DEP commissioner coming to address Ocean issues

TOMS RIVER - State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Com-missioner Lisa Jackson will be the keynote speaker at the League of Women Voters of Ocean County's annual meeting and luncheon on April 28.

"We are absolutely delighted she is coming," said League President Gail Marsh Saxer. "This is a county league and we will have a state commissioner here. We are very pleased."

Jackson will address a number of Ocean County environmental issues, including the license renewal of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey, whether the plant should have closed cycle cooling towers and the DEP's consideration of the Category 1 designation of the Toms River, Saxer said.

The event will begin at 10:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn on Route 37 West in Toms River. The general public is invited. For more information, call Gail Marsh Saxer at (732) 914-0154.

"We are asking her to bring us up to date on projects awaiting approval by the DEP," Saxer said. "We would also like her to bring us up to date on the DEP's feelings about Oyster Creek. The Ocean County freeholders have said that if the DEP sues for a public hearing by the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), they will join. We are anxious to hear about that."

Other issues include the NRC's permission for AmerGen (Oyster Creek's owner) to use a more lenient standard in the margin of safety for metal fatigue in critical reactor coolant locations and whether there is sufficient backup power available in the event of a plant blackout.

The event will feature a question-and-answer period after Jackson speaks.

"If the environmental community comes out as we expect, they will have quite a bit to tell us," she said.

Jackson previously served as the DEP's assistant commissioner for the Division of Compliance and Enforce-ment. As the department's chief environmental enforcer, Jackson led compliance sweeps in Camden and Paterson, where families live in close proximity to regulated facilities. She worked with county officials, the New Jersey State Police, DEP and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to mobilize more than 200 inspectors to conduct more than 2,100 compliance investigations and issue more than 500 violations in the two cities.

Jackson, a New Orleans native, earned a master's degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Tulane University's School of Chemical Engineering.