 19, 2010, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act (OWED) into law. The law orders the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) to develop an offshore wind energy certificate program that would support at least 1,100 megawatts (MWs) of generation from qualified offshore wind projects. The law also provides subsidies to potential offshore wind developers.

The law requires a cost-benefit analysis that includes a detailed analysis of the impact of the projects on state economy and state electricity ratepayers. In this report, the Beacon Hill Institute has conducted the analysis of 1,100 MWs of offshore wind power for New Jersey. The findings are as follows.
* The project would produce a net cost of $3.245 billion to New Jersey, within a range of $2.106 billion and $4.137 billion
* New Jersey’s electricity prices will increase by 2.1 percent, in 2017, within a range of 0.5 percent and 4.2 percent.
* From 2017 to 2036, the average household ratepayer will pay $431 in higher electricity costs; the average commercial ratepayer will pay an extra $3,054 and the average industrial ratepayer an extra $109,335.

These increased energy prices will hurt New Jersey’s households and businesses and will impair the state economy. According to the study by 2017:
* New Jersey will lose an average of 2,219 jobs, within a range of 528 jobs and 4,440 jobs.
* Annual wages will fall by an average of $111 per worker, within a range of $26 per worker and $222 per worker.
* Real disposable income will fall by $330 million, within a range of $79 million and $660 million.
* Net investment will fall by $48 million, within a range of $11 million and $95 million.

The rush to offshore wind power in New Jersey will produce net economic costs, raise electricity costs and dampen economic activity.

by David Tuerck, PhD, Paul Bachman, MSIE and Ryan Murphy, B.S. (PhD candidate)
The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University www.beaconhill.org
8 Ashburton Place Boston, MA 02108; Tel 617-573-8750, Fax 617-994-4279 E-mail: bhi@beaconhill.org
June, 2011

See also State of New Jersey, Legislature, 2010, Offshore Wind Economic Development Act, S2036, 214th Legislature, (June 10, 2010) Sec. 3, (4):22. http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/S2500/2036_I1.PDF. (accessed April 11, 2011)

In New Jersey’s Solar Panels, Some See an Eyesore on Every Pole - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/science/earth/28solar.html
"Nancy and Eric Olsen ... had a pastoral view of a soccer field and the woods from their 1920s colonial-style house; [now] ... all they [can] see [are] three solar panels." “I hate them,” Mr. Olsen, 40, said of the row of panels attached to electrical poles across the street. “It’s just an eyesore.”
...
Like a massive Christo project but without the advance publicity, installations have been popping up across New Jersey for about a year now, courtesy of New Jersey’s largest utility, the Public Service Electric and Gas Company. Unlike other solar projects tucked away on roofs or in industrial areas, the utility is mounting 200,000 individual panels in neighborhoods throughout its service area, covering nearly three-quarters of the state.

The solar installations, the first and most extensive of their kind in the country, are part of a $515 million investment in solar projects by PSE&G under a state mandate that by 2021 power providers get 23 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. If they were laid out in a solar farm, the 5-by-2.5-foot panels would blanket 170 acres.

New Jersey is second only to California in solar power capacity thanks to financial incentives and a public policy commitment to renewable energy industries....

Some residents consider the overhanging panels “ugly” and “hideous” and worry aloud about the effect on property values.
...
Local officials have forced a temporary halt in many towns as they seek assurances that they will not be liable in case of injury, but also to buy time for suggesting alternative sites — like dumps....
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PSE&G officials said their search for maximum sun exposure could not dodge and weave residential areas in a place as crowded as New Jersey. It turns out that only a quarter of the company’s 800,000 poles are suitable for the panels, which are mounted 15 feet high and need good southern exposure.
...
PSE&G officials said solar energy was still more expensive to produce than more traditional power sources and acknowledged that bills were going up 29 cents a month. One panel will produce enough kilowatt hours in one year to light four 60-watt bulbs around the clock for around six weeks, the company said.

When complete, the panels on the poles are expected to provide half of the 80 megawatts of electricity generated by the utility's overall $515 million solar investment — enough to power 6,500 homes.
...
April 27, 2011
By MIREYA NAVARRO
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
FOR FULL STORY GO TO:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/science/earth/28solar.html

Solar Farms Put Vacant Land to Work

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/realestate/commercial/23solar.html

Since the economic downturn, residents and businesses have been looking for ways to use real estate that may no longer appeal to mall developers or home builders. One option is to build solar energy farms, where thousands of solar panels convert the sun’s energy into electricity.

Developers and utilities have a particular incentive to do so in New Jersey, where the state’s Solar Renewable Energy Certificates market, along with federal and sometimes local incentives, has made solar energy more profitable.
...
A few large farms have been proposed and created, including one that opened in October 2009 here at the Livingston Campus of Rutgers. The $10 million, 1.4-megawatt solar installation, with more than 7,000 solar panels on seven acres, is on the smaller side as solar farms go — some in Europe are on hundreds of acres — but the energy it produces is harvested to provide power to all the buildings on campus.

The solar farm meets about 11 percent of the campus’s electrical demand, reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 1,300 tons a year, according to the university.

But where the farm really starts to pay off is in collecting Solar Renewable Energy Certificates, a type of clean energy credit. Rutgers can then sell the certificates in a market popular with companies that want to avoid penalties levied by the state on generators of polluting energy.

...To date, they’ve offset $235,760 from their electrical usage, but they’ve earned certificates that they can sell for about $1.478 million.

Utility companies have developed some of the larger solar farms in New Jersey. The Public Service Electric and Gas Company is building solar farms in Hamilton, Edison, Linden and Trenton, the largest generating about 4.4 megawatts. These larger sites are often referred to as utility-scale projects.

One of the largest solar farms in the nation, which will produce 20 megawatts on about 100 acres of former farmland in southern New Jersey, has been proposed by Panda Power Funds of Dallas and Con Edison Development, a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison of New York. The farm is under construction in Pilesgrove, N.J., and is expected to be generating power this year.

Several utility-scale solar projects have been held up because they would produce a higher voltage than existing transmission lines can handle, said Lee A. Solomon, the president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. He said he anticipated that situation would be remedied with legislation.
...
One 6.5-megawatt solar farm planned for about 35 acres of a landfill in Stafford Township, N.J., will participate in a New Jersey Board of Public Utilities pilot program that would allow the developer to sell energy produced to 216 apartments
...
Consisting of 24,600 panels, the solar farm will take about two years to complete, with construction starting in early May. In addition to the apartments, the farm will eventually power nine local government buildings that are on the landfill site, an existing Target store and 250,000 square feet of new retail space, Mr. Walters said.

Called Stafford Park, the development already has five apartment buildings, with a total of 112 units, with rooftop solar panels, as well as 410,000 square feet of retail space, with stores like Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods and PetSmart, all of which are partly powered by rooftop solar.

By building the solar farm on a landfill, the Walters Group was able to quell criticism by some environmentalists that solar farms destroy New Jersey’s little remaining open space.

Arnold Zellner of Greener By Design.cautioned that, though the payback on expensive solar installations had become shorter — about three and a half to five years in New Jersey — most solar farms tended to be longer-term investments, using financing that could stretch 10 or 15 years and warranties for up to 25 years.

By Alison Gregor
FOR FULL STORY GO TO: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/realestate/commercial/23solar.html
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
March 22, 2011