Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board Will Hear The Environmentalists' Appeal To DNREC's Refinery Permit Despite All - 9:30AM Tuesday In Dover

(Sierra Club, DE Chapter image)

Update: Correction - Amy Roe didn't FOIA the administration for information about Max Walton. I am posting the FOIA information in a new post above.

Delaware Sierra Club 

New location for Coastal Zone hearing pic.twitter.com/Iumkd3zJjk

I read through the Appellant's Memorandum in Opposition to Delaware City Refining Company's Motion to Dismiss the Sierra Club/Audubon Society's appeal to the Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board of DNREC Secretary O'Mara's refinery permit Order 2013-A-0020 . This layman can assure you that Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic attorney, Ken Kristl, is blowing PBF Energy and DNREC out of the water. 

Also see:

Delaware City Environmental Justice Partnership

Delaware City Refinery

And speaking of lawyers......when Sierra Club's Amy Roe FOIA'd for information about Markell's hiring of private attorney, Max Walton, the state admitted the Connolly Gallagher, LLP attorney is working under a verbal agreement. A friend commented "Markell has spent 5 years demanding that State agencies bid work and limit sole source selection. So much for Markell leading by example. His rules apply to everyone but him."

Meanwhile, the State Chamber of Commerce would rather trade on emotions than fact of law? Letter in today's paper ~ Does Chamber want to trade Coastal Zone Act?

Joan Verplanck, President and CEO of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, wrote a Delaware Voice piece on June 25 that defended the jobs of the Delaware City Refinery. The following day, she was inter­viewed in another article by Jeff Montgomery, in which she called the Sierra Club and Dela­ware Audubon Society appeal of the Refinery’s Marine Vapor Recovery Unit permit with the Environmental Appeals Board and Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board “after the fact le­gal analysis” and environmen­tal protection by “flamethrow­er.” In an effort to get refinery jobs back after the plant shut down in 2009, she said, “Maybe in the rush to do that, something did get missed. But it is an omis­sion and not commission. Let’s treat it that way.”

To file an appeal, a permit is a standard procedure that is de­fined by law. Yet her escalation of the language she used to de­scribe the rights of citizens of this state, to appeal permits and to request the laws on the books are evenly applied, indicates the Chamber of Commerce is eager to put the health of Dela­wareans and the Coastal Zone, which are protected by law, in a subordinate position to pollut­ers. Is the Chamber of Com­merce proposing a sacrifice zone for the Delaware City Re­finery?

Gail Heath

Wilmington 

With a comment ~

I think another point can be made about the ancillary costs to society for these 100 or so jobs--loss of fishing income, increased health costs, potential disaster clean-up. Are we as citizens of Delaware willing to pay for these jobs outright, because that's what our de facto reality.

And read commentary by the late Governor Russ Peterson himself ~ Securing - and defending - the Coastal Zone 

(My family enjoying the beach. circa 1969)

~*~