Plants Urged to Share Data on Chemicals
Dozens of industrial plants in North Jersey and the rest of the state should share more information about the risks posed by the chemicals they use, a coalition of citizen groups and labor unions contends.
In a letter sent to state officials this week, 85 groups called for new regulations on chemical manufacturers and other plants, including higher penalties for those that don’t comply and more publicity about what people should do in an emergency.
"We think local communities have largely been shut out of the process and kept in the dark," said Rick Engler, director of the New Jersey Work Environment Council, which drafted the letter.
Among other changes, the groups want to require joint worker- management safety committees at all plants and to make companies hold public meetings on emergency-response plans if local residents request them.
An industry group, however, dismissed the letter as a "political push" that would do more to scare people than improve security.
"The implication here, which I really resent, is that companies don’t care about security," said Hal Bozarth, executive director of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey. "We have the best system of protection for chemical plants and site security in the nation."
The recommendations come as the state considers changes to the Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act. The 22-year-old program requires users of "extraordinarily hazardous" chemicals, such as chlorine, to prepare response plans in case of a leak, explosion or other mishap.
The act covers about 100 sites, including four in Bergen County, five in Passaic and seven in Hudson. Local plants include Farmland Dairies in Wallington; water treatment plants in Little Falls, Pequannock, Haworth and Wanaque; Crest Foam Industries in Moonachie; and Foamex International in East Rutherford.
The state credits the program with a sharp drop in the amount of dangerous chemicals used by industry. But the groups behind the letter including unions representing chemical workers and firefighters, the Sierra Club and the NAACP say it could go farther.
They want to make plants spell out in emergency-response plans how local residents should react to a chemical release. Companies would have to publicize the advice, perhaps through fliers, mailings or some other effort, Engler said.
"We just think there’s a lot of confusion" among the public, he said. "Do people evacuate? Do they shelter in place and tape up their windows with duct tape? If they evacuate, how do they do that in lower-income areas where people have less access to transportation?"
The proposal for worker-management committees would go even farther, affecting more than 330 sites around the state that use hazardous materials not covered by the TCPA.
Bozarth said chemical plants already face some of the nation’s toughest regulations in New Jersey and that many have left as a result. Industry isn’t hearing an outcry from local residents, he said. In fact, in towns where community advisory boards already exist, companies often have a hard time finding interested citizens, Bozarth argued.
"From what I hear, the real, live actual citizens are pleased with the steps we’ve been taking," he said.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the TCPA program, would say only that the letter had been received and was under review. The regulations will expire this summer unless the state readopts them.
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