DNREC Coastal Zone Conversion Permit Act (CZCPA) Regulatory Advisory Committee
Remaining October Work Group Meetings:
· Risk Evaluation and Financial Assurance, 1 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 16, DNREC’s Grantham Lane Office, West Wing Conference Room, 715 Grantham Lane, New Castle, DE 19720.
· Offsets, 9 a.m.-noon, Tuesday, Oct. 23, Blackbird DNERR, 801 Blackbird Landing Road, Townsend, DE 19734.
· Economic Effect, 9 a.m., Tuesday, Oct. 23, New Castle County Government Center, Executive Office Conference Room, 87 Reads Way, New Castle, DE 19720.
· Environmental Impact: 1 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 25, location TBD.
· Risk Evaluation and Financial Assurance, 1 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 30, DNREC’s Grantham Lane Office, West Wing Conference Room, 715 Grantham Lane, New Castle, DE 19720.
From DNREC:
Upcoming monthly CZCPA RAC meetings, each starting at 9 a.m., are scheduled for the following dates and locations, locations and times:
- Wednesday, Nov. 7, DNREC Lukens Drive Office, 391 Lukens Drive, New Castle DE 19720
All RAC meetings and related CZCPA Work Group meetings are open to the public. Information about future meetings also can be found on the Coastal Zone Conversion Permits webpage.
- Tuesday, Dec. 11, Bellevue Community Center, 510 Duncan Road, Wilmington, DE 19809
For more information, the public can sign up for the Coastal Zone Conservation Permit Act listserv by sending a blank email to join-dnrec_coastal_zone@lists.state.de.us
And Bill Dunn writes:
I have attended the 2nd, 3rd and 4th meetings of the [CZCPA] RAC. I have MANY issues with what is going on, but the single most concerning is that there is no one on the committee who has identified themselves as having a technical background or education in Process Engineering. The only person I have discovered, and I haven't looked to deeply, is Robert Whetzel (B.S. Chem Eng) from Richards, Layton and Finger.
What I have emphasized at the meetings, is that the Community and Environmental representatives on the RAC have little, if any, technical background to competently argue for responsible regulations or question specifics presented by consultants that come before the RAC.
The last 15 years of my career at Dupont I worked in the Engineering division and spent time at, at least, a dozen sites discussing the possible benefit of new instrumentation or participated in the installation of new instrumentation. In my role, I needed to have a basic understanding of the process we were discussing/modifying at a very minimum, which was far less than any number of people I was working with. In comparison to the members of the RAC, I have a PhD in Civil/Chemical/Process Engineering.
The only person appointed to the RAC with an adequate background was Eugene McCoy who regrettably pass away recently. McCoy was replaced with Larry Lambert who has no technical background.
At the last meeting they received presentations on Sea-Level Rise and Bulk Transfer. Both presentations seemed to me, to be very obtuse and non-specific.
During the Bulk Transfer presentation and discussion, they kept referring to "grain transfer". To the best of my knowledge, if you keep the oxygen level down in the transfer line (i.e. explosion potential), it's a pretty benign situation. What was not discussed was, RCRA reporting (accounting for pound in/out and produced any compound that has a CAS#), Continuous Monitoring, VOC transfer (LNG, ethanol, methanol, crude oil, etc.) or quantities of materials.
And what I have seen after attending 3 of the 4 work group meetings - where they are laying the groundwork for what they'll present to the RAC, - there are few if any people appointed to these work groups who have a technical background.
WE MUST have more people attend these meetings. I have been pretty much the only person from the public in attendance to observe how Delaware is developing the regulations that will govern how these coastal properties will be used.
P.S. After I spoke at the last meeting, Judge Holland (the Chair) came over and introduced himself and ask, "Why aren't you on the RAC?". I answered, 'Because I worked in the industry and I'm too controversial.' Maybe I should have said, too much of a contrarian?
