What are New Jersey's worst environmental problems? In an effort to answer that question and to increase understanding of the public's greatest environmental concerns, the NJDEP is sponsoring the New Jersey Comparative Risk Project("NJCRP").
For the past year, a 20-member Steering Committee composed of representatives of environmental, business, academic, civic and other organizations from around the state has been setting up a method to identify and rank the key environmental issues. A project team from NJDEP and Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy has been formed to oversee the project and provide support.
The stated goals of NJCRP are to first assess how different environmental issues compare to one another in their impacts on human health, ecological quality and socioeconomic conditions in New Jersey. Secondly, it seeks to devise a way to compare how well various management strategies deal with these issues. It also plans to identify what is lacking in the existing knowledge that needs to be obtained in order to fully address the first two goals. Public input will be sought via surveys, town meetings, an NJCRP newsletter and a web site.
The results of the project will inform policy decisions by NJDEP, which has committed to using the data in its Strategic Plan and its Performance Partnership Agreement with the EPA. It also is hoped that the results will be utilized in both public and private local, regional and statewide environmental mitigation efforts.
