GORDON - NEW JERSEY MUST MAKE SITE REMEDIATION A PRIORITY

Senator Cites Environmental Cleanup as Tool to Revitalize Communities

TRENTON – Senator Bob Gordon, D-Bergen, a member of the Senate Environment Committee, issued the following statement today after a joint meeting of the Legislative environment panels to review the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)’s plan to reform how the State handles site remediation oversight:

“As I said in my opening remarks to the Committee, the two biggest challenges facing New Jersey today are one: getting our fiscal house in order; and two: removing the obstacles standing in the way of redeveloping our State’s older communities. We need to find a balance between maintaining New Jersey’s economy and protecting the health and safety of our residents, and I think that through site remediation reform, we can accomplish both of these goals.

“The current system of site remediation is deeply flawed and largely inefficient. Right now, there’s lots of paper flowing between private consultants and government regulators, but not enough results in actually cleaning up environmentally damaged property. Rather than meaningless paperwork sustaining the bureaucracy, we want to see more cleanups of brownfields and other polluted properties, and greater investment in our State’s older suburbs and urban communities.

“Moving forward, I think we can find a better, more effective use of our State’s limited environmental resources than the current system of site remediation. We need results, not just bureaucracy, so that we can protect the health of New Jersey’s citizens and encourage investment in our communities.”