New Jersey Poison Control Needs Your Help!

In January 2010, the transition team for New Jersey Gov.-elect Chris Christie recommended that Christie eliminate the $569,000 in state funding for the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System.

Part of the rationale for recommending that cut was that NJPIES was established in 1982, prior to the Internet, and that most doctors and hospitals search the Internet directly to find poison information.

In fact, that’s demonstrably not the case. Of the nearly 2.5 million poison exposure calls made to U.S. poison centers in 2008, 16 percent came from a health care facility, meaning doctors and health care providers frequently relied on the expertise of poison centers when confronted with a poison exposure.

New Jersey managed to make it through the first round of cuts, but the center has months before it will know if it has truly survived intact. If you're concerned about the future of NJPIES, write Gov. Christie here or sign the online petition at: http://www.petitiononline.com/NJPIES/petition.html

It takes only a few minutes to sign this petition.  We can't always rely on someone else to sign petitions and fight for causes.  The only way to know for sure that your voice is being heard is to do it yourself.  

Benjamin Moore of Mt. Olive is Going Solar

by G. Hollbrook

Garden State Green

Back in January of this year Mount Olive, New Jersey-based house-paint giant Benjamin Moore announced it wants to install more than 9,100 ground-mounted solar photovoltaic panels to produce 1.9 megawatts of power, or enough to power 70 percent of its R&D center on Flanders-Bartley Road, a site currently occupied by cornfields.

The company was granted approval from the city’s zoning board to install the panels on nine acres of a 92-acre property currently owned by Benjamin Moore. The project still needs a go-ahead from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the Morris County planning department, and the Morristown & Erie Railroad, which runs in the same direction as Flanders-Bartley Road about 1,500 feet distant. State approval is needed because the proposed solar farm is located within the Highlands region, an historic preservation and open spaces area.

When completed, it will be the first company facility to generate some of its own electricity via solar panels, according to Benjamin Moore spokeswoman Eileen McComb, who added that company intends in the future to move toward a new energy grid at all its U.S. locations.
The panels will reportedly be three feet by six feet, and tilted in a fixed array at a 35-degree angle to capture as much solar insolation as possible. In New Jersey, this value (3.0, on a scale of 2.0 to 6.0 in the continental U.S.) is sufficient to make solar power a winning proposition, as are the state’s roughly 260 days of sun per year.

According to Mount Olive’s Mayor, David Scapicchio, the Benjamin Moore installation will be the township’s first, non-residential solar installation. According to Scapicchio, Benjamin Moore will be the first non-residential entity to install solar panels in Mount Olive. He said it would enhance the township's efforts to become more environmentally friendly.

The Benjamin Moore Flanders facility employs over 200 individuals. Established since 1992, it includes a 4.5-acre testing facility, which develops new mixtures and samples paint in the real world to determine its durability.

The Natura paint line, an eco-friendly, zero-VOC (volatile organic compound) indoor paint line containing a proprietary, 100-percent acrylic resin to deliver durability, is a prime example of Benjamin Moore’s move into a cleaner, greener future. According to the company, Natura is fully competitive with Green Seal’s GS-11 standard, though the company plans to perform independent testing and will thus not seek GS-11 certification.

GS-11 is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standard for interior paints which maintain VOC emission levels less than 50 grams of VOC per liter for flat paints and 150 grams of VOC per liter for non-flat paints. The good news for Benjamin Moore is that specified paints don’t need to go through formal Green Seal certification processes. They just need to meet GS-11 specifications.  Benjamin Moore also offers other low VOC paints such as Ben and Aura. 

Sometimes I Feel Like a Party Pooper

By Marc A. Reynolds

Garden State Green

As I educate myself more and more about what's really going on, what's not being played on the nightly news I can't help, but get depressed and inspired simultaneously.   It's not easy living a life that's open to learning the truth.  It's also not very convenient.  The problem is, it's the life that speaks the most to me.  It's one of the few things that gets my wheels churning and my blood boiling.  It's not my job to protect the earth or it's citizens from the evils that are profiting from it each day.  Then again, maybe I want it to be my job.  I'll be the unsolicited advocate on behalf of the planet and the people who inhibit it.

I'm just not the type of person who can watch documentaries like FOOD, Inc.   , King Corn, 180° South, GasLand without wanting to create change.  There are too many people who want to keep their heads in the sand.  It's much easier to carry on as if everything will be OK with inaction.  Even my own mother said something to me last night about not being able to change people's minds when it comes to certain environmental issues.  It was kind of ironic since this was the same woman who used to tell me as a kid that I could do whatever I put my mind to.  Here I am thirty some odd years later and I can't help, but put my mind to it...every day.  Am I saying I'm the perfect environmentalist?  No.  Nobody is, not even Ed Begely Jr. or Al Gore.  We can all do better.  I just make sure I do as much as I can.

A lot of times when I'm talking about environmental issues with people they will tell me "I do what I can".  That's exactly the point when I want to ask them, can you do just a little bit more?