DEP MAY KEEP STATE RESIDENTS IN THE DARK
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Trenton - (WBGO News 1/15/2009)

The Department of Environmental Protection is trying to withhold important information about chemical plants in the Garden State. But environmental activists say communities closest to the plants are on a need to know basis.

If enacted, a new DEP proposal would keep chemical plants from telling communities how a disaster, explosion, or leak, would affect them. But that doesn’t make sense to Denise Patel, a Community Organizer with the New Jersey Work Environment Council. She says without that information, she can’t tell residents what to do if a terrorist attack happened.

“There’s groups like the New Jersey Work Environment Council, the Environmental Justice Alliance, and the Sierra Club, and organizations all across the state that work with communities, and if they can’t get this basic information they can’t help prepare residents and local communities in the case there was a disaster.”

Patel says she’s worried the most about municipalities along the Turnpike where the most plants are located. She claims residents there don’t know enough about the plants in their neighborhoods. And now, she says, it’s up to the Governor to keep that information public.

© 1/15/2009 WBGO News