Welcome to Clean Water on the Move, your monthly update from Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund in New Jersey! We hope you are having a safe, healthy and happy New Year. Clean Water is celebrating our 50th birthday this year and we hope you'll join us in kicking off our 2022 campaigns by making a Climate Resolution today! Learn more here. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at agoldsmith@cleanwater.org. Thank you!
- Amy Goldsmith, New Jersey State Director, Clean Water Action
50% Emission Cuts by 2030 is the New Policy; NJ Must Put into Practice
On Wednesday, November 10th, Clean Water Action was on hand to celebrate Governor Murphy’s announcement of Executive Order No. 274 - the state’s intention to reduce New Jersey’s greenhouse gas emissions to 50% of their 2006 levels by the year 2030. The signing event took place with a backdrop of construction vehicles and workers installing the nation’s largest solar farm on a reclaimed landfill.
Clean Water Action Environmental Justice Director, Kim Gaddy, provided context, saying, “The pandemic, the challenge to our democracy, racial discrimination, the struggle for a living wage, and the climate emergency - they all overlap. The solution, reducing climate emissions through rapid deployment of energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy, attacks these crises incredibly well all at once.” She added, “The science requires it, and morality demands it.”
“50% by 2030 is what we MUST do. We need to move faster, and do more, to meet the moment of this crisis,” declared Eric Benson, NJ Campaign Director for Clean Water Action. “This is a great announcement, and now we need to see action on the steps to meet this goal. We need no new frack gas plants. We need implementation of strong PACT rules. We need the deployment of solar not just in rural and suburban neighborhoods, but in our environmental justice communities as well. We need zero emissions trucks and busses.”
Rewatch the full press event here. Kim’s remarks are at minute marker 23:12.
March for Clean Air! Stop Dumping on Newark
Despite Governor Murphy's environmental justice goals and clean energy commitments, there are two new major polluting projects proposed in the Ironbound: PVSC fracked gas power plant and Aires sludge plant.
On Wednesday, November 10th, Clean Water Action and our allies marched to demand clean air from the Sharpe James/Kenneth A. Gibson Recreation & Aquatic Center to the site of the proposed power plant the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission has proposed to build at their wastewater treatment plant.
Governor Murphy must live up to NJ’s environmental justice and clean energy commitments by denying permits for these proposed polluting projects.
Time to Pass a Recycled Content Bill in New Jersey
For decades, the plastic pollution crisis has grown because it has been cheaper for manufacturers to use virgin plastics from newly extracted fossil fuels than to use recycled material. If Clean Water Action and allies can get S.2515/A.4676 over the finish line during the lame duck session (i.e. by mid January 2022), New Jersey will be one of only a handful of states to pass a recycled content bill requiring manufacturers to use post-consumer recycled materials.
It will establish a new standard for recycling across the entire Northeast, strengthen the market for recyclables, and keep new fossil fuel-derived plastics out of the waste stream. It already passed the NJ Senate and is moving through Assembly committees. Urge your Assembly members to make the recycled content bill a priority for passage in 2021! We want the bill on the Governor’s desk for his signature before the legislative session ends.
Maternal and Child Environmental Health and Justice
On December 1st, Clean Water Action State Director Amy Goldsmith presented at the 4th Annual Environmental Health Summit Maternal and Child Environmental Health and Justice with the Rutgers Center for Environmental Exposures and Disease. She spoke on a panel about non-toxic pesticide alternatives, as well as our rights as residents, property owners, neighbors, and consumers to know when and where toxic chemical pesticides have been used.
Rewatch the session recording here and download the presentation here.
We’re Hiring!
Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund are seeking a Zero Emissions Campaign Coordinator to work in our Montclair, Long Branch, or Newark offices on health and environmental issues related to port commerce and warehousing, as well as zero emissions policies and mandates in already overburdened communities. We are looking for an experienced organizer who knows how to plan and implement community engagement strategies that recruit and empower residents to win issue campaigns and make a real difference in people’s lives.
Learn more about this and our Environmental Justice Organizer position and other openings here.
