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Summer 2024
Greetings from Eastern Environmental Law Center! We hope this newsletter finds you safe, healthy, and enjoying summer! Here’s an update on our recent work:
Environmental JusticeEELC is partnering with the New Jersey Progressive Equitable Energy Coalition (NJPEEC) in court to help defend New Jersey’s landmark Environmental Justice regulations against legal challenges filed by industry and labor groups seeking to rollback the regulations’ critical environmental and health protections for communities living on the frontlines of industrial pollution. New Jersey’s historic EJ Law empowered the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to “just say no” to new or expanding sources of pollution in New Jersey communities facing a disproportionate share of environmental and public health stressors. EELC lawyers filed a brief calling for the court to uphold the regulations and ensure the Law remains as strong and protective of New Jersey’s overburdened communities as possible.
Clean EnergyEELC and a tireless coalition of grassroots advocates – including EELC clients NY/NJ Baykeeper, Food & Water Watch, Central Jersey Safe Energy Coalition and the Princeton Manor homeowners association – celebrated a major victory in the nearly-8-year fight against the dirty and unnecessary fossil gas pipeline project known as NESE. After legal challenges led by EELC that went all the way to the federal court of appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and legal advocacy before environmental and energy regulatory agencies in New York, New Jersey and the federal government, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission set aside a key approval – a certificate under the Natural Gas Act – for NESE in June. The NESE project would have caused irreparable harm to our environment by increasing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, destroying critical wetlands and wildlife habitat, and disrupting the sensitive marine environment of Raritan Bay – as well as posing health and safety risks to communities near a proposed gas compressor station in Somerset County.
Open Space & Sustainable DevelopmentEELC and its client, Save Barnegat Bay, won a legal victory in the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court in June, when the court overturned a DEP-issued permit that authorized construction of a massive disposal facility for dredged sediment on top of wetlands near the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge and Barnegat Bay. EELC’s appeal sought to stop the potential environmental impact of dredge sediment disposal on the marshlands, which serve as vital habitats for wildlife and act as natural buffers against coastal flooding.
As New Jersey’s only nonprofit, public-interest environmental law firm, we rely on your support to help fight for environmental justice, advance clean energy solutions and defend New Jersey’s treasured open space and natural resources – please consider donating here at whatever level is right for you.
Chris Miller, Executive Director
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